The easiest way is to fill in one of our donation forms (clicking on "donation forms" will download a form for you to print off). If downloading the form sounds a bit too technical for you, you can also phone for a form on 020 8240 2451.

You may also have seen one of our Regional Development Officers in your workplace. They will have forms too.

Once the form is completed, send it to us at Fund House (or hand it to the RDO), and it will be processed by ourselves and your paycentre.

Firstly, you will receive a confirmation letter from ourselves at the Fund, once we have processed the form (if you have made a Gift Aid declaration). This will tell you the amount you have agreed to donate to the Fund, and also give you 30 days to cancel your Gift Aid declaration.

Once the deduction is made by the paycentre, you should see confirmation of the donation on your payslip (something along the lines of “CSBF £2.00”).

Because the deduction is made by your paycentre, you must tell them that you no longer wish them to deduct the donation from your salary. They will then cease making the deduction from the next payroll.

It would help us too if you could let us know that you are unable to continue with your donations as well. This will allow us to take you off our mailing list immediately – meaning you won’t get any unwanted mail about the Fund.

The length of the decision-making process can vary. In many cases it can depend on the information received from the applicant, the urgency of the request, and whether or not they are in receipt of all available statutory benefits.

However, in some cases, where there is an emergency need, the decision to grant help can be taken immediately by the Help and Advisory section. In some cases this can mean the entire case is dealt with during a single day.

At all times, though, the applicant is kept fully informed of developments, either by Fund House, or by their Regional Services Co-ordinator. And in all cases the decision will be communicated to them by letter.

The decision is taken solely on the basis of need. As long as the person applying for assistance falls within our eligibility criteria, it doesn’t matter whether the applicant is a current or former employee, or whether they have been a donor to the Fund or not.

The decision to grant assistance will be taken by our experienced team of Help and Advisory professionals. They will have dealt with cases similar to the one they are dealing with in the past, and are best placed to make a decision based on Fund policy.

However, it should also be noted that giving help isn’t necessarily about granting financial assistance. In many cases it can be simply providing some essential advice, or a piece of information, to a client.

If you are, or have been, a Civil Servant, you will always be eligible to apply to the Fund for assistance. Equally, if you work for, or have ever worked for, one of the Fund’s Associated Organisations, you will always be eligible to apply for help.

All financial dependants of the above can also apply for help, whether they are children, your spouse or civil partner, domestic partner, or an elderly relative.

There are many different ways of doing this. Many applicants are referred to the Fund by a departmental Welfare Officer. We have close links with many of the welfare services in the Civil Service, and they should be aware of our work.

Other people choose to contact the Fund directly, using the Freephone service. Our team of Help and Advisory staff will send out an application form for you to fill in.

Depending on the nature of your enquiry, you may also be offered the opportunity to talk through your situation with one of our Regional Services Co-ordinators, or a trained volunteer Visiting Officer. They can help you fill in the application form, and advise you on the statutory benefits you may be entitled to.

There are two important details to note regarding your application. Firstly, you must send us original accompanying documents to support your application. We promise that once copied, these original documents are sent back to you as soon as possible.

Second, your application, and all documentation relating to it, are covered by the Data Protection Act (1998). This means that no other third party can look at your personal details. All applications are strictly confidential.

As you may know, the definition of a civil servant seems to change depending on where you read it! For our purposes, a civil servant is someone who is directly employed by a Government department. This means that we also cover locally employed civilian staff in overseas locations (such as Gibraltar, or Cyprus).

This covers the entire Home Civil Service, and for our purposes, we regard the Northern Ireland Civil Service in exactly the same way too.

Both the National Assembly for Wales and the Scottish Executive remain a part of the Home Civil Service, as defined by the Cabinet Office, and therefore were not affected by the change to devolution.

The Northern Ireland Civil Service is, however, a separate Civil Service. However, the NICS, like the Cabinet Office for the Home Civil Service, generously awards the Fund a grant-in-aid every year towards its work. All staff working, or who have worked, in the Northern Ireland Civil Service are therefore covered too.

Generally they are extremely good. In some cases the Fund actually helped to create the organisations involved – such as the Civil Service Insurance Society, and the Civil Service Retirement Fellowship.

The Fund has a presence at the AGMs of both the Fellowship and the Civil Service Pensioners Alliance, and in recent years has also taken on the work of departmental benevolent funds, who decided to merge with ourselves.

We are also extremely fortunate to have the support of some of the country’s highest-ranking Civil Servants – such as our President, Sir Gus O'Donnell, and Chairman Sir Brian Bender. We must also pay tribute to a long and extremely distinguished line of Presidents and Chairmen that have served before them.

The Fund is registered as a Benevolent Society, but with charitable status.

Therefore, the only difference between our status as a Benevolent Society, and that of a charity, is that we are registered and regulated by the Financial Services Authority, as opposed to the Charity Commission.

This is a position that the Fund keeps under review, especially with the progress of the current Charities Act through Parliament.

Of course. We hope that more people will feel that the Fund is a charity worth fundraising for. There are hundreds of people throughout the UK who have taken part in a fundraising event for us – whether they’ve organised a sponsored walk, a cake stall, or been white water rafting!

We can provide you with administrative support for your event, and publicity materials to help boost awareness. We can supply sponsor forms, create posters, and try to arrange publicity through departmental journals and the local media.

It can vary enormously between the various types of volunteering you might want to carry out. Being an Office Volunteer, for example, can take up very little time, as it consists largely of acting as a contact point between us and your colleagues (i.e. putting up posters, being aware of what we do, helping our RDOs with their workplace visit, etc).

However, becoming a Visiting Officer can take up a significant amount of time. We will not allow anyone to make a visit to a potential applicant without the proper training from one of our Regional Services Co-ordinators. This training is also an ongoing process, with regular sessions organised by our RSCs in each region. It can also be extremely demanding role as you may come across people with serious problems. Having said that, many of our Visiting Officers remark that it is a very rewarding way for them to give something back.

Other volunteering roles (such as being a Fundraising volunteer, or sitting on an Regional Committee) are much harder to specify. Basically, they take the amount of time that you want to put in. But we won't force you to do anything that you wouldn’t want to do.

It is an invaluable role. We rely heavily on our Office Volunteers to simply let their colleagues know that the Fund exists. It guarantees that people in their workplace know there is somewhere they can turn in times of trouble.

Equally, without Office Volunteers, we would find it impossible to publicise our various fundraising initiatives.

As you may have read elsewhere on the site, the Fund is changing its constitution to allow everyone a far greater say in how we're run. Everyone who pays a regular donation of £24 a year (that's just £2 a month) will receive a vote for all Management Board elections, and for resolutions put forward at the Annual General Meeting.

As a result of the changes, we are setting up Regional Committees which will provide volunteers with a direct line through to the Management Board. Each Regional Committee Chairman will sit on an Advisory Committee, which will meet at least twice a year to discuss policy and canvass the view of local volunteers.

So if you want to make a real difference to our future policy, your Regional Committee is the ideal place.