When at Comic Relief this week I overheard one fundraiser
say “if only there was one place that fundraisers could post their request for
all funders to access”. I have heard this sentiment expressed many times over
my years in grant making. I think we can all agree on the problem: that in
order to get funding, charities have to complete lots of separate application
forms that all ask for roughly the same information and then send them to lots
of different funders. It is a process full of duplicated effort – on both
sides.
The tricky bit is working out the right solution. There have
been attempts at a common application form and examples of funders pooling
funds so applicants are applying just once. In fact, this is what the Community
Foundations seek to address with their model. But as funders have different
decision timetables and criteria, it can be hard to get these approaches to
work. Technology has offered promising solutions such as Localgiving and the Big Give, which both provide a
platform for charities to promote their work and enable donors to search for
those they want to support. And more recently The Good Exchange, created by the
Greenham Common Trust, “makes it simple to connect those looking to make a
difference in their local community with those who are able to provide the
financial support”. And here’s the rub: these are all good answers to the
problem, but in practice what they mean is that instead of writing lots of
application forms, charities now have to write and manage lots of online
profiles. So should you have an entry on the co-operative website, and on a
crowdfunding platform, and on Charity Choice, and on JustGiving and on Remember
a Charity and, and, and … ?
As soon as we have more than one solution, we are back to
the original problem. Except we do have one place where all charities have to
post their information and which all funders use to check that charities are
registered and to access accounts: the Charity Commission. Wouldn’t it be great
if the annual return required all charities to also give answers to the most
common application questions: a summary of the organisation, a summary of activities,
the numbers of staff and volunteers, how they listen to the voices of the
people they serve, the outcomes of their work, a typical case study, their
plans for the year ahead. That way they would just need to tell a potential
funder what had changed since their last submission and the specifics of
whatever they want funding for. And imagine if all this data was searchable?
Then funders would be able to proactively seek out e.g. all those charities
working with travellers in the South West, or take a look at the difference
they are making, and decide which ones to approach. And what if charities could
also upload content such as short films or appeals for particular projects?
Perhaps this is a pipe dream – and I am sure you, like me, can think of all
kinds of barriers to it working – but we do have an opportunity right now. The Charity
Commission are consulting on the annual return:
“We are
seeking your views on changes to the content and structure of the annual return
for charities and how we target questions so that they only require the
information which is needed for regulatory purposes.”
If you feel there is an opportunity here, now is your chance
to tell the Charity Commission (even though they really want responses to their
specific questions but hey, if you don’t ask…). You have until noon on 9th
March 2017.
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
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