Dragons’ Den grants should be considered restricted funds, awarded for what you’ve included in your proposal, but how you spend any money you raise is up to you*.

Any money left over from the grant must be paid back to Kent Scouts.

For more information, talk to your District Treasurer about the difference between restricted, designated, and unrestricted funds.

*To be clear, the money you raise will belong to the District, not you individually. You should keep your District Treasurer in the loop, as they can help you make sure everything is done by the book.

That depends on how your District presents their accounts.

The important thing is that any grant will be money for a specific purpose, so it’ll be a ‘restricted fund’, and as such, it mustn't be used for anything else.

The grants will be awarded with the restriction that they are used for the proposed project and within the agreed timeframe. Where they are not used for that purpose or within the agreed timeframe, they must be repaid to Kent Scouts. If you think you're going to run out of time, let us know early – we might be able to help.

All projects must conclude by 31 December 2023, but yours may conclude earlier depending on your proposal.

We recognise that circumstances change, and your project may need to be modified after you receive your grant. We will review (and hopefully approve) any significant changes to your project. If you think you may need to make changes, please tell us in good time so we can support you in delivering your project successfully.

We want to see as many successful fundraising projects as possible, so we won’t force you to keep to your original plan if circumstances change to make it less achievable.

That will depend on whether your District has registered with HMRC, and will depend on what exactly your project entails. It's OK if your District isn't already claiming Gift Aid, and we won't expect you to get HRMC registration sorted by February. If you are claiming Gift Aid already, or you start during your project, then that's even better.

Gift Aid can sound daunting at first, but it's a huge boost depending on where you're getting money from. Speak to your District Treasurers about, it if you want to know more. (They'll know more than we do!)

The Dragons will bestow their mysterious reward on whichever team raises the most money as a percentage of the initial grant. As an example, let's say 'Sittingford' District received £300 and 'Favershoaks' District received £100, but they both raised £1000. Favershoaks achieved a higher return on their £100, than Sittingford did with their £300. 

Click here for the actual calculation we'll use, if you're interested. (Warning: Maths ahead.)

To calculate return on investment (ROI), divide the money you raise by the grant you receive and multiply by 100%. That maths wasn't too bad, was it?

We don't know how successful teams could be at this point, so we're not going to specify a 'prize' right now in case it's way too big or too small to appropriately match their achievements. (Plus, your District will already get to keep whatever you raise. That's a pretty tough prize to beat...)

You can… if they’ve nominated you as a Project Lead. We appreciate that everyone has different time commitments and that the District Commissioner or the District Youth Commissioner might want to include other volunteers with relevant experience or enthusiasm for this kind of project. Whatever happens, proposals should be endorsed by the DC and DYC, so before you start planning your pitch it’s essential that you talk to them.

If you don’t know who your DC or DYC are, get in touch and we’ll point you in their direction.

Who's my DYC? Who's my DC?

District Commissioners and District Youth Commissioners can sometimes be difficult to track down. As volunteers, work, school, or life generally can occasionally take up more time than usual, so try to be as understanding as possible. You can ask them to nominate someone with more time to focus on the proposal or ask if it’s OK for you to start planning something for them to approve later.

If you haven’t heard anything back from either of them for a while, ask one of the District team or a Group Scout Leader to pass on your message – it could be as simple as your email being marked as spam!
If all else fails, get in touch with us to explain and we’ll do our best to make sure you get to submit a proposal.

Contact the Youth Shaped Team

Yep! You can nominate whoever you like as long as they are an adult member of your District. Just let us know who it is. You may have volunteers within your District who deputise for you regularly (DDCs, ADCs, DDYCs, and so on) or you may choose to nominate someone else to take this project on specifically. If there's a Scout Network or Active Support Unit member willing to take the lead on your District’s proposal, that's great. Your nominee doesn't have to be a 'Commissioner'.

Yes! Nominate an 18–25-year-old as your Project Lead by email, and they can fill the gap. 

