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...
2 comments:
So pleased to see you posting again! As a fellow fundraiser turned grant-maker, I'm always interested in what you have to say.
Thought-provoking comments. I'm a big fan of trusts which leave themselves the latitude to fund 'x' even when 'x' is outside their guidelines. But I can see that it doesn't make your job any easier because you want us lot on this side of the fence to read the *%£!ing guidelines, and respect them. It's a double-edged metaphor. If we get so much as a whiff of 'exceptional' grants being made, we will chance our arm. (Actually, I don't, as a general rule, but a lot in the fundraising community will.)
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