We have to talk about fluffy

I like Charity Bank’s new #Charityis campaign which seeks to counteract the recent negative press with some positive messages about charities. It runs from 14^th to 20^th March and I urge you to participate. My contribution to this week is an ‘is not’: #Charityis NOT FLUFFY.

I am often involved in introducing business people to their local charities or the charity sector as a whole. I am always amazed by the persistent myths that people hold about charities: that they are amateur, inefficient, homespun or well-meaning and worthy. A term that is often used – especially when the arts are involved - is ‘fluffy’.

When people think ‘fluffy’ they mean that a charity is a ‘nice to have’ rather than fundamental to society. Calling charities ‘fluffy’ does them a gross disservice. ‘Fluffy’ means soft or superficial. It suggests charities offer tea and sympathy rather than effecting change. I think it is used as a shorthand for things that cannot easily be measured or monetised. But just because things like promoting wellbeing and creating a sense of community are not easy to measure or put a cash value on does not make them ‘fluffy’.

There really is nothing ‘fluffy’ about operating a crisis support service 24/7 to ensure women fleeing domestic abuse have somewhere safe to go. Nor when trying to find a hostel bed for a homeless person who is still drinking. Nor when supporting a family when their loved one is diagnosed with dementia. And neither is it ‘fluffy’ to run a modern day charity which is all about balancing competing demands, resource allocation, financial sustainability and demonstrating impact.

Charities are an important part of society. Here are just some of Charity Bank’s findings:

·         78% of UK adults have used charity services in the last year

·         800k people are employed in the UK voluntary sector

·         9.3m UK adults received emotional support or counselling from a charity.

So when we talk about what a charity is, how about ditching ‘fluffy’ and talking about how complex and vital charities are?

https://charitybank.org/charityis#get-involved

Emma Beeston Consultancy advises funders and philanthropists on giving strategies and processes; researching and scoping options; selecting causes and charities; assessments and impact monitoring.
www.emmabeeston.co.uk ; emma@emmabeeston.co.uk; emmabeeston01

You CAN take it with you when you go

As a funder, the first contact I usually have with a charity is with the fundraiser. This may be a bid writer, a general fundraiser, or the Chief Executive depending on the size of the charity. And once a grant is awarded, this person usually becomes my main point of contact for the ongoing relationship.

It is a common occurrence that when I get in touch with the charity for a progress report or other monitoring requirements two or three years later the original applicant has moved on. How well this is handled varies hugely and is rather telling about the charity’s internal communications and systems.

In the worst incidence, a disgruntled employee had not only left with all the information about the grant, but also took passwords and keys with them. Of course, the charity should never have let one individual have so much control. It took them some time to re-establish access to essential systems and data and they were put in an embarrassing position when explaining the situation to me.

Far more common, is that when the fundraiser leaves, the first anyone at the charity knows that we are funding them is my phone call about a late report. Just as you don’t want to be asking the Charity Commission for a copy of the constitution (which sadly happens a lot), you really don’t want to be asking a funder for a copy of your original application.

To prevent this, remember that information about the funder, such as the original application, reporting requirements, contact names, and when to discuss re-applying should be shared and not kept by the individual fundraiser. Other information such as potential funders, reasons why applications were unsuccessful and how a particular funder likes to be approached, are also a valuable resource to be kept by the charity as this will save future time and effort.

Losing this information and relationship when a fundraiser leaves is a risky position to be in. You risk the current funding if you cannot report on what you were meant to be delivering. And you put future funding at risk too as it certainly does not present the competence and good management that all funders are looking for.

Fundraisers do go off sick and leave so make sure you have systems in place to ensure you keep hold of the vital information when they go.

Emma Beeston Consultancy advises funders and philanthropists on giving strategies and processes; selecting causes and charities; assessments and impact monitoring. Services for charities include external perception reviews; bid reviews; training for fundraisers and non-fundraisers involved in bids. www.emmabeeston.co.uk ; emma@emmabeeston.co.uk; emmabeeston01

Why grants are good

The launch of the Grants for Good Campaign brings a welcome focus on grants as a valuable funding mechanism. The newer arrivals on the funding scene (such as loans, social impact bonds and crowdfunding) have been getting a lot of attention. Novelty is always appealing and makes the more familiar ‘grant’ come across as a bit old fashioned and dull.

The Association of Charitable Foundations estimates that £6.1 billion of annual grants were transacted through grant-making foundations in 2013/14. Even with the reduction in government grants (down by more than £3.8bn over the last decade), they still have a significant role to play in funding charities and warrant our attention.

Debrah Allcock Tylor (see link below) has written about the benefits of grants for funders: they are straightforward (unlike contracts conforming to EU regulations); quick; flexible and good value (relatively low transaction costs). But why are grants a good thing for the recipients? Here are my top five benefits:

1. You don’t have to pay them back – there will be a social return expected but you won’t need to worry about making a financial return as well. 
2. They are valuable when needing to cover activity costs like research and development where it is difficult to generate enough income to cover costs.
3. You get the money upfront – it is trusted that you will do what you said you would with the money so there are no cash flow problems unlike Payment by Results models. 
4. They give credibility and can act as leverage to more money – if you have a grant approved from e.g. Henry Smith or Heritage Lottery Fund then it gives confidence to others who are considering supporting you. 
5. They represent a partnership – the funder's involvement can bring added value such as access to a network of similar organisations or help with influencing policy.

