Harlington Fund

Modified on Fri, 20 Sep, 2024 at 10:53 AM

Deadlines

Round	Application Deadline	Outcome expected by
One	Friday 15^th November 2024	Friday 6^th December 2024
Two	Friday 14^th February 2025	Friday 7^th March 2025
Three	Friday 16^th May 2025	Friday 6^th June 2025

The Committee has a maximum of £50,000 to allocate in any one financial year (1 August to 31 July). As a guide, grants normally amount to between a few hundred and a few thousand pounds depending on the nature of the application. You can find out below what the Fund will consider for funding and the criteria that must be met to be successful. All application projects are arranged in Major, Moderate and Minor Projects based on their size.

Eligibility Criteria

Who can apply for this fund?

The fund is to support ICU student communities only, including:

Sports Clubs
Societies
Student-led Project Groups
Liberation Networks
Campaign Groups
Academic Reps

What that Harlington Grant Committee will consider for funding

Income from the Trust will be applied for the benefit of students at Imperial College in relation to sporting, athletics, recreational, and cultural groups.

They will consider funding for:

The cost or purchase of new facilities
The cost of redeveloping current facilities
The purchase of capital assets or equipment
The refurbishment or replacement of existing items
The cost of specialist safety or first aid training, in relation to the above bullet points if necessary

Personal Equipment or Assets:

At the discretion of the Committee, an award may be granted to an individual for the purchase of personal equipment. However, unless prior agreement is obtained from the Committee, the equipment will remain the property of the appropriate club upon the individual leaving the College.

What the Harlington Grant will not consider for funding

The Committee does not fund:

Support for expeditions, trips, tours, accommodation, travel and training
The cost a student groups regular activity
The running or maintenance costs of facilities, assets or equipment if the project is funding the purchase or redevelopment of them (past the implementation/redevelopment year).
Anything outside of the scope of the Union or College's risk appetite
Anything that would bring the Union or College's reputation into disrepute
The cost for the provision or replacement of consumables, including such items as balls and team strips

Application criteria:

The panel will review each application on its own merit using the criteria below. The more criteria point that an application can successfully meet, the more likely it is to receive funding.

Values Based Criteria:

Operational Effectiveness Criteria:

Student Community Impact: The application should be clear on its benefit to a community of students, a range of student communities or the wider student population. Applications that have a wider reach and impact will be favoured.
Equity and Inclusion: Applications that have a well-structured approach to Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.
Merit: Whether the purpose of the bid is likely to enhance or maintain the reputation of the College or Union through involvement in a prestigious activity or event. Or if it supported the delivery of a new unique activity, they enable the Union or College activities to be world class.
Outside Benefit: Whether those who are not current students are likely to benefit unduly from any grant. Where they are, the application will have a less likely chance of be funded.
Sustainability: The panel will review the applications ability to use sustainable practices within their project.
Impact Measures: The panel will be looking for applications that can show that they can measure the impact of their successful grant applications (Where possible linked to the college or Union strategies)

Cost Benefit: Whether the cost of the bid is likely to benefit an adequate number of students or the College as a whole, as compared with other bids for support. And whether the application is appropriately costed. Applications that have a better cost analysis will be favoured.
Official Support: Has the support of the Imperial College Union and is likely to have a sufficiently long and continuous existence. If an application is not supported by the Union, it will be screened before reaching the panel and will not be reviewed for funding.
Financial Risk: Whether the proposed activity is unduly dependent on commercial or non-college involvement, or whether the upkeep and maintenance passed it application funding is non sustainable.
Asset Management: Consideration the ability of the recipient to safeguard items purchased with Trust funds. Thus, they will seek assurances that proper precautions will be taken to prevent the loss, damage or theft of equipment and may require such items subsequently to be produced for inspection.

Application Size & Length: Major, Moderate or Minor

There are various factors of that will help determine the size of your application.

Application Timescale:

At the point you submit your application, we ask that you note how long you think your project will take to complete that you are asking funding for.
The committee prefer projects that can be completed within 1 year but will review applications for major projects that may take longer than a year.
The committee may reduce the timeframe expected of a funded application to complete its project if they think reasonable.

Project Size & Scope:

As part of the application process, we would like you to decide whether your application is one of the below using some of the criteria below. These criteria are only a guideline and as part of the screening process the Union will take before submitting applications to the committee also review the size of the project and ensure it is labelled correctly. This will help the panel make swifter decisions.

Category	Spend	Financial Risk	Capital Space Development	Length of Development Work/Project	Health and Safety Risk	Union Oversight
Major Project	£5000+	High Risk (Including significant maintenance costs)	Impacts a whole space service and/or ceases operation for development	Over 1 year	High Risk	Requires Union Staff Oversight
Moderate Project	£1000-£5000	Medium Risk	Space can continue operating around	Within 6-12 Months	Moderate Risk	Requires Union Staff Oversight
Minor Project	<£1000	Low/No Risk	No impact to space operations	<6 Months	Low/No Risk	Doesn't require Union staff Oversight

Successful applications

For any applications that are successful we are happy for you to spend the money from your grant as soon as you have received an approval letter from the committee.

It may take up to 3 working weeks for the funds to show in your grant transaction lines.

Depending on the size of your projects, within 2 months of your project completion date, you must submit a report that will be passed onto the committee detailing the impact of this funding.

Unsuccessful applications

Unsuccessful applicants will receive the outcome and the reasons why their application was rejected. Unfortunately, there is no appeals process, and the committee have the choice to fully fund, reject or partially fund your applications.

FAQs

Can we get an extension to spend our funds?

In the case of a successful application, the Committee expects the funds to be spent in the proposed way within agreed time scale of the project application. In exceptional circumstances this can be extended at the discretion of the Committee. You must contact activities@imperial.ac.uk with a detailed outline of the requested extension, with justification on the amount of extension time needed. Once the agreed project time has elapsed, the Activities Team will notify you that the funds from your unspent grant will be recalled. The Committee reserves the right to recall the funds back into the Harlington Trust if the project brings the Trust into disrepute.

Can I use the funding for something other than what was in my application?

Changes regarding the use of the money awarded will not be permitted. If you no longer plan to spend the money on the items specified in the approved application, the funding will be recalled. You will then have to submit a new application.

How do we sell or dispose of Harlington Funded Equipment or Assets?

If a club wishes to replace or dispose of equipment, then the following points should be considered:

Where the club is selling old equipment to part fund replacement equipment, or disposing of equipment that is no longer fit for use then this should be done in line with the College and ICU guidelines on equipment disposal.

A club should consult with the Harlington Committee if they wish to dispose or sell a piece of equipment that is still useable but that they no longer wish to use and are not intending to replace.