Financial Statements
The Financial Statement is the second most important of the four main parts of your charity application, behind your Personal Statement. All charities will ask you to submit a financial statement- something that most postgraduate students haven't dealt with before. But this is one of the crucial ways charities are different to public scholarships- i.e. they care about your personal financial circumstances, not just about academic merit and your research/course! The statement will either be about how much extra money you need for your fees and maintenance for a given academic year, or how much a conference or research trip will cost. This section will help you write a professional financial statement for both cases. You can also use our Financial Statement Assistant at the foot of this page to help guide you!
The financial statement will take a quite standardised, itemised, form- but essentially take two main forms. The first, shown on the right, is for fees and maintenance. This should show how much money you’ve got through grants, savings, and loans etc (‘anticipated income’) and how much that you think you’ll need (‘anticipated expenditure’) for the academic year in question (which will be either this one, or the next one, depending on when you are applying). Common items of expenditure will include fees, rent, subsistence, travel, research, and other costs. They will ask you to request an amount based on your shortfall. Check out our Financial Statement Assistant at the foot of this page for more details!
The second form of financial statement is for research costs, travel, and conference fees. This statement will be different to the one shown on the right, and not go into your personal circumstances. It instead should consist of an itemized table of your expenses (e.g. conference costs, flights, board, subsistence, equipment costs etc) and where the funding will come from exclusive of the contribution you are asking them to make (income). This might be from a travel/research bursary or scholarship, or simply come out of your savings. To get an idea of what this should look like, look at statement version 2 on the financial statements assistant below.
For both types of statement, you should be careful to ensure the amounts are truthful, and reasonable. If your living costs seem too high (e.g. excessively expensive rent) charities are likely to simply reject you. What would be considered very reasonable amounts for a single person living in London (with no children) are shown in this table for guidance. If - when you have completed the statement for both income and expenditure - you have a substantial deficit remaining (i.e. above £3,000) they will want to see you have made applications to other bodies, and that you have at least thought of how to fund subsequent years, to be convinced.
It is also always sensible, as shown here, to include a table which details the other grants you have already won, or intend to apply for. Alternatively, you could mention this information in your main personal statement, or (if there is one) in a box on the application form. Always make sure the charity gets the impression you see their contribution as part of a bigger plan- and that they are not simply the chance recipient of an isolated an ad hoc appeal for help. Finally, note that there are no bank account checks with charity applications. You do not have to give them any personal financial documents. You are trusted to be truthful.
To get started on your financial statement, check out our Financial Statement Assistant just below!
Financial Statement Assistant
Financial Statement Assistant below will help you plan your financial statement
smartly! Just choose Version 1 if you are budgeting for fees and maintenance
and Version 2 for research, travel, and conferences.
Financial Statement Assistant will also calculate your deficit for you, and you
can download your statement as a text document if you wish.