And finally, fundraisers may disagree, but I find that the discipline of applying for a grant helps ensure that projects are well thought through. The external scrutiny can help hold you to account for the activities you deliver.

If you agree that grants are good, then the Grants for Good Campaign would like to hear from you: https://www.dsc.org.uk/grants-for-good-2/get-involved/

http://www.theguardian.com/voluntary-sector-network/2016/feb/11/grants-local-charities-campaign-appeal-government-cuts

Emma Beeston Consultancy advises funders and philanthropists on giving strategies and processes; selecting causes and charities; assessments and impact monitoring. Services for charities include external perception reviews; bid reviews; training for fundraisers and non-fundraisers involved in bids. www.emmabeeston.co.uk ; emma@emmabeeston.co.uk; emmabeeston01

Mark my words

If like me, you read lots of funding applications, reports and strategy documents you will start to notice trends in the words used. Over the past year or so I have noticed that:

confidence has become resilience

user involvement is now co-design or co-production

outcomes has shifted to impact

There will be reasons for these changes. For example, when it comes to the shift from confidence to resilience, perhaps in times of austerity it is more important to bounce back from difficulties than just believe in ourselves? I shall leave it to the linguists and social scientists to analyse what these trends in language mean in terms of changes in society.

What I do know is that when charities start using these terms in bids, it is important to know exactly why you are using them and what they mean to you. Don’t say ‘we are working to increase people’s resilience’ just because it is the latest buzzword. It could undermine your case if you can’t say what you mean when asked, and if this is not something that you measure when monitoring. If you mean ‘confidence’ or ‘self-esteem’ or ‘coping skills’ then continue to say this even if you think using the popular ‘resilience’ looks better.

It is also important to know what funders mean when they use different words – and indeed that funders also can define their terms. ‘Outcomes’ and ‘impact’ seem to be being used interchangeably at the moment but they are different. For example, the Big Lottery Fund states: “we define impact as any effects arising from an intervention. This includes immediate short-term outcomes as well as broader and longer-term effects.” Whereas the Charity Evaluation Service defines impact as “impact is the broader or longer-term effects of a project or organisation's outputs, outcomes and activities.” So when asked to demonstrate your ‘impact’, do remember to ask what is meant before you answer.

Every word counts in a funding bid. Make sure you choose yours carefully.

Emma Beeston Consultancy advises funders and philanthropists on giving strategies and processes; selecting causes and charities; assessments and impact monitoring. Services for charities include external perception reviews; bid reviews; training for fundraisers and non-fundraisers involved in bids. www.emmabeeston.co.uk ; emma@emmabeeston.co.uk; emmabeeston01

Eat local, shop local, give local

On my way to visiting a charity the other day, I stopped at an ATM to get cash. It was the sort of ATM which asks you if you want to donate to charity. Out of curiosity I pressed that button and my options included British Heart Foundation, Diabetes UK, ChildLine, Young Minds. Probably all good causes and also charities of a scale that can negotiate inclusion on a national ATM network.

The charity I was visiting was just two doors down. It is the sort of small, local charity that comes to mind when people think of a ‘charity’. It supports homeless people into private rented flats and helps them keep their tenancies. It is heart-driven: the kind of place where staff drive across town to collect a donated radiator when a client’s heating has stopped working. It is small: two staff and operating on c. £50k per year. If you are homeless you will have heard of this charity or will be directed to it pretty quickly. Otherwise, they struggle to get themselves known.

In the UK, we have campaigns to source food locally and shop locally. But what about giving locally?

For those making donations, giving to a local charity makes a lot of sense. You are likely to understand the issues and see the results of their work. You can visit the charity and so can better trust that your donation makes a difference. Your donation is also more likely to have a bigger impact as local charities tend to be smaller - £500 is a huge windfall for a charity running on £50k per year.

There are arguments against local giving. If we all give locally then the money tends to go to those living near to the wealthy and not those in the greatest need. As Caroline Fiennes says in her book ‘It ain’t what you give it’s the way that you give it’: “some of the most under-resourced and horrible issues remain out of reach to local donors”. Many donors like to give to groups both at home and overseas for that very reason. And it is also important to remember that local does not necessarily mean good. So do always check out the effectiveness and support those doing a good job. (see my blog ‘Tips for giving’: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/tips-giving-emma-beeston)

But don’t be lured by the easy option of hitting the ATM button. You may well be just a few steps away from a great charity where your donation will be appreciated even more.

