Judging charities by their covers

As a child in the 70s I used to visit the Westgate Library in Oxford. I have vivid memories of the time I made the transition from the children’s library (think bright coloured cushions and picture books) to the main adult library. There were no pictures any more nor different sizes and thicknesses and certainly no age categories. Instead, endless shelves of book spines arranged alphabetically by author. How on earth was I supposed to choose which book to take out?

I can’t remember exactly how I responded the first time. I do remember the time I adopted a strategy of selecting titles on the basis that they had bright aqua lettering as a way to narrow down my options. Needless to say I read a lot of dreadful books. I needed to come up with a better system of choosing.

The same problem of overwhelming choice can face donors. There are 160,045 charities in the UK (see link below). How on earth do you select the ones to support?

I was particularly struck by the similarity when looking at Aviva’s community award pages. Just for Bristol there were profiles of over 3,000 local charities all asking for votes to get the £1,000 award available. To choose, you either need to know one already or have an awful lot of time on your hands.

To stop being overwhelmed you need some criteria – more logical than my aqua approach. You can select by size, cause, location. Still some will be ‘better’ than others e.g. well run, making a big difference, tackling a difficult social issue, working in collaboration, influencing change.  It is hard to just pull these out a random so you also need external expertise.  Just as with books, charities also win prizes (e.g. GSK Impact awards) and other funders can act like a recommendation. Even better is having advice from someone who knows the sector who effectively acts as your own personal book reviewer: helping you navigate the choices by matching your preferences to the most effective charities out there. In CAF’s recent report (see link below) wealthy individual donors valued receiving professional advice. And, good news for charities, those who took advice tended to give much more.

http://data.ncvo.org.uk/a/almanac15/big-picture/#Registered_charities_andgeneral_charities

https://www.cafonline.org/about-us/publications/2015-publications/the-art-of-adaptation.aspx

 

Emma Beeston Consultancy advises philanthropists on giving strategies; selecting causes and charities; and impact monitoring.

https://twitter.com/emmabeeston01

 

Tell me something I don't know

Before you launch into your funding bid, stop and ask yourself what it is this funder needs to know to convince them to support you.

Why will this help? Well, fitting everything you want to say into strict word count limits is always a challenge. It can save you valuable space if you focus on the facts and evidence your chosen funder needs. And as someone who reads hundreds of bids, I can wholeheartedly agree that less is almost always more. A clear, concise bid which tells me exactly what I need to know and how that fits with my funding priorities is just what I want.

One consideration is whether you are applying to a specialist or a generalist funder.

If you are applying to a specialist funder then you can assume a greater level of knowledge in that area. For example, if the funder has already stated that their priority is homeless people, you don’t need to tell them the latest government statistics on homelessness and the poor outcomes for homeless people. You can assume that they get it already – that’s why they are looking to fund this area of work. Instead, tell them why your homelessness project is the one they should fund out of all the others they are considering.

Be specific, tell them about the need in your area; who else is delivering services and how you work with them; why you use your particular model; what is different about your approach; the experience and expertise you have; what results you get...

If they are a more general funder, perhaps a family charitable trust, then you may need to use your words to explain your cause and why it is important. In this situation, don’t make assumptions. Take time to explain the key background facts and figures surrounding your issue and how people are affected before you go into the specifics about you.

If you give general information to specialists, you risk wasting their time and missing the opportunity to give them the depth of detail they want. If you go into specifics with people who have more general knowledge, they may not understand what you do. In both situations:  get it right and you have a better chance of being successful.  

https://twitter.com/emmabeeston01



Words to avoid in funding bids #4 – wellbeing

Wellbeing is the state of being comfortable, healthy or happy. It is a positive word that conveys a lot and so is very useful. I don’t have anything against the word itself. In fact I am a Trustee of a charity that is all about improving people’s wellbeing.


The problem is that wellbeing is so pertinent a word that it is used a lot. I don’t think I have read a single application form in the past five years that does not mention wellbeing. And I certainly don’t meet any charities that are not working to improve people’s wellbeing – whether as an overall mission or in all the daily small things. So using wellbeing in funding bids stops being useful and starts being meaningless.


I don’t think wellbeing is an easy word to avoid using altogether, but if you use it you must qualify it. One good way to do this is with short examples that bring your work to life. Do your service users go to their doctor less often? Do they sleep better? Do they feel more positive about themselves? Are they feeling more hopeful for their future? Are they buying healthy food? Or you could explain changes using one of the wellbeing tools available such as the Warwick-Edinburgh wellbeing scale. For example, “following our intervention, 60% of our clients increased their score when rating themselves on the statements such as ‘I’ve been feeling relaxed’ or ‘I’ve been feeling interested in other people’ – none of the time (10), rarely (2), some of the time (3), often (4), all of the time (5)”. 


What you are looking to do is make sure the funder does not make wrong assumptions about the wellbeing your work brings about, or that you get lost amongst all the other charities saying the same thing. Because the funder is trying to work out which has the most impact – should they improve this group’s wellbeing for £25k or this other group’s for £50k? Is the difference to do with value for money or is one a greater depth and intensity than the other?


