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.
