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News & Blog > Get Involved with the Alumni Network > IDS Alumni Fund

IDS Alumni Fund

to help support IDS alumni ambassadors and other volunteers we reserve a small amount of our alumni activities budget each year and encourage alumni to apply for funding throughout the year.
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

What is the IDS Alumni Fund?

A small amount of resources has been allocated to support Alumni-led activities

What sort of activities?:

  • Support professional development of Alumni and partners, e.g. skills training session; invite a speaker to address a group of alumni; a learning trip to a development project/programme
  • Create opportunities for knowledge exchange and mutual learning between places, people and institutions, e.g. a mini-roundtable on a relevant issue
  • Identify and consolidate cutting edge research/knowledge.  This may be relevant to IDS’ strategic themes / research themes, or emergent issues e.g. run a policy/research mapping workshop, produce a collaborative piece across countries
  • Leverage donations to the
    IDS Scholarship Fund
  • Support student recruitment and marketing

Please note that purely social get-together’s are not eligible for funds.
 

What do I need to include in the application to be successful?:

  • Bring together a minimum of 3 IDS Alumni to engage in / plan the activity AND
    • Strengthen alumni and/or partner networks OR
    • Support IDS research, teaching, or communications/impact

What sort of money are talking about?:

  • £250 GBP in Low/middle income countries, and £300 in High Income Countries. 
  • Please note one named individual will need to receive the funds and have an account with an IBAN number.

What sort of costs can I include? (note this list is indicative and each case can be discussed):

  • Speakers / Facilitator / Trainer cost
  • Contribution to venue (where possible venues should be sourced through Alumni contacts)
  • Printing of material (to be discussed, dependent on activity)
  • Transport hire for trips / site visits
  • Contribution to refreshments during an activity, up to a max 25% of the total costs

Who can apply?:

  • Groups of min. 3 alumni can apply
  • Where an event or activity is focussed at the country level and that country has an Ambassador (see list) the Ambassador should be informed and support the activity
  • To ensure the funds are spread equitably amongst alumni, and dependant on the number of proposals received, repeat applications may need to be limited to annual or bi-annual basis

What sort of things will I need to report?:

  • if it is an EVENT, organisers will be expected to produce a short blog about their event after it has taken place, to be published on the IDS alumni network website and promoted on IDS social media
  • if it is an OUTPUTS or PUBLICATION for producing information/knowledge the output should be submitted to IDS, along with a blog for promotional purposes
  • if it is possible you should share photos of the activity
  • you will need to send the alumni office a brief report on actual costs

Sounds great, how do I apply?

Sounds great, but I am not sure if my idea fits and I have other questions

email the alumni office alumni@ids.ac.uk 
check out Indonesia and Bangladesh alumni network success using the fund

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