Applications: 0. (Post in London now slower than in Ethiopia - not a joke as I have experience of both). Coffee: not enough yet. Hours of sleep: 4. Ugh.
I have just come from a fascinating breakfast seminar at Clothworkers' Hall in the City, hosted by the European Association for Philanthropy and Giving and New Philanthropy Capital, whose work I like. (One of these links is a joke, by the way. See if you can guess which one.) It was all around Trusteeship, and was an opportunity to explore issues related to NPC's recent report on the topic.
From the perspective of a fundraiser in the an operational charity, I would guess that the most interesting discussion was around the question of the "donor-trustee". A cousin from across the pond noted that in the US, it is almost always expected that a trustee will either make a significant personal contribution to the charity, or be able to leverage, say $100,000 a year. That's the price for serving on the Board. Fail, or be unwilling, and you're out on your ear. As you will no doubt be aware, the UK model tends to avoid that sort of dynamic altogether, emphasising skills and volunteerism.
What do you think? Funding is of course the life-blood of a charity, and trustees are obliged to work in the beneficiaries' best interest. It may be assumed that they will press the flesh, especially if times are hard, but should it be expected? There are of course differing views. On the "assets" side, it narrows the gap between Trustees and staff, gets the former involves, and helps in securing the income base. On the "liabilities" side, could you end up with uncommitted or inappropriate trustees that you can't get rid of, because they're so financially valuable to the charity? Could there even be a spectre of a 'weighty' trustee inappropriately influencing the direction of the charity?
It's a tough-ee, as they say across t' water.
Whatever the ramifications of that particular conundrum, a lot of tessellating issues were raised about models of governance, recruitment of a Board and how to form a "team" rather than just a collection of skilled (and sometimes egotistical?) individuals, and how involved (or not) trustees should be in a charity's work.
Wednesday 23 September 2009
Tuesday 11 August 2009
Back from hols
Applications: surprisingly few. Emails: 2,946. Stack of stuff to deal with: About 2ft 3in high.
I've been on a beautiful holiday to France. Just lovely. Now I'm back piloting the desk in what is supposed to be our "recess" and I've rather a lot to catch up on. I let you know if, in the process of ploughing through it all, I turn up anything interesting!
I've been on a beautiful holiday to France. Just lovely. Now I'm back piloting the desk in what is supposed to be our "recess" and I've rather a lot to catch up on. I let you know if, in the process of ploughing through it all, I turn up anything interesting!
Tuesday 21 July 2009
Bumpf
Applications: 7. Rejects: 5. Things to do before I go on holiday: 400. Sheets of paper under my control: 4,000,000,000,000
Naturally, dear fundraiser, you want everybody to know more about your work, and to develop an enthusiasm about it. And I am enthusiastic - whatever it is that you do. I wouldn't - couldn't - do this job unless I was.
But sadly, there are only so many hours in the day. Some charities send me stuff, and I always read it. Others send me things, and I just don't have the time. It goes in one of the drawers in the picture. Nineteen drawers, all fairly full with only 4-5 years worth of literature from organisations that we've given grants to. If you go "in the drawer", it's not necessarily a bad thing. I may know a lot about your organisation and be very confident in your work - only fishing out your magazine when you apply again, or send a report which will need to go to the Trustees.
Strangely, I find myself agreeing with the "don't send me glossy literature!" mob. I opposed them vehemently when I was in Marketing - naturally - but there's a measure of truth in what grumpier donors say, when they mumble into their cornflakes about not needing all this bumpf.
At the same time, it does mean that you don't get forgotten! And it is almost always good stuff. I'm not saying don't send it. But please think of the filing cabinets when you do. And the trees...
Set a communications objective, a strategy for every donor, every trust, every "account". If you get an inkling that your stuff might not be welcome, best to err on the side of caution. If I, running a medium-sized grantmaking operation full-time, find it all a bit overwhelming and have to devote some much time and space to filing it, imagine how a small family trust running out of someone's study would feel...