So when you find yourself writing ‘wellbeing’ in your next bid, make sure you stand out by adding detail to explain how you improve wellbeing and how significant and long-lasting this is.

https://twitter.com/emmabeeston01



The inexplicable dominance of one-year grants

There are good reasons for a funder to limit the length of grants awarded:

1. To keep flexibility - tying up all future funding makes it difficult to shift priorities or respond to new applicants and emerging needs.
2. To be able to stop funding if problems arise - such as the organisation failing to deliver or changes its focus (though this can usually be better addressed through terms and conditions and grant management).
3. If it is the sole funder of the organisation so the reliance on one income stream makes the grant recipient vulnerable (a time limit and tapering down of funding may well be appropriate in this instance).

Otherwise, funders should award grants for as long as they possibly can. Multi-year funding means lower operating costs on both sides.  Applicants don’t have to reapply and the funder does not have to take the request through its full processes again. It also encourages a relationship between the funder and funded. For the grant recipient, it provides financial security and enables planning.

 

So why do so many trusts and foundations make annual grants?

 

Grantmakers for Effective Organisation’s 2014 survey (see link below) found an increase in the number of grantmakers that give multiyear grants at least sometimes to 58% in 2014. But that still leaves 42% who don’t.

 

Dependency is certainly cited by funders as a reason not to keep funding an organisation. But I think this is the funder’s issue - I don’t think the grant recipient worries about it. I have never had anyone say to me that they only wanted a one year grant as they did not want to rely on the funding. As long as the communication is clear at the start – e.g. “this grant is for four years only and you cannot reapply”- and you are not the sole funder, then dependency should not arise.

 

It may be that funders are uncertain about their own future income or want to prioritise flexibility and the ability to fund different causes. Perhaps it is all to do with accounting practice. Or is it that funding one-off project costs is still winning out over investing for long-term change?  I can find research on the benefits of multi-year funding but no particular references or research into the benefits of an annual grant cycle. So I remain puzzled. If anyone knows how the annual funding cycle arose, why it is so persistent and any research into its benefits, then please do get in touch.

 

www.geofunders.org/field-study

 

 

https://twitter.com/emmabeeston01

 

 

 

Read this blog on immediacy NOW

A recent survey found that we have become ever more impatient over the past 5 years. We wait an average 10 seconds for a web page to load, 5 minutes for a drink at a bar, 10 minutes in a post office queue and 13 minutes sitting in traffic before we lose our patience.  And if, like me, you read those and think they are reasonable, chances are this shift to immediacy is with us to stay.

So how does this affect grant makers who take their time to sift, assess and decide on applications?

Well first of all, it affects those we support. Charities and fundraisers have already adapted to this change with ‘click to donate’, ‘text to give’ and crowdfunding. According to Blackbaud’s 2014 Charitable Giving Report, online giving grew 8.9% in 2014 compared to 2013. The rise was sharpest in smaller organisations and the report concludes “these agile organisations are embracing new approaches and modern technologies to fuel their growth”. When assessing financial sustainability and funding strategies we can expect to see an increased role for social media as well as loan funding  (which is very much about having the funds now and paying it back later). The shift from legacies to ‘giving while living’ will also change the future income streams for some charities.

Some funders already have experience of creating a sense of urgency to gain their funds. BBC Children in Need and Comic Relief both create a ‘one day only’ sense of excitement for their appeals and then spend their funds throughout the year through their grant programmes. The UK Community Foundations raised £45.8m last year through their time-limited scheme, Community First, where donations were matched by central government funding. But for Trusts and Foundations who don’t need to raise funds (like those with large endowments), is there a need to respond to this desire for immediacy?

There is room for improvement in customer service. Funders could acknowledge applications promptly and could look at ways to improve the time taken to get a decision through delegating authority to staff or rolling programmes. The Big Lottery Fund is currently trialling instant decision-making out in the field for its Awards for All programme. With the sector under such huge financial pressure, I am sure any decrease in time spent waiting for funding decisions would be welcomed.

Where I think it is hard to respond to immediacy is in giving feedback on results. Crowdfunding provides instant gratification for your donation but also pretty quick feedback on whether or not the target amount was achieved. This works where your donation is tied to outputs (your £25 will pay for...) and capital appeals with tangible results. But it does not work where a funder is supporting long-term change for complex social problems such as poverty. Here, what charities need is long-term funding over as many years as possible. Esmee Fairbairn’s new grant strategy includes this goal: “We look for catalysts to change systems and challenge existing orthodoxies. This may mean allocating significant sums of money for the long-term”.

Independent grant makers can challenge immediacy through a long-term outlook which comes from a history of giving and the security of endowments. But we should not let this make us complacent. I don’t think it is OK for applicants to put up with lengthy decision processes when we could change things to respond more quickly. After all, if we’re only prepared to wait 5 minutes for service at a bar, how long should anyone have to wait for a funding decision?

https://twitter.com/emmabeeston01



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/11373010/Britons-lose-patience-after-waiting-five-minutes-to-be-served-at-a-bar.html

https://www.blackbaud.com/nonprofit-resources/charitablegiving

The fundraiser as internal project manager

I am pleased to present fundraising expert Jane Selman as this week's Guest Blogger...

