CSiS Charity Fund

Overview

Charity Objectives

“to put the trading surplus of the Civil Service Insurance Society to good use, helping to relieve need, hardship and distress amongst serving, former and retired civil and public servants and their families, both directly and by action in the local communities in which they live.”

Trustee Priorities

• provide continuing financial support to the widows and widowers other dependents of deceased policy holders of the Civil Service Insurance Society (CSIS), which the charity supports with annual grants.
• provide general support to the Charity for Civil Servants.
• provide support to the other civil and public service charities with which CSIS Charity Fund has had a long standing relationship, most notably the BT Benevolent Fund, the Rowland Hill Fund and the Civil Service Retirement Fellowship, smaller welfare organisations and benevolent funds that provide support to civil and public servants and their dependants, and other charities and not-for-profit organisations which have a clear and direct link with the public services.

In addition, and to the extent that resources permit,

• to continue to provide grants to any other organisations where Trustees can be satisfied that the beneficiaries will include former, serving and retired civil and public servants and their dependants and which are very clearly and directly relieving need, hardship and distress amongst those they support.

Who can apply

Their primary focus is on supporting the main civil and public service charities with annual grants.  

However, they can consider requests to support any project where they can see there will be a direct impact on serving, former or retired civil and public servants in need, hardship and distress.

 Examples of eligible organisations might be welfare or benevolent funds, and retirement or bereavement support groups. 

But your organisation must be clearly wholly or partly devoted to offering assistance to civil and public servants and their families or to be running projects where you can satisfy them that the beneficiaries are highly likely to include civil and public servants in need, hardship and distress (for example, projects tackling stress and mental health problems in areas where large numbers of civil and public servants are known to live and work).

If you are a small charity which has been set up specifically to help serving or retired public service, they are open to consider making one off donation to help you achieve a specific outcome. You will need to make an application through their normal processes

Funding Level & Notes

CSIS directors have advised that they expect to make a donation of some £500,000 per annum unless market conditions improve or deteriorate significantly, expenditure increases or reduce substantially as a result of CSIS budget strategy or an unforeseen event causes a major financial loss.

If income from CSIS and investments permits, they expect to spend additional amounts on one-off grants to charities and not-for-profit organisations, consistent with their objective of bringing their reserves down to around £1 million, providing they can identify worthwhile projects to support.

The funds are limited and their strong preference is to support organisations that do not have access to other substantial sources of income, where they know a small, one-off grant can make a real difference.

They will aim to provide:

• Unrestricted, core funding support for established benevolent funds, especially those providing welfare support for serving, former and retired employees of the less visible “unloved” public services;
• “Pump priming” funding for special short to medium term projects and also for collaborative projects involving two or more charities;
• One off grants to help their partner charities restructure and build up their donor base to ensure that the charities will be there to support their client groups over the long term.