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The purpose of international youth work and activities at the Finnish Red Cross is to promote social participation of young people by offering them opportunities to meet and interact with people in Finland and abroad. Our activities increase young people's understanding of different cultures, which strengthens their positive attitudes towards diversity and different practices. Our activities also promote young people's ability to recognise discrimination and unequal treatment based on nationality or cultural background and provide means to promote a more equal society in the young people’s own neighbourhoods.

In addition to our education work, our international youth work and activities create meaningful and significant leisure time and volunteer activity opportunities for young people. Our activities also support young people's own civic agency and offer young people opportunities to make a difference in areas that matter to them. In addition to this, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement creates various activity and networking opportunities for young people with youth in different countries, which strengthens international cooperation among young people.

What kind of activities can the grant be applied for?

The Folke Bernadotte Memorial Fund grant awarded by the Finnish Red Cross can be used for projects that promote the purpose of the international youth work and activities described above. Projects eligible for the grant must promote at least one of the objectives mentioned above. The project may be carried out abroad, in Finland or online, and it may be realised in the form of an event, workshop, camp, training course, study trip, cooperation project or regular group activity.

All of the operators within the Finnish Red Cross, such as branches, districts, youth shelters, reception centres, flea markets, etc., can be awarded grants for their operations from the Folke Bernadotte Memorial Fund. Grants are not awarded to private individuals. The Folke Bernadotte Memorial Fund grant allocated to the Finnish Red Cross is coordinated by the Red Cross headquarters, which distributes the grants to other Red Cross operators upon application.

For the purposes of activities supported by the Folke Bernadotte Memorial Fund, young people are people under the age of 30.

New in 2025! Activity impact assessment

At the Finnish Red Cross, we are continuously developing the impact assessment of our activities to be able to verify that our operations benefit their intended target group. In addition to quantitative data, we therefore need more information on whether our actions contributed to the objectives set for them.

In order for impact assessment to be conducted uniformly and as effortlessly as possible throughout our organisation, we have added a complete list of the objectives of our international youth work and activities to the grant application form. The applicant may select the objectives that they intend to promote in their target group through their own project from the list. We have also created indicators for the objectives, which the Finnish Red Cross operators who receive Folke Bernadotte Memorial Fund grants may use to monitor their progress in achieving the objectives of their projects.

We encourage our operators who have received grants to utilise the ready-to-use indicators in assessing how their projects achieve the set objectives. As a rule, information on the impact of the activities is collected directly from the target group of the activities, but if this is challenging due to the nature of the activities, the assessment can also be carried out by volunteers or employees in charge of the activities. The impact of the activities on the target group will be reported in connection with grant reporting at the end of the project.

You can find further information on the indicators in the appendices to this page. You can ask the Folke Bernadotte Memorial Fund grant contact person at the headquarters for help with assessing the impact of the activities. Their contact details are given at the bottom of this page.

Application round for the grants

You can apply for grants for projects carried out in 2025 between 18 November 2024 and 19 January 2025 by using the electronic form below. The decisions will be made and delivered to the applicants by email as soon as possible after the application period.

If any grant money is left over for the Finnish Red Cross to award after the grant application process, the application period will be reopened in February 2025. In this case, we will process new applications at the beginning of each calendar month (excluding school summer holiday months). Applications are accepted for as long as funding is available. However, the application process will end on 31 October 2025 at the latest.

UPDATE 28 January 2025: The application is currently open.

Please use this form to apply for a grant.

Further information on the terms and conditions governing grants

Applications for grants must be submitted before a project begins. The grant amounts vary depending on the operations, and in recent years they have ranged from approximately €2,000 to €12,000. However, projects that are based on a genuine need, backed with well-reasoned arguments, and planned and carried out by young people themselves may receive larger amounts. 

Furthermore, a grant may also cover the expenses of some participants who are over 30 years of age, provided that the number of such grant users is reasonable, and their participation can be considered essential for the realisation of the project.

The grant may only be used to cover essential costs incurred by the project. The grant may not be used to cover e.g. souvenirs or gifts bought on journeys abroad. The grant cannot be used for salary expenses or daily allowances.

Change of the purpose of a grant

If a project for which a grant has been awarded is cancelled or the purpose of the grant is to be changed, the headquarters contact person must be notified by free-form email no later than one week before the start of the project specified in the application.

Reporting on grant use

Grants are awarded on the condition that a project report is submitted to the headquarters within two months of the project’s conclusion by using the electronic reporting form below. A project’s profit and loss account must be attached to the report. You do not need to submit receipts or copies of receipts from the project to the headquarters. However, in the event of unclear reporting and transactions, the headquarters has the right to request and obtain copies of the project’s receipts.

The final submission date for the reports for the 2025 projects is 30 November 2025. If the project ends after 23 November 2025, the submission period may be extended.

You can report on the use of grants for using this form.

The reports will be processed at the headquarters within a month of their submission. Reports submitted during the summer holidays will be processed as soon as possible after the end of the summer. 

Payment of the grant

As a rule, the grant will be paid retroactively against invoice after the end of the project, based on the actual costs. Advance payment or other special arrangements may be agreed on a case-by-case basis for well-justified reasons.

The people in charge of the project will be notified by email of the processing of their project report, after which the grant may be invoiced to the Finnish Red Cross headquarters. The invoice for the 2025 grant must be sent to the headquarters by 12 December 2025.

The first and last name of the Folke Bernadotte Memorial Fund grant contact person at the headquarters must be entered as the reference on the invoice. The invoicing details of the headquarters can be found in the appendices to this page. The project’s profit and loss account must be attached to the invoice.

If the party in charge of a project is unable to send an invoice for a grant, they must indicate this in the report. In such cases, the payment is made as a bank transfer.

The headquarters’ contact person for the Folke Bernadotte Memorial Fund grants:

Kirsi Lehtola
Youth Activities Coordinator
kirsi.lehtola@redcross.fi
+358 (0)40 649 5181