The grantmaker diaries: December 2008

Thursday, 4 December 2008

Straitened circumstances

Applications: 2. Rejects: 2. Cups of Coffee: 1 (so far). Litres of rainwater absorbed by my underwear on the way to work: 4.7

Is the present economic climate a tough challenge for charities? No doubt. Individual giving will surely be massively squeezed as people seek necessarily to trim their budgets. Companies too are feeling decidedly less generous. I heard recently of one of the UK's biggest companies pulling out of a commitment to provide a few thousand quid and the use of a conference room for a couple of days.

But what of grant-making trusts? Well, let me tell you, the asset values of our investment portfolios have plunged by 25-40% in just three months. Our balance sheets look as scary as ****. But this is only bad news if you want to sell. They'll surely bounce back. And of course a drop in asset values is different to a drop in the income derived from those investments, which is the really important figure. It'll fall, for sure, but if our investment managers do their job it'll be by less than the 25%+ we've lost in capital values. And we do have reserves.

So, whilst I've been at pains to point out that Trusts are not just branches of one large charitable bank that you can just stake a claim to a reasonable share of, we are perhaps a bit of a refuge in times of trouble. So don't stop asking!

Monday, 1 December 2008

Some statistics

Applications: 0. (Why?) Cups of coffee: 2. Tasks on the go all at the same time: 53. Grey hairs: many more than this morning.

At our latest Trustees meeting, a total of nine grants were approved, whilst thirty were either rejected at the meeting or intercepted by the Chairman in order to keep the meeting snappy. That suggests a 23% chance of success. However, if you consider that around 90% of applications we receive are so far beyond our criteria that they get filed WPB on arrival, the success rate looks more like 2.3%.

Should you, dear fundraiser, find this enormously disheartening? (After all, I don’t believe that we’re atypical.) Actually, I would say no. Because taking a very unscientific look at the success rate of those applications which clearly meshed with our criteria – geographic and thematic, looks to be in the range of 50-80%.

The lesson? Read the guidelines, friends. The challenge? Publicise them better, colleagues! And don’t be scared to pick up the phone, and so save a lot of time and heartache all round.

Take it from one who knows

· Use A4 paper, and staple your application neatly in the top left-hand corner. Never use folders or fancy clips for an unsolicited application. They really are an utter pain in the arse when dealing a stack of half a million or so other applications.

· Don’t try to blind funders with science, even if your application is complex or specialised. I was told in my University days that the job of an academic is to make difficult concepts sound simple – not the other way around. Take the hint, or your application is likely to be filed WPB*.

· Invite potential funders to come and see you, by all means! Invite us to your events, too. We love the opportunity to get out of the office and get a sense of what’s really going on at the sharp end, though we can’t of course take up every offer. Don’t, however, try to come and see us. Suggesting that you might ‘pop in’ when you’re in the area is likely to make us curl up like frightened cats. We like our private space to be just that.

· Here you go grandmother, this is how you suck eggs. Read the guidelines, please. Pleeeease. If your target supports education for Mongolian goat-herders but excludes medical research, don't take the trouble to explain to us how your medical research will enrich the Mongolian school system. We will definitely not be impressed. WPB. Take my word for it.

* WPB = waste paper basket