Fundraising is much more than identifying donors, building and stewarding donor relationships and asking for the money.

All fundraisers know that it’s a good idea to fully grasp the scope, scale, nuances, language, stories and energy of the work that you are fundraising for.  And one significant way to do this is to talk with, and have good working relationships with, colleagues who deliver the projects/services.  

All well and good so far….the money is in, the work is funded, the project staff are delighted and the fundraiser can move onto the next “ask”. 

However, the fundraiser and project staff continue to need each other.  At the end of the year, the fundraiser needs to produce the monitoring and evaluation report required by the funder.

This is where the fundraiser has to extend their skills to become an internal project manager.  The fundraiser needs to be part of, or at least help to drive, the internal process and procedures that ensure the charity remains on track to meet the terms and conditions of a donation / grant. 

Why? Because, the fundraiser needs to make sure she/he can do the job of excellent donor stewardship, writing an accurate report and being the external ambassador for their cause.

And this is where the hiccups happen….because people are busy, have naturally different priorities and performance targets to that of the fundraiser. 

What do I mean by the fundraiser as internal project manager?

• Finance: is the spend going to budget and according to what was said to the donor? Are your finance colleagues aware of how and when you need to report spend to the funder?
• Keeping an eye on the monitoring ball: are all monitoring systems working? Is relevant data being collected and recorded on time by project staff?  Are you able to report against outcomes as well as outputs? Are case studies and anecdotes being collected as well as quantitative data?  Who is taking the photos of activities?
• Are there any changes in planned project activities, beneficiaries, staffing, volunteers? 

Ever heard of the RASCI project management system? The RASCI matrix is a useful tool for defining the participation of various roles in completing tasks, responsibilities and authority of any project. It is a particularly useful model for projects where several people who have different areas of expertise, need to be involved.   I know of several fundraisers who have used this to their advantage.

http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/how-to-do-raci-charting-and-analysis.php

http://www.thecqi.org/Documents/community/South%20Western/Wessex%20Branch/CQI%20Wessex%20-%20RACI%20approach%207Sep10.pdf

So, however your organisation does this, whatever the process and procedures that are already in place to internally manage projects, I urge the fundraiser to also see their role as being a part of project management.

And don’t forget to build in more time, persistence and patience than you initially think is required, in order to receive the information you need to produce that funding report on time.

jane@janeselmanfundrasing.co.uk

www.janeselmanfundraising.co.uk

My weekly blogs give a funder's perspective on charities and funding them. It is good to hear other view points, like Jane's, so if you would like to be a guest blogger, please get in touch with your idea - Emma Beeston
https://twitter.com/emmabeeston01

 

3 reasons for funders to use twitter as a grant management tool

I am what the tech people call ‘a late adopter’ but now I am on twitter, I find it a surprisingly useful tool.  I can’t see it replacing grant report forms or monitoring visits, but I do think it has a role to play in grant management. I have added it to my toolkit and try to ‘follow’ every charity I fund. This is what I think it adds:

1. Because twitter is another way in which charities present themselves externally, following a charity you fund can provide you with a sense of their activity, how they respond to donors, and how they promote their cause. I don’t read every tweet, but it is one source of information in reviewing how things are going. Mostly this will be informative and reassuring but there are times when it may well prompt me to pick up the phone and get in touch. For example, noticing a job advert for a new CEO or a ‘keep us from closure’ appeal may be extremely useful information to see if you have not been told directly.
2. Charities working in a particular field or locality often share information that is relevant to their work and clients. Reading this can help keep you informed about the issues their service users are dealing with - such as the impact of welfare reforms and other government policies. Films in particular can be a great way to bring their work alive and deepen your understanding of what you are funding.
3. Part of grant management is offering help when you can. A retweet from a funder can help raise the charity’s profile with a new audience. It is an easy way to offer in-kind support and can often be win-win where it raises the profile of the funder as well e.g. when a funded charity wins an award.

Personally, I don’t use Facebook for work, but there are also funders using Facebook to good effect.

I would not suggest that funders become the drivers of a charity’s social media strategy. But I do think you should bear in mind that they are one audience for your communications. According to a recent poll, only 16% of non-profit organisations follow their grantors on Facebook or Twitter (see link), so the rest may be missing out on useful information about projects funded and funding available. In the US, 45% of foundations use social media: 65% using Facebook and 40% using twitter (see link). So remember to follow funders, and potential funders, on twitter. Use it to thank funders for your grant, tell them about significant happenings like winning awards and update them on events and publication launches.

And for fellow funders, I encourage you to start using twitter to follow the organisations you fund. In addition to having it as a grant management tool, you will get access to lots of interesting sector conversations and findings, and you can ask infrastructure bodies to promote the funds you have available.

Not bad for a late adopter!

 

https://twitter.com/emmabeeston01

 

http://www.nfpaccounting.com/blog-0/bid/184430/Social-Media-An-Effective-Grant-Management-Tool

http://www.grantcraft.org/infographics/whats-trending-with-foundations-and-social-media