Looking for partners

Applications: 4. Rejects: 3. Cups of Coffee:2. Opportunities to get out of the office: 1 (troubleshooting so def not fun).

An unusually low number of applications for a Thursday. Typically, and with the usual regret, three of the four which arrived were well outside our criteria, and will be getting the dreaded "no" letter in a few weeks or so. One of these, however, was a real 'hit-and-hope'. "We're launching a wonderfully innovative service. We haven't deigned to describe what we'll do, how we match your criteria, or why we're worth supporting, but we are nonetheless hoping to build partnerships with Trusts and Foundations." Well, who isn't? What makes you different to the other 100,000 charities that would like to get more funding from private grantmakers? That's what I want to know. Since it wasn't strictly an "application", I'm afraid your letter was filed WPB - not even in the pile for a "no". Sorry.

I wonder if some CEOs get a bit carried away by the headline figures of mutiple billions of pounds being given away by Trusts every year, and think that if they can get x% of those billions, all their problems are solved. I also wonder if their poor fundraising staff are put under unrealistic pressures to raise a certain figure, without a realistic appraisal of whether it's going to be feasible. Are there enough funders willing to support YOUR work? That's the key question. Break the billions down, and within you will find realism. We're not just branches of a very large charitable bank, we're all essentially groups of people with our own priorities and our own philanthropic "personalities."

That's partly why I'm starting this blog. I've alternated between being a grantmaker and fundraiser for my entire career. Being a fundraiser is hard. I know that if I had had an opportunity to glance daily at the experiences of a grantmaker, I would have grabbed it with both hands - even if it was just an anonymous and relatively humdrum description of what they were up to day-to-day. Hence, being a grantmaker once more, I thought that I would try to offer that opportunity. I hope that what I write will be both interesting and useful; helping to cross the no-man's-land between the grantmaking trench and the fundraising trench. For trench warfare it isn't, even if it feels like it sometimes. When all's said and done we're on the same team, trying to help in whatever way we can.

If I can help fundraisers to get a feel for the everyday work of a grantmaker, and to see that we're really just overworked and put-upon office bunnies too, I hope that it will be worth it.