Naturally, dear fundraiser, you want everybody to know more about your work, and to develop an enthusiasm about it. And I am enthusiastic - whatever it is that you do. I wouldn't - couldn't - do this job unless I was.
But sadly, there are only so many hours in the day. Some charities send me stuff, and I always read it. Others send me things, and I just don't have the time. It goes in one of the drawers in the picture. Nineteen drawers, all fairly full with only 4-5 years worth of literature from organisations that we've given grants to. If you go "in the drawer", it's not necessarily a bad thing. I may know a lot about your organisation and be very confident in your work - only fishing out your magazine when you apply again, or send a report which will need to go to the Trustees.
Strangely, I find myself agreeing with the "don't send me glossy literature!" mob. I opposed them vehemently when I was in Marketing - naturally - but there's a measure of truth in what grumpier donors say, when they mumble into their cornflakes about not needing all this bumpf.
At the same time, it does mean that you don't get forgotten! And it is almost always good stuff. I'm not saying don't send it. But please think of the filing cabinets when you do. And the trees...
Set a communications objective, a strategy for every donor, every trust, every "account". If you get an inkling that your stuff might not be welcome, best to err on the side of caution. If I, running a medium-sized grantmaking operation full-time, find it all a bit overwhelming and have to devote some much time and space to filing it, imagine how a small family trust running out of someone's study would feel...
Thursday 2 July 2009
Keeping on track
Applications: 15. Grants approved by the Trustees: 13. Happy fundraisers: at least 13.
The last thing I would want to do is to suggest that grantmakers are anything but professional and consistent. But we all know firstly that grantmaking as a business practice hase evolved markedly in recent years, as has the voluntary sector as a whole. Secondly, charities are not like businesses that have a 'bottom line', and their objectives can be varied and unavoidably nebulous.
This makes it all the more important that there are guidelines, policies, and some sort of business or strategic plan - even if, for many Trusts, these are something of an innovation. My Trustees now get a range of "KPIs" covering the location, sector, beneficiairies of grants so as they can observe how closely they are cohering with (or diverging from) their own recently agreed policies and guidelines.
And yet, at a meeting today, we has a debate - A DEBATE - on those guidelines! I do not and cannot criticise. It derives from my earlier point, that charity is nebulous, wooly. One meeting may decree "we do not do x" but it will not stop a later meeting staying "why do we not do x?" Besides whatever objects by which Trusts are bound, these things are a matter of preference (even emotion); where for a business there are other drivers. However much one is driven by measurement and a desire to acheive impact, there will always be a human element. Let's call it "Trustee freedom". Not only would I not criticise this, I would positively encourage it - provide it does not run unfettered.
That may not help you, dear fundraiser. But it's where your job beings...
The last thing I would want to do is to suggest that grantmakers are anything but professional and consistent. But we all know firstly that grantmaking as a business practice hase evolved markedly in recent years, as has the voluntary sector as a whole. Secondly, charities are not like businesses that have a 'bottom line', and their objectives can be varied and unavoidably nebulous.
This makes it all the more important that there are guidelines, policies, and some sort of business or strategic plan - even if, for many Trusts, these are something of an innovation. My Trustees now get a range of "KPIs" covering the location, sector, beneficiairies of grants so as they can observe how closely they are cohering with (or diverging from) their own recently agreed policies and guidelines.
And yet, at a meeting today, we has a debate - A DEBATE - on those guidelines! I do not and cannot criticise. It derives from my earlier point, that charity is nebulous, wooly. One meeting may decree "we do not do x" but it will not stop a later meeting staying "why do we not do x?" Besides whatever objects by which Trusts are bound, these things are a matter of preference (even emotion); where for a business there are other drivers. However much one is driven by measurement and a desire to acheive impact, there will always be a human element. Let's call it "Trustee freedom". Not only would I not criticise this, I would positively encourage it - provide it does not run unfettered.
That may not help you, dear fundraiser. But it's where your job beings...
Trustees' meeting
The Trustees meet this morning.