Nominate Project Lead

If you’d like help finding or appointing a District Youth Commissioner, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Youth shaped Scouts is how leaders support young people to shape their experiences: it’s about keeping young people front and centre of everything we do.

Young people should be genuinely involved in idea generation and the development of the proposal. You may wish to do this by holding forums, polling young people, as well as including them in the proposal development, the pitch, and the project delivery.

We don't want to be too prescriptive about what's needed as youth shaped Scouts can take many forms, but we'll know it when we see it.

Successful project proposals will demonstrate that young people – that's anyone from Squirrels to the Scout Network – have informed the content and aims of the project proposal and will be involved in the execution of the project (wherever practical and appropriate).

That said, we’re looking for youth shaped proposals, not youth only proposals. The most successful fundraising projects will be delivered by a team of enthusiastic adult volunteers in partnership with young people. Remember that Scout Network members can be adult volunteers as well as young people, so they can be instrumental in making Scouts youth shaped (and not just for Dragons' Den).

Our absolute minimum requirement is that the District Youth Commissioner (or another, nominated 18–25-year-old if necessary) works with the District Commissioner (or their nominee). The rest is up to you!

You might find inspiration by looking at the Fundraising Activity Badges on The Scouts’ website.

Fundraising Activity Badge
(Scouts) Fundraising Activity Badge
(Explorer Scouts)

Hopefully, they already are! Scout Network-aged volunteers (18–25 years old) are young people too. Your District probably already has at least one Trustee who's a young person; the District Youth Commissioner.

While nobody under 18 years old can become a Trustee of a Scouts charity, they can attend meetings or be members of a subcommittee. For instance, a group of Explorer Scouts could attend a District Executive Committee meeting to discuss their Unit’s ideas, or maybe there’s a Young Leader who’d be interested in joining the District Fundraising Subcommittee (if you have one).

For advice on supporting young people in governance roles, get in touch with us by email.

Contact the Youth Shaped Team

We're aiming to have a decision by the end of March, with grants paid prior to 31 March 2023 in time for project delivery to commence from 1 April 2023.

Yes, please! You’ll need to submit a full report on the project by 31 January 2024, so consider how you’ll keep your key volunteers and young people engaged. If you’re successfully awarded a grant, you’ll receive the report form from us – this will help you to know what data and information to capture and store along the way.

We’d also love to hear about what you’re up to throughout the project. Consider sharing updates on social media if you’re able. (Make sure to tag @KentScoutsYouthShaped on Facebook or Instagram so we can like your post!)

We've deliberately not been too specific on what we're looking for. One reason we've done this is that we want you to be able to be creative with your project and able to fundraise in whatever way works best for you and your District. The other reason is that we don't want to miss any cool fundraising ideas that we wouldn't have thought of ourselves.

We also can't give you an exhaustive list of what is and isn't allowed, so it's best if you come up with a great idea and then run it past some of your Trustees to double-check it's good to go. If The Dragons see any problems that make it past your Exec, they'll probably be so minor that changing them won't take much effort.

While we haven't put that many restrictions on what you can do (as long as it's youth shaped), there are other restrictions on exactly how we can fundraise as Scouts both in law and in The Scouts' Policy, Organisation, and Rules (POR). If you're struggling to think of something, you might find it's easier to come up with ideas after reading the fundraising-related sections of POR (mainly at the end of Chapter 4).

Restrictions on fundraising activities by law and by POR are non-negotiable – we can't give you a pass, and even if we could, we wouldn't. You'll also need to think about making sure your activities are aligned with the Scout Values. Even if something's 'technically allowed', we don't want to harm the reputation of The Scouts.

If you have other questions that aren’t answered above, get in touch with us to discuss it. If your question is complicated or you have quite a few, it might be more convenient to arrange a call with one of the Youth Commissioners instead of relying on emails.

While we’ll do our best to answer any questions, if it’s a technical or legal question, you’ll probably get a quicker response from your District Treasurer or another member of the Executive Committee.

Contact the Youth Shaped Team