Grants for local communities: where to start

A community rarely loses a call because the idea is weak. More often it is because one person writes the application a week before the deadline, there is no council decision on co-financing, and the project is not in the strategy. So the place to start is not the search for a call but three questions: who will be the applicant, what is already written in the community’s documents, and how much of its own money it can put in.

Who can be the applicant

• The council or its executive body. The most common donor requirement for infrastructure and governance projects. The drawback is treasury servicing: the money passes through the estimate, and payments are slower.
• A municipal enterprise or institution. A water utility, a hospital, a school, a cultural centre. An enterprise works through bank accounts and suits projects with a lot of purchasing.
• A local development agency. A body set up with the community’s participation specifically to prepare and run projects. More flexible than a council, but it has to prove experience and financial capacity to the donor.
• A civic organisation in partnership. Some calls are open only to civil society organisations. The community is then a partner, providing premises, data and a support letter.

Which sources are realistically available

EU territorial cooperation programmes. For border communities, and not only for them, these are the Interreg programmes of the 2021–2027 period: cross-border ones with Poland, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia, as well as transnational and interregional ones. A project must have a partner from an EU country, so the partner search begins months before the call. The geography and the open calls of each programme are checked on its website.

Ukraine Facility. The EU regulation on this instrument requires at least 20% of the non-repayable support under its first pillar to go to the recovery, reconstruction and modernisation needs of sub-national authorities, in particular local self-government. This money reaches a community through state programmes and public investment, not through a direct call in Brussels. More in the article on the Ukraine Facility.

State Fund for Regional Development. Under Article 24-1 of the Budget Code of Ukraine the fund finances medium-term plans of priority public investments of regions and communities that are consistent with the state and regional strategies and with community development strategies. Co-financing from local budgets is at least 10%. The size of the fund for the year and the selection procedure are set by the state budget law and government decisions, so they are checked every year.

Projects of international organisations and bilateral donors. UNDP and other UN agencies, the U-LEAD with Europe programme, projects of individual governments. Here what is offered is more often not money on the community’s account but expert support, training, equipment or small grants through a selection of participating communities. This is a good entry point for a team without experience: taking part in such a programme becomes the first line in the portfolio.

The community’s money and the council decision

Co-financing for a community means local budget expenditure, and that does not happen without a council decision. The donor usually asks for confirmation already in the application: a council decision or a letter of guarantee that the funds will be budgeted. If the council sits once a month and the deadline is in three weeks, this has to be spotted on day one.

The second document is the community development strategy. Evaluators in both state and international programmes look at whether the project is in the strategy and its action plan. A project that is not there looks like one person’s initiative. If there is no strategy, or it is out of date, updating it should be treated as the first step towards grants.

If the donor works under an international treaty, the project may fall under technical assistance registration, where the executive body of local self-government acts as beneficiary. That gives the right to buy without VAT, which is worth reflecting in the budget.

Team capacity

The donor assesses not only the project but also those who will carry it out. The minimum for a first application: a person responsible for the project with time for the work, an accountant who understands the special fund, a lawyer or procurement specialist, and someone who can read the call conditions in English.

Typical mistakes

• Starting with a large infrastructure call without a single completed small project.
• Applying for what the community needs rather than what the call funds: road repairs in a youth policy programme.
• Having no design and cost documentation at submission when the call requires it.
• Forgetting about title to the land and the building where the works will take place.
• Not budgeting for the upkeep of the facility after the grant ends.