National Lottery Charities Board Corporate Office

The International grants team

The International grants team, based in the Corporate Offices at Suffolk Street in London, was set up in early 1996 to operate the Board�s annual International grants programme and manage and monitor grants awarded.

The programme supports projects in developing countries carried out by UK based organisations working with overseas partners. It can also support UK based work which has an international focus. Three programmes have been run so far and application packs for the next one will be available on the 20 September 1999. The team has 423 grants in management worth a total of �82.6 million.

The Senior Grants Officer, Mike Day, together with six Grants Officers and a Grants Assistant work closely with the voluntary sector and hold regular consultations in all four UK countries to share information about the programme and to hear feedback on all aspects of the application, assessment and grant management processes. The team is supported during the application processing period by 50 development professionals who assess applications against the criteria published in the application pack. Grant decisions are made by the Board�s UK Committee who consider recommendations made by an Advisory Panel.

Once grants are awarded they are assigned to a Grants Officer who acts as the main contact between the Charities Board and the grant recipient organisation. Project progress is reported annually and the Grant Officer may even undertake a monitoring visit to the project at some time during the life of the grant. So far, Grants Officers have visited projects in Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Uganda and Hungary.

Caroline Hartnell, Editor of Alliance Magazine, said in an article about transparency in grant making that "The International Grants Programme has been at the forefront of the NLCB�s drive for fairness and transparency in grant-making."

The International grants team is part of the Board�s UK and Corporate Planning directorate headed up by Gerald Oppenheim.