E. CAPF Top Tips For Bids 2024-25

Essential Information for Bidding for the Chevening Alumni Programme
Fund 2024-25
What will be funded?
✓ Reasonable travel or other expenses necessary to deliver the project

✓ Reasonable speaker expenses, preferably local speakers
✓ Meals and refreshments that are a required part of the project
✓ Reasonable costs of materials and communications activities to publicise the project.
Please ensure in the first instance you use free mediums of publicity and the
communication materials provided by the Secretariat. If unsure as to what constitutes
reasonable costs, contact alumni@chevening.org
What will not be funded?
 Research projects
 Excessive budgets that cannot be justified against the objectives, outputs and country
context, including budgets where a large and/or disproportionate sum of money will be
spent on catering, refreshments or entertainment
 Activities that are funded through another FCDO budget area. Check with your
Chevening officer. For example, new scholar/fellow pre-departure and welcome home
events; marketing for a specific recruitment round (though general promotion/profiling of
Chevening is acceptable)
 Payment of staff salaries, office space or overheads
 Projects that support a political campaign or which would support a political bias/partisan
activity
 Projects that give direct services to a beneficiary(ies) e.g. providing vaccinations to a
population
 Creation of new websites or databases are generally not permitted, unless in
exceptional cases
 Projects with little long-term impact
Project theme examples (this is not an exhaustive list)
• Education, governance and development

• Human rights, democracy and the rule of law, including preventing sexual violence in
conflict, reducing modern slavery, media freedom and promoting female education
• Counter-terrorism, extremism, weapons proliferation, cyber security and other threats
• Climate change, environment and sustainability, including threats to endangered
species
• International relations and politics, including deepening relationships between states
and peoples
• Promoting UK partnerships with other countries
• Business and finance
• Engineering and design
• Media and communication
• Public health and medicine
• Technology, cyber and artificial intelligence
Top 10 tips for creating a strong project bid
1. Share your idea or project concept with your Chevening officer, and work with
them on developing the proposal.
2. Have a strong project objective and ensure you explain why your project is
important and what you will achieve.
3. Give detail on your outputs – what results do you want your project to have at
each stage after you have completed the activities? THAT is your output.
4. Know what your activities are – these are the things you will do to deliver each
output. There should be a clear link between the activities and the outputs.
5. Ensure your outputs align with your objective AND are relevant to what you
want to achieve.
6. Ensure your outputs and objective align with the CAPF objectives.
7. Ensure you have broken down the costs of all activities, and that all your budget
costs are shown in GBP, not just the totals.
8. Only ask for the amount you actually need for the project – avoid asking for
‘contingency’, ‘ancillary’ or ‘administration’ unless you can explain what these will
cover.
9. Only ask for costs that are permitted under CAPF, and check that your totals
add up.
10. Ensure you consider all potential risks to the project delivery (including Covid-
19) and all stakeholders for your project, including other alumni.
Annex: Project examples
Raising awareness of climate change

Carrying out a knowledge and resources-sharing process regarding climate change impact
and adaptation/resilience in the country/region. Engaging with local and/or national
government and other stakeholders, including (if appropriate) the general public. Exposure
of Chevening alumni to the conversations in that country on the topic and involvement in
relevant forums, events and training sessions as an outcome of the project.
Gender equality-themed events

Promoting women’s empowerment in the country via panel discussions or
forum/conference, advocacy campaign and/or roundtables. Engaging with stakeholders,
such as local/national government, NGOs and private sector.
Driving positive messaging of LGBTQ issues

Sexuality and human rights dialogues with young people via workshops, symposiums or
through community service awareness-raising events. Aiming to start or amplify the
conversation on the topic and influence attitudes among the public and among decision-
makers at a local/national level.
Addressing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the country/region

A conference, roundtable or workshop to generate recommendations on interventions for
particular SDGs; for example, on education. Highlighting alumni as experts in the field and
building their reputation as a think tank to be tapped into to identify solutions to achieving
the SDGs. Promoting the Chevening brand as a secondary effect.
Regional conference
Strengthening the links between Chevening communities in the region and finding potential
for further collaboration. A conference can take different formats, including panel
discussions, roundtables and/or ted-talk formats. Covering themes key for the region and
FCDO priorities; for example, education and youth employment, economic future, social
enterprise, corruption, security (including cybersecurity and big data), environment and
freedom of press. To conclude with actions or calls to action, as appropriate.
Promoting innovative solutions to global or community challenges

Public service projects that promote innovative solutions to global or community challenges
with demonstrable impact; for example, a project bringing alumni together to develop a
renewable energy education campaign and competition for local schools.
Shaping tomorrow’s leaders

A project to help create a cohort of engaged young people with good skills, who will lead
societal change and shape the civil society of tomorrow. Alumni providing mentorship to
(potentially underprivileged) students from the country or to later cohorts of Chevening
alumni. Alumni have the opportunity to ‘give back’ via mentor, as well as undergo specific
mentoring training. The project also builds the capacity of the students / alumni and gives
alumni new skills and a structured volunteering opportunity. Through meetings, a launch
event and a final event, the project brings alumni into contact with each other and their local
diplomatic mission.
Case studies
Project Gakyid, ‘Raising Awareness on Violence Against Women and Children’