This always makes me a bit nervous. They always seem to ask questions that I haven't considered. But I suppose that's their job, and a "good thing."
Back later - if I make it out alive...
This always makes me a bit nervous. They always seem to ask questions that I haven't considered. But I suppose that's their job, and a "good thing."
Back later - if I make it out alive...
Tuesday 30 June 2009
A modest proposal
This, from New Philanthropy Capital, is most interesting. As I have blogged previously, Trusts and Foundations have taken as big a hit as anybody from the credit crunch (though having suggested last November that grants may not fall quite as harshly as endowment values, at least for larger foundations, I might now recant that opinion.)
NPC float the idea that Trusts could borrow now in order to meet the increased needs of struggling charities, servicing the debt later when investment returns improve and demand decreases. (It's essentially a micro-version of the Government's response to the recession.) I hope that the good people of NPC won't mind my linking to their post, and reproducing my own thoughts here:
"The logic is clear. Borrow carefully now, to meet the increased demands of charities in these difficult times; pay back the loan with investment income/growth when times are better AND demands decrease. Sounds like a win-win.
It also sounds, perhaps unsurprisingly, like the "International Finance Facility" which Gordon Brown was trumpeting a few years back - sell bonds to increase overseas aid now, pay it back in future with aid budgets when the demands on those budgets consequently decrease. It's the epitome of a 'Keynesian' solution.
But it's a gamble. Just as the outcome of the present macro-economic policy is genuinely unclear at the moment, so one cannot be absolutely sure that demands on Trusts and Foundations will decrease sufficiently in future to enable debts to be serviced without eating away at much-needed grants funds.
It's also a slightly paradoxical proposal when I think that everybody would wish to see the voluntary sector grow - growth which would be stymied if Trusts had to use grant budgets to service debts.
It's therefore not a bad "emergency" policy, if, indeed, we're facing an emergency. A look at the balance sheets of the Trusts that I oversee suggests that it may well be - some, which are hundreds of years old, have lost 33% of their value in less than a year. Yet, even so, can I envisage the Trustees whom I serve taking such a step? Probably not - and I have been very successful over the past year at encouraging them to be radical!"
UPDATE: might another solution be to find some way of unlocking the funds of the many (often geographically restricted) foundations which struggle to find beneficiaries? In my experience, there are many that struggle to spend money - including some of those that I look after.
Often, these are smaller organisations, but I wonder if the Charity Commission couldn't accelerate their present encouragement of mergers and put forward a programme which would allow small grantmakers who struggle to spend their income a way of both liberalising their objects, and pooling their resources?
I wonder if this would have sufficient impact? Would smaller foundations be amenable to a "sledgehammer" policy which might diminish their identity, if the outcomes for beneficiaries were clear and substantial?
NPC float the idea that Trusts could borrow now in order to meet the increased needs of struggling charities, servicing the debt later when investment returns improve and demand decreases. (It's essentially a micro-version of the Government's response to the recession.) I hope that the good people of NPC won't mind my linking to their post, and reproducing my own thoughts here:
"The logic is clear. Borrow carefully now, to meet the increased demands of charities in these difficult times; pay back the loan with investment income/growth when times are better AND demands decrease. Sounds like a win-win.
It also sounds, perhaps unsurprisingly, like the "International Finance Facility" which Gordon Brown was trumpeting a few years back - sell bonds to increase overseas aid now, pay it back in future with aid budgets when the demands on those budgets consequently decrease. It's the epitome of a 'Keynesian' solution.
But it's a gamble. Just as the outcome of the present macro-economic policy is genuinely unclear at the moment, so one cannot be absolutely sure that demands on Trusts and Foundations will decrease sufficiently in future to enable debts to be serviced without eating away at much-needed grants funds.
It's also a slightly paradoxical proposal when I think that everybody would wish to see the voluntary sector grow - growth which would be stymied if Trusts had to use grant budgets to service debts.
