This policy draft is adapted from the internal policy infrastructure applicable at One Future Collective and is made publicly accessible in the interest of our mission to build safe, just, and inclusive workplaces for all. If you are an organisation curious to know more about how to build socially just workplaces, we invite you to use and adapt these policies to make them relevant to your context. If you have used any of our policies, we request you to please credit us.
You can know more about us, our journey, how we work, and our commitment to Nurturing Radical Kindness through our internal organisational Manifesto: Sunflowers. We would also love to hear from you – if you have any feedback, questions, or comments, please feel free to use this form.
Some guidance on using this policy:
We understand that each organisation is distinctly placed, works in different contexts, and within diverse realities and organisational policies have to be resilient and responsive to these contexts. In this background, we would like to share the following guidance for your reference:
- All the segments marked in yellow and/or left blank are spaces for you to update with details which are relevant to your organisational contexts.
- The entire policy may not be applicable as it is – please treat this as an invitation to adapt parts of it to better suit your demands.
- The policies are developed in the context of the legal obligations, politics, and resources available to One Future Collective. Whenever you are developing your organisational policies, please ensure that you are conducting your own due diligence in relation to compliance and other obligations that you may have to adhere to.
- Some key identifying information and details about processes unique to our organisation are anonymised from the drafts below for reasons of privacy and confidentiality.
In case you would like to reach out to us to get to know more about a policy or are feeling a bit stuck, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at info@onefuturecollective.org.
Our Financial Assistance Policy
| Date of adoption | _____________________ |
| Date of review | _____________________ |
| Policy Holder | _____________________ |
| Queries | _____________________ |
1) Purpose
We are a small feminist organisation led by people of varying intersecting identities. We charge a fee for our products, programs and services because we want to be able to do our work in an independent manner, scaling deep and slow while being able to pay our extended team a fair living wage. We understand that such fees can be a barrier to participation which is why we have formulated this financial aid policy to ensure a fair approach to providing financial aid.
2) Applicability
This policy applies to all individuals who engage with any paid program, product, or service of <Name of Organisation>.
3) Definitions
- Financial Assistance: It refers to various forms of monetary support provided in order to assist participants in covering the costs incurred in the pursuit of a program, product, or service provided by <Name of Organisation>. Under this policy, we provide financial support in the form of full or partial financial aid, payments via EMI, or sponsorship by a third party.
- Participant: Any individual applying for a program or service or making the purchase of a product.
- Program: Any capacity-building initiative, including but not limited to cohort-based courses, cohort-based leadership programs, workshops, and so on.
- Product: Any resources and merchandise developed by <Name of Organisation>, including but not limited to books, manuals, games, stickers, bookmarks, badges, and so on.
- Service: Any service provided by <Name of Organisation>, including but not limited to sharing circles, community spaces, celebratory events, and so on.
4) Cost conditions and types of financial aid
As a small organisation we want to balance the financial aid we are able to offer others with meeting our costs and operating in an independent sustainable manner. We are able to provide financial aid under the following conditions.
| Type of aid | What it means | Cost conditions |
| Full financial aid (paid for by <Name of Organisation> itself) | The fee will be fully waived for the program, product, or service. | Program, product or service development costs are completely met; andCosts for running the program, product or service have been completely recovered. |
| Partial financial aid (paid for by <Name of Organisation> itself) | The fee will be partially waived. The participant would have to only pay a certain percentage of the fee. | Program, product or service development costs are completely met; andCosts for running the program, product or service have been completely recovered; After including the amount of payment after partial aid. |
| Full payment via EMI | The fee can be paid fully in monthly instalments, based on terms and timelines provided by <Name of Organisation>. | An upfront payment of 20% of the product, program or service fee is mandatory. The entire payment must be completed via EMI by the midpoint of the product, program or service. |
| Partial payment via EMI | The fee can be paid partially in monthly instalments, based on terms and timelines provided by <Name of Organisation>. | Program, product or service development costs are completely met; andCosts for running the program, product or service have been completely recovered; After including the amount of payment after partial aid. EMI Conditions: An upfront payment of 20% of the product, program or service fee is mandatory. The entire payment must be completed via EMI by the midpoint of the product, program or service. |
| Sponsorship to cover full payment | The fees for the program, product or service is fully paid by a third party, not the direct participant. | The fees may be raised by <Name of Organisation>, the external participant or a combination of both. |
| Sponsorship to cover partial payment | The fees for the program, product or service is partially paid by a third party, not the direct participant. The rest of the fee would have to be paid by the participant. | The fees may be raised by <Name of Organisation>, the external participant or a combination of both. This methodology will only be employed when: Program, product or service development costs are completely met; andCosts for running the program, product or service have been completely recovered;After including the amount of payment after partial aid. |
5) Process to seek financial aid
The provision of financial aid is integrated into the application process for a program or service, or in the process for purchasing a product from <Name of Organisation>. We provide financial aid on a trust-basis. Thus, we do not ask for proof of disposable income or identity markers.
