Is it easier to give or to get?

At Quartet Community Foundation’s recent annual philanthropy debate, the question posed was:

This house believes it is more difficult to give money away intelligently

than to earn it in the first place.

As someone who earns my living advising donors which charities to invest in, I had a foot in both camps. It is hard to make a living as a philanthropy advisor in the UK. But the very reason I do get paid to do my job is it is not easy to give to charity, if you want to do it well.

Speaking for the motion were philanthropist Helen Wilde and Bevis Watts from Triodos Bank. They made a good case for the difficulties that come with giving intelligently:

• How do you find effective charities that are not the big high profile ones?  
• How do you choose which ones to support? 
• How do you sift through the poor proposals to find the quality ones?
• It takes time and effort to spend wisely. 
• It takes experience and good judgment to identify those charities that need money but are not about to fold.
• You need to find out which are meaningful, credible, ethical, will have impact and are working with others to maximise resources and avoid duplication. 
• Backing a charity involves taking a risk and that is a hard thing to do with your money.

And surely this is harder than making money by sitting in your house whilst it values accrues?

But it was the case against that won the vote by 73% to 27%. Stephen Fear and Andrew Garrad’s basic argument was that making money is hard work. Yes there is an element of luck and it helps if you are born into social advantage or inherit. But it is down to putting in the long hours and surviving that leads to business and financial success. Whilst giving to charity? Well, they argued that that is easy – it is just common sense and uses the same skills anyone would use to decide what project to run with.

So I ended up in the minority. I agreed with the winning speakers that it is easy to give to charity. But only if you go along with their premise that any charity is worth giving to. I still take the view that giving intelligently is harder to do as charities are not all equal. If you want to maximise the benefit from your gift then you have to put in the work to discriminate between the many options.

It was a lively debate and a good evening. And I left suspecting that those not at the table - the charities out there delivering - probably have it hardest of all.

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't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear

I am frequently asked “what makes a good funding bid?” I do deliver workshops on how to write successful applications and there are lots of training courses, guides and blogs out there that all seek to answer that same question.

But what often gets overlooked, is that in order to write a good bid, it is crucial to actually be good in the first place. It is much easier to focus on producing good copy when your charity already has a clear mission in place and is delivering a needed and quality service. It is the same as a job application: it is easier to craft something when you can demonstrate how you meet everything in the person specification than it is to put a positive spin on your gaps.

But it is very difficult to be good at everything all of the time. A charity may spend time on reviewing and strengthening its governance. But that means it has less time to spend on other work such as reading about all the latest new developments in their sector. So what do you do in a funding bid when not everything is 100% how you want it to be?

Funders will assess and rate different aspects of your work and will have different tolerances. For example, if your work is reaching out to a very marginalised community and getting good results, they are less likely to worry that you have work to do on your business plan. So the first thing is to try and work out the likely response of a potential funder. If they highlight that user involvement is important and you have this down as something you need to improve, then it is not the right time to write that bid.

If you seem a good fit with the criteria but things fall short of what you (and the funder) would like them to be, then it is time to be upfront and work hard on your presentation. There is a world of difference between “we don’t have a business plan” and “because of the funding issues we faced last year our business plan became out of date. Now we have funding in place for the next two years, it is a priority for our Trustees to create a new business plan to take the charity forward. We have started discussions and have an away day planned for May.”

This response brings the charity to life, is honest and confident. In a world where marketing spin is easily spotted, this approach is far more credible.

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

Reflections on Year One

I am celebrating making it through my first year of working as a consultant philanthropy advisor and felt it made a good point in time to share my reflections on the experience so far. The key things I have learned about working independently are: 

1. I have been pleasantly surprised at how collaborative the world of consultancy is. I thought it would be and feel much more competitive. People have been generous with their time, help and advice and there is a great exchange of opportunities and information amongst fellow consultants.
2. After years as an employee it is liberating – and at times daunting - to voice my own opinions in conversations and blogs. Not that I’ve worked anywhere where I didn’t have a voice, but I have always been a representative of a wider consensus or company policy. It probably won’t shock anyone who knows me, but I wasn’t expecting just how much I enjoy sharing and writing what I think.
3. What I have been told about the ‘feast and famine’ of being a consultant is true. As an employee and a manager I have dealt with busy periods and quieter periods, but the peaks and troughs are less steep. In effect, consultants have no ongoing core funds. They are paid for projects, and those projects can come along like buses. However, the upside of downtime is the ability to network, read and plan ahead.
4. How you get feedback is very different. Employees get regular feedback on performance from managers. With clients it is much more about whether they hire you or not and whether they work with you again. But as there are other factors involved in the process of being hired, such as budget changes, it is not always easy to tell what clients think. Having said that, it is a good feeling when you get paid for what you have produced. It’s a very straightforward message of your value that it is hard for an employer to do.
5. Because I don’t have a wider team around me who know the issues and personalities I am dealing with, I don’t have people to air those with or bounce ideas around. Talking out loud is often how I solve problems. Having a supportive partner at home and some fabulous mentors to share some of those issues with becomes invaluable. My dog gets to hear the rest. But lovely though he is, his views on philanthropy are very limited.

So a big thank you to everyone who has helped and encouraged (and paid!) me along the way. I am looking forward to the year ahead.

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 get what you pay for

As consumers, we all want to know what we get for our money, and funders are no different. The heart of a funding decision is often the competitive comparisons of ‘what will the money pay for and what difference will that make, to who and how?’ So that the value or return can be measured and considered in a tangible way.

Philanthropists too are attracted to tangibles whether a capital appeal towards a building or to restore an important painting or just to know what benefit individuals will get from a donation. One example, from Spear London, shows how this, now common, fundraising technique is used to communicate how amounts of money are matched to what it will pay for:

HOW YOUR MONEY CAN BE SPENT

• £20 pays for a thermal sleeping bag
• £50 pays for an outreach shift to ensure that we don’t miss a rough sleeper
• £100 pays for food for all our hostel residents
• £250 pays for a new home starter kit for someone moving to permanent accommodation

The reality is that charities need all their costs covered and not just those listed. All charities find it easier to raise money for projects than they do their core costs. Therefore the admin time, insurances, planning days, staff recruitment and management time gets built into an attractive project with tangible outcomes. However, adding too many core costs may make it look like the project is expensive. Adding too little of the core costs runs the risk that the project is under-resourced and so cannot be maintained.

If philanthropists just fund projects, the risk is that they are weakening the very organisation they want to support. To avoid joining in with this dance, philanthropists can give unrestricted donations for a charity to use on whatever costs they wish. But the desire for a tangible result runs deep, so if you still want to know exactly how your money will be spent, I have a suggestion for you.

In these straightened times, charities are having to cut their cloth. One item increasingly being trimmed is staff and volunteer training and development. With people being the biggest asset of any charity this is a short-term fix. So if you want to specify how your donation is used, how about asking for it to be used to cover the costs of training and development?

There are a number of foundations already doing this:

• Clore Duffield Foundation – individual training budgets for leaders with a social purpose
• Wolfson Foundation – covers palliative care course fees for doctors and nurses
•  Paul Hamyln Foundation – has a new Teacher Development Fund coming in September 2016
• Foundation for PSA – covers the costs of conferences and courses for those delivering acute mental health services to adolescents

Given the size of the charity sector and the number of staff and volunteers involved, there is scope to do more in this area. Your donation will be greatly appreciated by your recipient charity now and represents an investment in their future. And you will still know exactly how your money is spent and the impact that it will have.

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

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