Community Grants

Com­mu­ni­ty Grants

A sub­stan­tial pro­por­tion of the MCR bud­get is reserved for com­mu­ni­ty grants. Essen­tial­ly, this rep­re­sents a sum of mon­ey that any MCR com­mu­ni­ty mem­ber can apply to fund events or pur­chas­es ben­e­fit­ing the wider com­mu­ni­ty or a group of ‘cor­pus­cles’.

Pro­pos­als for com­mu­ni­ty grants should include an esti­mate of the involved cost (if need­ed, the MCR Trea­sur­er can help with this) and a short jus­ti­fi­ca­tion of how the grant, if approved, will ben­e­fit the MCR com­mu­ni­ty. Ideas and cost­ed pro­pos­als for com­mu­ni­ty grants are encour­aged at any time of the year and should be direct­ed to the MCR Trea­sur­er (mcr_treasurer@corpus.cam.ac.uk).

NEW: If you wish to submit a proposal, fill it in and send it to the MCR Treasurer (mcr_treasurer@corpus.cam.ac.uk).
Com­mu­ni­ty Grant Form

This page con­tains a set of guide­lines for the sub­mis­sion and approval of Com­mu­ni­ty Grants, and for the sub­se­quent pur­chase of items through them. Excep­tions to all below are pos­si­ble if judged to be appro­pri­ate by the MCR Com­mit­tee.

  1. Com­mu­ni­ty Grants are meant to fund events or pur­chas­es ben­e­fit­ing the wider MCR com­mu­ni­ty. They should, gen­er­al­ly, not be used for assets that don’t ben­e­fit the com­mu­ni­ty or to fund items that fall under Col­lege or Uni­ver­si­ty respon­si­bil­i­ty. Excep­tions to this can be dis­cussed with the MCR Com­mit­tee.
  2. Con­sid­er­a­tion of sub­mit­ted Com­mu­ni­ty Grants pro­pos­als will depend on the amount request­ed:
    • Pro­pos­als with esti­mat­ed cost ≤ £50: deci­sion made by the MCR Trea­sur­er. (see note 1)
    • Pro­pos­als with esti­mat­ed cost > £50 and ≤ £100: deci­sion made by the MCR Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee under sim­ple major­i­ty. (see note 1)
    • Pro­pos­als with esti­mat­ed cost > £100 and ≤ £200: deci­sion made by the MCR Com­mit­tee under sim­ple major­i­ty. (see notes 2, and 3)
    • Pro­pos­als with esti­mat­ed cost > £200: deci­sion made by MCR at a quo­rate Open Meet­ing under sim­ple major­i­ty.
  3. The MCR aims to com­plete pur­chas­es with­in a week of a Grant’s approval. The rea­sons for any delays will be com­mu­ni­cat­ed to both the Com­mit­tee and applicant(s).
  4. Where appro­pri­ate, the MCR will pri­or­i­tize buy­ing sec­ond-hand items, in keep­ing with the MCR’s sus­tain­abil­i­ty cul­ture.
  5. The Grant appli­cant may make the pur­chase them­selves and have the cost reim­bursed by the MCR Com­mit­tee. In such cas­es, the total expense should not exceed the esti­mat­ed cost spec­i­fied in the appli­ca­tion. Should clar­i­fi­ca­tion be required, any ques­tions regard­ing the esti­mat­ed cost spec­i­fied in the appli­ca­tion must be dis­cussed with the MCR Com­mit­tee ahead of mak­ing the pur­chase. If the total expen­di­ture exceeds the esti­mat­ed cost, full reim­burse­ment is not guar­an­teed and will be assessed based on the rea­sons for the increase in costs and the avail­abil­i­ty of funds. 
  6. The esti­mat­ed cost in the appli­ca­tion should be a sin­gle, spe­cif­ic fig­ure in GBP when­ev­er pos­si­ble and unless a good rea­son is pro­vid­ed. If a cost range is giv­en, the approv­ing body may, at their dis­cre­tion, set a non-nego­tiable con­di­tion­al max­i­mum spend­ing lim­it. 
  7. The approv­ing body may, at their dis­cre­tion, attach con­di­tion­al restric­tions when approv­ing a Grant. 
  8. The MCR reserves the right to con­duct due dili­gence checks to con­firm that the pro­posed grant com­plies with rel­e­vant oper­a­tional, finan­cial and insti­tu­tion­al require­ments. These checks will be con­duct­ed by the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee (with con­sul­ta­tion from the wider MCR Com­mit­tee, where appro­pri­ate) pri­or to the approval process tak­ing place.
  9. A reject­ed Com­mu­ni­ty Grant may be resub­mit­ted from the term (see note 4) fol­low­ing the one of last sub­mis­sion.  
  10. Com­mu­ni­ty Grant appli­ca­tions for the replace­ment of lost or dam­aged items pur­chased via a pre­vi­ous Com­mu­ni­ty Grant will be sub­ject to approval by the entire MCR Com­mit­tee (see notes 2, and 3), regard­less of their price-point. The Com­mit­tee may decide to post­pone or reject the approval of the Grant if it con­sid­ers the risk of repeat­ed loss or dam­age to be unac­cept­ably high. 

The MCR Trea­sur­er will update pro­posers when a deci­sion has been made. A sum­ma­ry of all appli­ca­tions made in peri­ods between com­mit­tee meet­ings will be shared with the MCR Com­mit­tee in the Treasurer’s update at each meet­ing — this will be includ­ed in the meet­ing min­utes and cir­cu­lat­ed to the com­mu­ni­ty by the MCR Sec­re­tary.

Please speak to the MCR Trea­sur­er if you have ques­tions about com­mu­ni­ty grants.

Notes

  1. The MCR Com­mit­tee will be noti­fied of all Com­mu­ni­ty Grants sub­ject to deci­sion by the Trea­sur­er or the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee. MCR Com­mit­tee mem­bers (see note 3) have 24 hours to express their opin­ion and may vote to reject the Grant. If > 50% of the Com­mit­tee votes against it, the Com­mu­ni­ty Grant is reject­ed regard­less of the Treasurer’s or Exec­u­tive Committee’s deci­sion. 
  2. A Com­mit­tee vote is valid when more than 50% of MCR Com­mit­tee mem­bers (see note 3) have respond­ed with­in 24 hours of the grant being put to a vote. A Grant pass­es when more than 50% of those who vot­ed are in favour. 
  3. Com­mit­tee mem­bers refers to Full Com­mit­tee Roles (this excludes MCR Com­mit­tee mem­bers who only hold Com­mu­ni­ty Roles). Com­mit­tee mem­bers hold­ing mul­ti­ple roles (be it mul­ti­ple Full or Com­mu­ni­ty Roles) are allowed one vote per per­son (not per role), both for quo­rum and for vot­ing. 
  4. Terms are defined by the Full Term dates as found on the Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty Web­site. The peri­od between the end of East­er Term and the begin­ning on Michael­mas Term is, for the pur­pose of Grant appli­ca­tions, con­sid­ered as a dis­tinct Term (Sum­mer Term). 

Exam­ples of Com­mu­ni­ty Grants approved in 2024:

  • A lam­i­na­tor (£31.28) and a book­binder (£84.23)
  • Board Games (£91.55)
  • A bike pump (£25.99)