It's therefore not a bad "emergency" policy, if, indeed, we're facing an emergency. A look at the balance sheets of the Trusts that I oversee suggests that it may well be - some, which are hundreds of years old, have lost 33% of their value in less than a year. Yet, even so, can I envisage the Trustees whom I serve taking such a step? Probably not - and I have been very successful over the past year at encouraging them to be radical!"
UPDATE: might another solution be to find some way of unlocking the funds of the many (often geographically restricted) foundations which struggle to find beneficiaries? In my experience, there are many that struggle to spend money - including some of those that I look after.
Often, these are smaller organisations, but I wonder if the Charity Commission couldn't accelerate their present encouragement of mergers and put forward a programme which would allow small grantmakers who struggle to spend their income a way of both liberalising their objects, and pooling their resources?
I wonder if this would have sufficient impact? Would smaller foundations be amenable to a "sledgehammer" policy which might diminish their identity, if the outcomes for beneficiaries were clear and substantial?
Monday 29 June 2009
A year's worth of grantmaking stats
Applications: 4. Rejects: 4. Cups of Coffee: None. Have become a migraineur and suspect the dreaded bean has something to do with it (see below). Applications being considered by the Trustees this week: 15.
Note: even more interesting stats follow!
Hello, funding fiends. It rather seems as though I fell into that "hole" again, non? (See previous entry.) In point of fact I did; it was a hole filled with a propensity to develop truly debilitating migraines at times of stress, as well as my final postgraduate exams - a vicious circle if ever there was one.
But I have emerged, with a new found resolve to blog my experiences in the hope that they might be of interest - and help - to grant-seeker and grant-maker alike! Hurrah!
Having now complete a year in the job, it's an appropriate moment at which to hop back on the hobby-horse which led me here in the first place - the phenomenal waste of time and resources involved both in the preparation and the consideration of inappropriate applications, and how it can best be addressed for everybody's benefit.
The stark fact of the matter is this. Since I started collecting data (something never done by these Trusts before) some 89% of applications have not even gone before the Trustees. Acting on my presumed but legally-dubious delegated authority, I have considered that fully 380 applications were too divergent from our guidelines to be worth bothering the Trustees with.
The Trustees have rejected 24% (11) of the applications put before them, (representing 3% of the total number of applications) whilst 76% of applications which reached the Committee resulted in grants (representing 8% of the total received.)
So:
380 rejected outright
11 declined by the Trustees
34 grants
Grants have ranged between £500 and £50,000, have averaged £7,228.51 and have been tenable for between one and three years. We have also been seeking to be more "proactive"* - and 29% of grants, and 42% of the total funds granted have been given to organisations who we have sought out ourselves, through a growing network of impartial yet locally knowledgable contacts across our beneficial area and sectors.
(Fear not, for the Trustees are committed to retaining a substantial reactive capacity, and will continue to consider unsolicited applications.)
Dear fundraiser, you may weep - just as I have wept before. Dear grantmaker, you may well weep also - if you can muster enough oxygen from underneath the swell of proposals, letters and reports which festoon your office.
This is why I'm passionate about bridging the 'gap' between funder and funded. But herein lies a problem. I thought that the best route to this (besides starting this blog, naturellement) would be to ensure that all of the main fundraising websites and directories had accurate information about our guidelines, preferences and application processes.
Having contacted many and seen a noticeable (yet minimal) impact on the number of inappropriate enquiries, I have been waiting eagerly for the next edition of the Directory of Social Change's Directory of Grant-Making Trusts to be put together. Surely, this is the main source of information, and surely there must be some red-herrings in our current entries? Alas, no! Our current entries are disturbingly accurate.
All of this leads me to say once again: funders, be transparent about your preferences, and publicise them as widely as possible! And fundraisers: do your research! Make phone calls, go on the web. Our guidelines are now published on our website, and funders - if yours aren't, may I implore you that your immediate priority is to make sure they are?
Until next time, peace and success.
*You may like to know that in these matters we have been guided, in our strategic infancy, by the outstanding work of New Philanthropy Capital and NCVO.