1. Getting financial aid requests
- All forms through which an individual may apply for a paid program or service with <Name of Organisation> needs to have a section that allows applicants to request financial aid, in alignment with S.3 above.
- The section needs to allow participants to share what type of aid they are looking for, what amount of aid they need and if alternative payment plans like EMI would work for them.
- The section needs to have the following lines in its description: “ While we strive to ensure financial access to each person that applies, we cannot guarantee the same as we have limited funds. We request you to fill this section with honesty and value for our work and request the aid that is needed so as to not prevent access to someone else. If we receive aid requests beyond our capacity, we use the criteria of intersectional identities, lived experience and economic capacity to determine who receives aid – after selection has been concluded.“
2. Approval of financial aid requests
- Each product, program or service will have a predetermined amount of financial aid that can be provided, this may be provided through multiple pathways (partial, full etc).
- If the request for financial aid is greater than the predetermined amount we try to raise the gap funds through sponsorship requests by reaching out to donors, social media etc.
- In cases where we (1) don’t have capacity to raise sponsorship funds; or (2) we are unable to raise funds through sponsorship, we will prioritise financial aid based on the following criteria, with all given equal weightage:
- Intersectional social identity: People from historically marginalised groups, such as gender and sexual minority groups, religious minority groups, the Dalit- Bahujan-Adivasi communities, disadvantaged economic backgrounds; those with disabilities; and people from other oppressed backgrounds.
- Economic capacity: access to and decision making rights over money.
- Lived experiences: experiences that do not fit within other categories, for example a history of incarceration, abuse, experiences of war, living in a conflict zone etc.
Note: we do not look at financial aid requests while making selections and only examine them after selection is completed – in programs where a selection criteria is present. Our selection processes account for varied intersectionalities of identity, lived experience and value beyond traditional ideas of merit.
3. Communication of financial aid requests
- All communication of financial aid requests is to be done via email.
- Where financial aid is approved, the email simply needs to mention the aid format, amount and its conditions.
- Where financial aid is not approved, the email needs to have a simple apology to communicate that we are unable to meet aid requests at the moment.
4. Condition of financial aid requests
- All financial aid offerings come with the condition that non completion of the program or services will lead to the recipient of financial aid being liable to make a full payment of the program or service fee.
6) Policies to increase accessibility of programs and services
The following policies may be applied on a case to case basis on the basis of a decision made in writing by <insert relevant detail>
Pay-as-you-can: A pay-as-you-can model allows participants to pay for a program, product or service as they are able to (based on disposable income). A lower limit is set on the payments that can be made for a program, product or service, which is the minimum amount a participant needs to pay to access the offering. Participants who are willing and able to pay a higher amount can do so. Products, programs and services priced using the pay-as-you-can model do not generally have an upper limit on payments.
Sliding scale: A sliding fee scale is a flexible payment model in which fees of various programs and services are based on the participant’s ability to pay. <Name of Organisation> in general does not provide a set sliding scale payment model and follows the financial aid policy contained within this document to ensure the participant’s agency and ability to self determine the quantum and type of aid required.