Introduction

The Sparkle Bean Trust is a charity benefiting primary school communities in the UK. It is governed by a board of trustees.   

The Trust identifies and selects beneficiaries in a variety of ways:

• • Through applications from a primary school
  • Through emails to our email account from a primary school or member of the public raising awareness of a need for support
  • Through trustees identifying a primary school in need through information in the press 
  • It is important to note that all beneficiaries will complete an application form, meet the grant-making criteria and go through the grant-making process before receiving any funds.

The trustees ensure proper governance of the Trust’s grant-making in three ways:

• • Through grant-making principles which ensure that decisions are ultimately made by the Trust’s trustees.   
  • Through published grant-making criteria which set out the activities the trustees wish to support in furtherance of the Trust’s charitable objectives.   
  • Through grant-making processes which set out how decisions are reached for awarding grants by the Trust.

Grant-making principles

The principles which underpin the trustees’ governance of the Trust’s grant- making take into account the scale and range of its grants and strike a balance between proper oversight of decision-making and responsive customer service for both applicants

The principles are as follows.

• • The Board of trustees has ultimate collective responsibility for all grant-making decisions 
  • Trustees reserve the right to apply conditions to any grant.
  • Trustees also reserve the right not to approve any recommendation or nomination if they determine that the resulting grant would not be charitable, or would conflict with the Trust’s stated policies or damage its reputation.

Grant-making criteria

The Trust’s criteria for applications aims to make grants to primary schools in the event of the sudden death of a pupil therefore supporting school communities in a period of recovery.

The Trust can only make grants to support activity which is charitable in law.   

Trustees expect that grants will normally support one or more of the following outcomes: 

• • Counselling or therapy for children to support the recovery of bereaved children
  • Counselling or therapy for staff to support the recovery of bereaved staff and to enable them to support children in their care
  • Training for staff on trauma to support the recovery of bereaved staff and to enable them to support children in their care and aid their recovery
  • An identified activity for the children to support their recovery
  • Support for a memorial or celebration for the first anniversary to enable the school community to successfully pass through this traumatic period and support the mental health of its school community   

Applications for support must be made using the Sparkle Bean Trust’s Funding Request Form, available of the website (sparklebean.co.uk) see Appendix 1.

The following criteria must be met to qualify for support:

• • The recipient of any grants is a UK based primary school
  • The school has experienced the sudden death of a pupil on roll at the time of their death
  • The grant is being applied for within 18 months of the death of a pupil
  • The school hasn’t previously received a grant for the same incident
  • The school agrees to sign the Conditions of Grant to receive funds
  • The school agrees to complete the Trust’s Monitoring Report Form to evaluate the delivery and success of the identified support at the end of the grant period (6 months) see Appendix 2

The maximum grant in response to an application is £1000.   

All grants made by the Trust are one off and will only be made for one incident per school.

Grant-making processes

Trustees aim for the Trust’s grant-making processes to be transparent and to address the interests of applicants. To this end, all eligible grant applications go through a fourstage process as follows:

• • Application is received by the Sparkle Bean Trust
  • Assessment is initially made to determine whether the request for identified support meets the Grant Making Criteria subject to the Trust having sufficient funds.  If the criteria is not met, the application is rejected.  If the criteria is met, the application will be considered by the Trust Board.
  • Consideration of the application by the Trust Board
  • Approval of the application of the Trust Board, if the criteria is met.

Appendix 1 - Funding Request Form Appendix 2 - Monitoring Report Form