Emma Beeston Consultancy advises funders and philanthropists on giving strategies and processes; selecting causes and charities; assessments and impact monitoring. Services for charities include external perception reviews; bid reviews; training for fundraisers and non-fundraisers involved in bids. www.emmabeeston.co.uk ; emma@emmabeeston.co.uk; emmabeeston01

In praise of fundraisers

Last year was not kind to fundraisers. They and their practices came in for a lot of criticism in the sector and wider press. The start of 2016 does not look much rosier: diminishing public funds and the discussions about regulating fundraising look set to continue this year. I meet a lot of very hard working and inspiring fundraisers and so I thought I would start my new blogging year with some well-deserved praise.

At the end of 2015 I attended some great training on financial sustainability at NCVO. I was the only funder in a room full of fundraisers and I learned a lot from listening to the issues they were all grappling with in coming up with funding strategies for their charities. When assessing charities, I get to read lots of business plans and funding strategies. It is relatively easy to critique these and comment along the lines of “this charity is over-reliant on one source of funding and needs to diversify its income streams”. What the fundraisers I met with at NCVO reminded me is that I am in the lucky position of being able to comment on strategies, while these fundraisers have to actually deliver. They have to come up with a sustainable funding strategy with diverse income streams that turns into actual cash – oh and at the right time and in a steady, planned flow please.

Three things in particular struck me about just how difficult this task is:

1. It weighs heavy – it is one thing to analyse funding sources and trends and come up with a plan in theory. But fundraisers have to do that whilst deeply engaged with the work of the charity, knowing what difference it makes to clients and working alongside the staff and volunteers. That means they bear the responsibility of people’s jobs and whether services continue or not.

2. It takes resources - to have diverse income streams means having funding coming from several different sources e.g. contracts, legacies, regular donors, grants, community events, corporate sponsorship, trading. Each income stream needs to be managed and reported on separately. A small charity with lots of different income streams has to engage and manage a lot of different supporters and funders which all requires time and expertise.

3. It involves managing people – small charities are likely to have volunteers and Trustees doing the fundraising or may employ one or two paid fundraisers. No one individual or small team will have the skills needed for all areas of fundraising. Writing a tender document is very different from persuading someone to run a marathon for your cause. Switching emphasis from one type of fundraising to another will often mean letting current staff go and recruiting for the new expertise needed. And it will certainly mean managing change and all that brings.

Fundraisers have to do all this in a hostile climate. Their costs divert precious funding from front line services. They need to convince the Trustees that the return on any investment in fundraising is worth it. And yet no-one knows for sure that the chosen funding strategy is going to be right.

I for one, am going to be heading into 2016 with a reinvigorated respect for all those charities – and their fundraisers – who are trying to diversify their funding and secure a more financially sustainable future for those they support.

Emma Beeston Consultancy advises funders and philanthropists on giving strategies and processes; selecting causes and charities; assessments and impact monitoring. Services for charities include external perception reviews; bid reviews; training for fundraisers and non-fundraisers involved in bids. emma@emmabeeston.co.uk ; www.emmabeeston.co.uk ; @emmabeeston01

How to avoid unwanted gifts

The exchanging of gifts at Christmas brings with it the awkwardness of what to do with an unwanted gift. Do you pretend to like it? Do you return it or perhaps give it away?  We all get gift giving wrong sometimes – it is hard to choose the right present and wanting to achieve the element of surprise means you cannot ask the recipient what they most want.

There are no such excuses when it comes to giving a gift to a charity. 

If you read the research, charities are clear that what they want is an unrestricted donation so that they can chose how best to spend it and will most likely spend it on their core costs. It can sometimes be difficult for them to say this to you directly as they are trying to second guess what you would be happy with – think of a teenager coming up with gift ideas for Grandma when what they really want is cash.  If it is important for you to know exactly how your donation will be spent, ask and the charity should be able to tell you what item, staff role or project is a current priority for them. Many of them will already have come up with some packages to help you e.g. £15 or £200 or £2,000 or £10,000 will pay for …

When donors direct how a donation can be used, without consulting the charity, it can cause difficulty. For example, in one recent example, people with good intentions donated clothes and shoes to a small charity supporting refugees. The stretched charity staff and volunteers were diverted from their usual work to spend time getting rid of unwanted items when actually what the charity really needed was money to pay volunteer expenses and the utility bills and extra staff hours to keep their centre open longer to cope with the rise in demand of refugees seeking help. In other examples I have seen generous gifts left in a will cause nothing but frustration as they were so tightly tied to a project that was already fully funded or a piece of work that was not the most needed.

So to avoid the difficulties associated with unwanted gifts this year, do the best you can to ensure your donation brings smiles all round. Check out the charity and their impact. When you are confident they are good, give a donation with no strings attached. I am sure they will be delighted to tell you how they spent it.

Emma Beeston Consultancy advises funders and philanthropists on giving strategies and processes; selecting causes and charities; assessments and impact monitoring. Services for charities include external perception reviews; bid reviews; training for fundraisers and non-fundraisers involved in bids. E: emma@emmabeeston.co.uk; T: emmabeeston01