They represent the two sides of the voluntary sector coin - funders and implementors respectively, and we have made an indelicate attempt to incorporate and to balance their highly-developed views and suggestions on how funding "works" best. Check 'em out.
Thursday 9 April 2009
Fallen down a hole?
Applications: 1,000,000,000,000. Rejects: a goodly percentage, one supposes.
Cups of Coffee: NIL – off caffeine for Lent! Ha! Twinges in the chest which may or may not be heartburn: Half-hourly.
“So, where have you been, Mr/Ms Grantmakerdiaries?” I hear you yell. Suffering from a dreadful dose of Delhi-belly? Injured in a freak accident involving a rabbit and an unstable stack of grant applications?
Kind of a combination of the two. Kind of.
Like everybody, I was stricken by two serious fluey colds in as many months. Notwithstanding the prolonged periods I spent in bed, I was also trying to get a handle on our arcane and labyrinthine accounts before the loverly auditors come in. Now, that threw up a whole lot of fun. Lurking in the forest of files I inherited from my predecessor were a bunch of multi-year commitments that neither I (being relatively new) nor anybody else (worryingly) knew anything about. If you know anything about SORP, you'll know that this guarantees weeks of fun for our Finance team.
Of course, in most cases we'll be getting in touch and saying "dreadfully sorry, muddle our end - bet you could use £10,000 couldn't you?"
But then I wondered why precisely none of the beneficiary charities chased us up? (Accepting, of course, that two wrongs certainly don't make a right.) How the heck? When I was a fundraiser I expect that I was a right old pain in the bum when it came time to "reapply" - often, of course, a formality for accounting reasons rather than a genuine attempt to scrutinise, as I've recently learned and you, dear fundraiser, might be encouraged to hear. Were they just too polite? Don't be - follow the money!
As I seek to drag our grantmaking operation into the 20th [sic] Century, I have instigated, wait for it, a DATABASE. So, we won't be forgetting to pay up in the future. But if your donor does, dear reader, for goodness sake let them know about it! Don't stand on ceremony. Chances are that they are kindly souls who may be embarrassed but will certainly not resent it and will most likely pay up. Screw your courage to the sticking-place!
Happy Easter.
Cups of Coffee: NIL – off caffeine for Lent! Ha! Twinges in the chest which may or may not be heartburn: Half-hourly.
“So, where have you been, Mr/Ms Grantmakerdiaries?” I hear you yell. Suffering from a dreadful dose of Delhi-belly? Injured in a freak accident involving a rabbit and an unstable stack of grant applications?
Kind of a combination of the two. Kind of.
Like everybody, I was stricken by two serious fluey colds in as many months. Notwithstanding the prolonged periods I spent in bed, I was also trying to get a handle on our arcane and labyrinthine accounts before the loverly auditors come in. Now, that threw up a whole lot of fun. Lurking in the forest of files I inherited from my predecessor were a bunch of multi-year commitments that neither I (being relatively new) nor anybody else (worryingly) knew anything about. If you know anything about SORP, you'll know that this guarantees weeks of fun for our Finance team.
Of course, in most cases we'll be getting in touch and saying "dreadfully sorry, muddle our end - bet you could use £10,000 couldn't you?"
But then I wondered why precisely none of the beneficiary charities chased us up? (Accepting, of course, that two wrongs certainly don't make a right.) How the heck? When I was a fundraiser I expect that I was a right old pain in the bum when it came time to "reapply" - often, of course, a formality for accounting reasons rather than a genuine attempt to scrutinise, as I've recently learned and you, dear fundraiser, might be encouraged to hear. Were they just too polite? Don't be - follow the money!
As I seek to drag our grantmaking operation into the 20th [sic] Century, I have instigated, wait for it, a DATABASE. So, we won't be forgetting to pay up in the future. But if your donor does, dear reader, for goodness sake let them know about it! Don't stand on ceremony. Chances are that they are kindly souls who may be embarrassed but will certainly not resent it and will most likely pay up. Screw your courage to the sticking-place!
Happy Easter.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)