After you apply

After you submit your application there are four stages that it needs to pass through:

1. Checks
2. Assessment
3. Evaluation
4. Decision
    

Stage 1: Checks – is your group and application eligible?

Once we receive your form and two weeks before the deadline we send you and acknowledgement and check your:

• application
• partner promoters and
• organisation or group

to check that they are eligible.

If any information is missing we ask you to provide it within two weeks. You’ll need to turn this around quickly; if we don’t get this information within two weeks your application will be rejected and considered ineligible.

See ‘Before you apply’ for deadlines and guidance on eligibility.

Budget and finance

We also check that:

• your budget
• your organisational capacity and
• the legal status and structure of your organisation or group

fit in with the rules laid out in the  Programme guide (PDF 1.03MB).

If you have requested more than €25,000 (in one or more applications) we also check your:

• audited accounts (less than 18 months old)
• balance sheet and
• financial capacity check form.

If this is your first application we’ll check your

• audited accounts for one or more years or
• a recent bank statement.

We will also make sure that your accounts and annual returns are up to date and in good order. 

Stage 2: Assessment – quality assessments

A panel of trained external assessors will check your application at least twice. They follow the criteria as laid out in the Programme guide (PDF 1.03MB).

Stage 3: Evaluation – evaluation committee

Ten weeks after each deadline the eligible applications are presented to a committee of representatives from the youth sector. This independent group review the highest scoring and best quality projects – along with all the others.

Stage 4: Decision – final decision and results

Within three months of the deadline the Director of the programme considers the available funds and awards it to the highest ranking applications. The Director can overturn the recommendations of the evaluation committee.

You then receive a letter saying that your application is:

a) approved

b) rejected or

c) placed in reserve.

‘Placed in reserve’ can mean any of the following.

1. You submitted a satisfactory application but we’re still waiting for a final report on another existing project of yours.
2. You submitted a satisfactory application, but we’re waiting for some missing information from your final report.
3. We have written to you asking for unspent grant monies in connection with another project.
4. Issues that we raised in an earlier audit visit have not been addressed
5. Although your application is eligible, funds aren’t available for this Action at the moment. We will give you a date until which your application will remain valid.
6. We have concerns about welfare and safeguarding in connection with your project.
7. We can only award you a smaller grant than you requested. Your application will be revisited when you can prove that, with this smaller amount, the project can still be viable.

After beneficiaries have been notified of their results, the grant agreements are sent out. This takes up to a month.

New for 2013

Soon you will be able to get additional online support for your application through our dedicated Youth in Action social media network. Simply join the group when it comes online to keep up to date with opportunities and events and to forge new and exciting partnerships.