If you want change - fund it

At a meeting this week I met with three inspiring charity leaders who are all involved in supporting people on the margins of society. On a day-to-day basis, they change individual’s lives. But they are also agents for wider and long-term change: raising awareness of hidden problems; training professionals and lobbying legislators. But they explained how hard it is to find funding for awareness raising and influence.

Charities know they have to influence others to create change. For example, Citizens Advice helps people sort out problems with benefits or debts. They also collate all that information and use it as evidence to press for changes in poor money lending practice or unfair benefit rules. There is a duty to speak up for those who cannot do so themselves and a strength in numbers. It is also deeply inefficient to keep supporting people with the same problems time and time again without seeking to address underlying causes. In a sector which needs to work with statutory agencies such as social services and the police which experience high turnover of staff, it also makes more sense to try and change the terms of contracts and the wording of laws and policies. Because these remain even when employees come and go.

The public are supportive. In NPC’s Mind the Gap report on public attitudes* 32% think charities should be lobbying government and 47% felt that raising awareness of important issues in society was important.

So what about funders? Just as there is a reluctance to fund core costs, so there is a reluctance to fund lobbying and policy work. But surely if we want to bring about long-term change through our funding, we should also want to fund work to address systemic barriers? There are some funders who do this such as Barrow Cadbury Trust who “support migrant organisations, campaigners and networks seeking to promote changes to policy and practice that ensure the fair treatment of vulnerable groups of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants and established residents”. And still others use their funds directly to create change such as the Trust for London’s campaign for a Living Wage. As more funders cover the costs of monitoring and evaluation within bids, perhaps more should also include the costs of influencing in order to support lasting change?

*http://www.thinknpc.org/publications/mind-the-gap/

https://twitter.com/emmabeeston01

Who gets to meet the funder?

So you have sent off your beautifully crafted funding bid and are waiting for the decision when you get the call – the funder would like to come and meet with you to find out more about your work. A good thing to do at this point is to ask the funder what they would like to cover, who they would like to meet and how long the meeting will last. However, if they don’t offer you this guidance, here are a couple of dos and don’ts for how to respond.

Do - Try and involve more than one person. No matter how well briefed, it is difficult for one person to know about all the aspects that could be covered (history, finances, strategic plan, staff performance management, user involvement, project plans and budgets etc.) and it is also a weighty responsibility to put on one person. Think who should be there to cover frontline and strategic questions: the CEO, a Trustee, a frontline worker, a project manager?

Do - Think about personalities and not just roles. For example, if your CEO is a charismatic storyteller, but might be a bit woolly on detail, bring along your finance and operational staff to cover any questions on your accounts and policies. If on the other hand, your CEO is very thorough but lacks a bit of spark, make sure you invite a passionate frontline worker or some service users to bring alive their stories.

Don’t - Feel you need to introduce the funder to everyone in the building and give them a grand tour. They will be on a schedule and so a tour could be losing you precious time to answer the questions they want answered. For example, unless it is the point of the bid, the funder doesn’t need to see your new toilet block.

Don’t – Make people perform. The funder is interested in the work you do and the difference it makes. It is always a welcome addition to meet with service users, where this is appropriate. But don’t compel a service user to tell their difficult experiences to a stranger. Take time to think how your service users’ voices can best be heard and manage this carefully and sensitively.

This first meeting with a funder might be a crucial one-off opportunity to secure funding or an important first step in a long relationship. So next time you get that call, make sure you stop and think what you can do to best meet both their needs and yours.

https://twitter.com/emmabeeston01

Reserves and funders – damned if you do, damned if you don’t

Charity Trustees have a very difficult balancing act when it comes to managing their financial reserves.  On the one hand they need to hold funds to manage the risks. This is especially true in this difficult time – recently described to me by a charity CEO as “hostile, unpromising and unforgiving” - where future uncertainty means the need to keep funds for potential redundancies, office moves and close down funds is essential. On the other hand Trustees also have a duty to spend their funds on their charitable purpose and so need to be investing in service delivery and development.

So what levels are charities setting in their reserves policies? Common rules of thumb for free reserves levels used to be 6 – 9 months, 6 months or 3 months operating costs. The Charity Commission does not set reserves levels but rather its guidance states “Any target set by trustees for the level of reserves to be held should reflect the particular circumstances of the individual charity.” NCVO’s Civil Society Almanac found the average reserves held by service delivery-type charities were equivalent to an average of 8.3 months’ expenditure in 2011/12. My experience is that in recent years more charities are using up their reserves and some have had to close. I expect that average reserves levels will have fallen.

How funders treat reserves is also a balancing act.  Charities can be turned down for having reserves that are both too high (e.g. Lloyds Bank Foundation sets an upper limit of 12 months) and too low. Too few reserves make the charity a risky bet, which may not last the length of any grant and may indicate poor planning. Too high and the charity is playing it too safe, may not be fully using its funds to support its clients and may be less of a priority “They don’t need our money”.

So as a charity Trustee what do you do? Actively set and monitor reserves levels. Include reserves in your strategic and fundraising plans. And whether they might be too low or too high, be upfront in telling potential funders the reasons why.


https://twitter.com/emmabeeston01

Independent Funders: your sector needs you

Recently I watched a presentation by a local authority commissioner. The presentation was informative and the presenter was keen on consulting with the voluntary sector. But for the whole time I was listening, I was also thinking “I am so glad I am not a commissioner”.

Why? Some of the issues were the same as any funder e.g. how do you invest in prevention when you also need to fund acute services until prevention work starts to have an impact? But other areas seemed even more difficult to work with:

• the jargon (co-creation seemed the latest buzz word);
• the long timescales (3 years from start of process until contracts awarded);
• the external drivers (not re-tendering because unhappy with the current service but because have to under European law);
• the politics (no activity for the period of the coming election);
• the players (6 commissioning groups responsible for 1 contract).

As an independent funder, I am very lucky not to be so constrained. But I believe it puts the onus on all independent funders to appreciate and exercise our freedoms - to support the unpopular, the small, the unproven and to take risks when other funding bodies are less able to.


https://twitter.com/emmabeeston01

Where are the new charity founders?

The recent report by RBS and Unltd¹ finds that young people aged 18 – 30 are more likely than the general population to consider it important to support social causes when starting a business. However, despite these motivations to do good, far more want to start their own business (61%) or a social enterprise (27%) than a charity (12%).  

This increased interest in the blending of business and social purpose is an important new area. More social purpose organisations are trading and setting up as Community Interest Companies. And more businesses are considering social value either as a potential market or as part of their CSR with pro bono work and corporate foundations on the rise. But is there a problem for the future of the charitable sector if more young people want to set up social enterprises than charities?

We know that the charitable sector is a valuable source of jobs and work experience through volunteering. And there is certainly sense in involving young social entrepreneurs who will bring the passion and skills needed as the context that charities operate in changes rapidly. We definitely need to capture young people who can identify and capitalise on opportunities as well as being motivated by social causes. There are lots of schemes out there supporting enterprise in schools and supporting business and enterprise start ups. Perhaps it’s time to also encourage a new breed of young charity founders and leaders?

¹ https://unltd.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Populus_RBS-Enterprise_Tracker_2nd-Quarter_2014_Report.pdf


Follow @emmabeeston01