Eligibility criteria do two jobs. They tell eligible applicants they should apply. They tell ineligible applicants they shouldn't. Both matter — and most eligibility criteria are better at one than the other.
Criteria written for compliance tend to be comprehensive but impenetrable: applicants who are genuinely eligible aren't sure if they qualify, while those who aren't eligible sometimes apply anyway because the exclusions are buried or ambiguous.
Criteria written for clarity do the opposite: they make the eligibility decision easy for the applicant, which means fewer ineligible applications reaching assessment and fewer eligible applicants self-selecting out.
Here's how to write criteria that work.
The most common approach is to define eligibility in terms of exclusions — what entity types can't apply, what activities aren't funded, what conditions aren't met. This approach is reactive and tends to proliferate, because there's always another edge case to exclude.
The more effective approach is to define eligibility in terms of inclusion: who specifically are you trying to fund, and what specifically are you trying to fund them to do?
"We fund registered charities working in the greater Wellington region on community health initiatives" is clearer than "Applications from unregistered entities, for-profit companies, central government agencies, and projects outside the greater Wellington region are not eligible."
Both say the same thing, but the first version is easier to read, easier to apply to your own situation, and doesn't create the impression that you're trying to catch people out.
Entity type eligibility is one of the most common sources of confusion. "Charitable organisations" means different things in different contexts. "Community groups" is almost meaningless without further definition.
Be explicit about the legal structures you will and won't fund:
- Incorporated societies
- Registered charities (charitable trust, charitable company)
- Māori authorities, iwi and hapū entities
- Unincorporated groups (if eligible — define what minimum threshold, e.g., a bank account and two signatories)
- Local authorities or government agencies (usually excluded — state this explicitly)
- For-profit companies (usually excluded — state explicitly whether social enterprises structured as limited companies are eligible)
Test your entity type criteria by thinking through real examples from your expected applicant pool. If your criteria would exclude applicants you'd want to fund, adjust the criteria — not the applicant.
"Regional" programmes frequently receive applications from organisations based outside the region but delivering work within it — and the guidelines didn't specify which one matters.
Be explicit about whether geographic eligibility applies to:
- Where the applicant organisation is based
- Where the funded activity will take place
- Where the primary beneficiaries are located
For most community-focused programmes, the location of the activity and the beneficiaries matters more than the organisational address. "Activity must primarily benefit communities within [region]" is more useful than "applicant must be based in [region]."
For activity eligibility, the most usable format is a brief description of what's in scope (positive), followed by a short list of explicit exclusions (negative), followed by a short list of common borderline examples with their status.
In scope: direct service delivery, capacity-building activities, community events, coordination and facilitation roles
Not in scope: capital expenditure, equipment purchases above $5,000, individual scholarships, staff salaries where the role predates this grant
Common borderline examples:
- Paying a coordinator to manage a funded project: Eligible (staff costs directly related to funded activity)
- Replacing a grant-funded coordinator position that lost government funding: Not eligible (this is covering an existing operational cost, not programme activity)
- Website rebuild as part of a broader communications project: Eligible where communications is a programme deliverable; Not eligible where it's organisational infrastructure
The borderline examples section prevents a significant number of clarification queries and reduces ineligible applications.
When a programme is oversubscribed, the temptation is to tighten eligibility criteria to reduce application numbers. This is usually the wrong lever.
Tighter eligibility screens for compliance, not quality. A programme that was oversubscribed because it attracted many good applications benefits more from a clearer shortlisting process than from eligibility changes that might screen out good applicants along with bad ones.
If you want to reduce volume, consider:
- A two-stage process with a brief EOI first
- Clearer guidance about what a competitive application looks like (so applicants can self-assess)
- Better-targeted promotion (reaching the right applicants, not more applicants)
Eligibility is a blunt instrument. Use assessment criteria as the fine-tuning mechanism.
Once your eligibility criteria are drafted, test them against a sample of real or hypothetical applications from your expected applicant pool:
If your criteria produce unclear answers for the types of applications you expect to receive, they need more work. The time to discover this is before the round opens, not when you're processing 200 applications.
When you decline applications on eligibility grounds, be explicit about which criterion wasn't met. "Your application was assessed as ineligible because the proposed activity includes a capital purchase above our $5,000 threshold" is useful feedback. "Your application was not eligible for this round" is not.
Clear eligibility decline reasons serve two purposes: they help the applicant understand whether to apply again (or to a different programme), and they help you track which eligibility criteria are generating the most declines — useful information for reviewing your criteria.
This article is part of the complete guide: How to Write Grant Guidelines That Attract the Right Applicants.