Bhutan
Outcomes
Working with a large number of stakeholders, the alumni association produced ‘Nang gi
Taam (A Private Matter)’, a facts-based documentary about gender-based violence in
Bhutan, which has been aired by the Bhutan Broadcasting Service a number of times.
The Chevening Alumni organisation also organised a one-day event on ‘Eliminating

Violence against Women and Girls’ in collaboration with Bhutanese non-profit RENEW,
a video of which can be found here. The event brought together alumni and
stakeholders with prominent members of society such as government ministers,
journalists, and artists to raise awareness about gender-based violence, under the aegis
of the Chevening programme.
FCDO values
Raising awareness about violence against women and children is one of the FCDO’s
key priorities, part of a broader plan to ensure that the UK is a force for good in the world
and a promoter of human rights. It also clearly contributes to a number of the
Sustainable Development Goals, including gender equality (SDG 5) and the promotion
of peaceful and inclusive societies (SDG 16).
‘Shapers of Tomorrow’ Mentoring Programme
Bulgaria
Outcomes
Provided professional mentorship to promising students and graduates by pairing them

with experienced professionals in a variety of specialist areas including medicine,
education, and business. This innovatively extended the benefits of the Chevening
network to non-Cheveners, sharing the benefits of the alumni network to nurture and
empower even more potential leaders to enact positive change through their work.
The project successfully fostered regional collaboration by opening the program to

mentors and mentees from the Western Balkans region and the Southeast Europe
region, whilst inspiring others to set up their own programs in the subsequent year.
FCDO values
Shapers of Tomorrow in Bulgaria delivered on a range of FCDO objectives, including

helping countries to grow through enterprise and trade by supporting a regional
network of engaged and skilful professionals.
It also demonstrated a clear capacity to become self-sustaining by developing its own

‘sustainable’ training materials and tools to help build the capacity of Mentors and the
Bulgarian Chevening Association, and setting out a clear ambition to ensure the
longevity of project by creating a platform to continually nurture new talent.
The Chevening brand
Consistent branding was used in all of its public communications to make clear the role
played by the Chevening programme in supporting the mentoring programme, using its
own website as well as taking advantage of platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook to
raise awareness about the project and the opportunities which Chevening has helped to
create.
The Bulgarian Chevening Association also leveraged its relationships with affiliate
organisations such as the British Bulgarian Business Association, projecting the
outcomes of the project, and Chevening branding, to a greater audience.
Bloomsbury Policy Group, ‘Policython 2019-20’
Latin America
Outcomes
The event gathered 80 Chevening Alumni with other academic experts, policy-makers,
researchers and actors to host a ‘Policython’—a multi-stakeholder, collaborative and
innovative approach to policy development. Drawing participants from twelve Latin
American countries to discuss and act on a range of regional and transnational issues,
the project excelled in fostering regional collaboration.
It was also clearly geared towards innovation and sustainability, committing to

delivering a collaboration and networking-focused ‘design-thinking process’ that
empowers participants to continue policy innovation long after the event by leveraging
the network, therefore making the work of the project self-sustaining.
FCDO values
The Policython explored and formulated policy on a variety of topics and issues aligned
with those of the FCDO, including tackling corruption and managing disruptive
technology.
The Chevening brand
On its website, Bloomsbury Policy Group describes itself as a ‘network of Latin

American scholars with policy-related postgraduate degrees in the United Kingdom’,
clearly highlighting the significance of a postgraduate education in Britain and its
influence in shaping and supporting policy leadership around the world.
The alumni posted a video of the event online, in which the Chevening logo and the
tagline ‘Study in the UK’ are clearly visible. Bloomsbury Policy Group also published a
report of the Policython outcomes, in which ‘Chevening’ is mentioned a total of fifteen
times and the Chevening logo is used consistently throughout.

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Essential Information for Bidding for the Chevening Alumni Programme

What will be funded?

✓ Reasonable travel or other expenses necessary to deliver the project

What will not be funded?

Project theme examples (this is not an exhaustive list)

• Education, governance and development

Top 10 tips for creating a strong project bid

Annex: Project examples

Raising awareness of climate change

Gender equality-themed events

Driving positive messaging of LGBTQ issues

Addressing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the country/region

Promoting innovative solutions to global or community challenges

Shaping tomorrow’s leaders

Project Gakyid, ‘Raising Awareness on Violence Against Women and Children’

The Chevening Alumni organisation also organised a one-day event on ‘Eliminating

Provided professional mentorship to promising students and graduates by pairing them

The project successfully fostered regional collaboration by opening the program to

Shapers of Tomorrow in Bulgaria delivered on a range of FCDO objectives, including

It also demonstrated a clear capacity to become self-sustaining by developing its own

The Chevening brand

It was also clearly geared towards innovation and sustainability, committing to

The Chevening brand

On its website, Bloomsbury Policy Group describes itself as a ‘network of Latin

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