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Central applicant data bank for funders mooted
The voluntary sector should establish a central data bank where all grant applicants can lodge standard information about their organisations, to be accessed by funders wishing to verify their authenticity and vital statistics.
The suggestion has come from Trevor Lockwood (pictured), who is director of Social Enterprise East of England, a director of the Suffolk Association of Voluntary Organisations, and chair of Felixstowe Community Radio.
He mooted the idea for a central data agency in a forum post on the Department for Communities and Local Government website. The concept was borne out of his frustration at the vast amounts of time spent by voluntary groups filling out application forms, often providing much the same information in different ways for each one.
‘Save millions of wasted hours’
“There should be a central agency where we lodge our Mem & Arts, our policies on myriad range of significant areas that need a policy, perhaps our insurances, details of directors and bank accounts,” Lockwood wrote.
“Once there, and updated with a yearly report, there should be no need to provide all that information, endlessly, to funders, to local authorities, to lenders. It would save millions of wasted hours.”
He told Charity News Alert that Felixstowe Community Radio recently lodged five applications to different departments within Suffolk County Council, and had to fill out 15-page application forms for each one, despite all the funding requests being for less than £2,000 each.
Much of this duplication could be avoided if there was a standard template for a broad sweep of common information, such as latest annual accounts and business plans, Lockwood said.
“My background is in commerce so I am interested in efficiencies. I keep noticing that lots of local charities are employing a full-time fundraiser, and I can’t help but think that if we could get an accredited system in place for storing this kind of information, it would save them all so much time and money.”
Accreditation on both sides
He acknowledged that some sort of accreditation may need to be attached to both sides – the funders and applicants that would use the resource.
And he suggested that an existing agency such as the Charity Commission or the Fundraising Standards Board could take the initiative in setting the bank up.
Not the FRSB’s remit
An FRSB spokeswoman said the FRSB would “applaud any initiative that makes it easier for charities and voluntary groups to access funding as applying for grants and funds can certainly be a very arduous task”.
However, she added that Lockwood’s suggestion would be well outside the government’s remit for the FRSB, let alone its resources. “The Charity Commission does already hold much of this information but Mr Lockwood’s suggestion is certainly worthy of future discussion amongst grant-givers and local authorities.”
Not the Commission’s remit
The Charity Commission said its register of charities was already used by some grant-makers looking to check details of registration, accounts submission, and activities of particular charities, and that this information could provide an important element of any sort of central data bank that did emerge.
“However, given that our focus is on the regulation of charities rather than fundraising as such, it wouldn’t be for the Commission to look at developing such a data bank beyond the information that we already make available,” said a spokesman.
Carol Mack, deputy chief executive of the Association of Charitable Foundations, agreed it was an interesting idea, but stopped short of saying the ACF would take the lead.
“Some of our members already use the Charity Commission site to access applicants’ accounts and a central resource that would provide additional information sounds like it would be worth exploring,” she said.
“It would be very important to get the technology right and so the initiative would have to be properly resourced – and ideally use some of the platforms for sharing information that are already available.”
Place a comment
Sharon Shortland
Fenland Archaeological Trust and Margaret Dobson Trust
3 May 2008
I welcome this idea but, perhaps I am cynical, I can see that a lot of funders would just ignore it and still want their own form so that the info is in the way they want it, then it becomes just soemthing else to fill in. However, as secretary of a small grant- making trust I would find it a useful. But I wonder how it would work, presumably it would be accessed electronically and I wonder how many smaller grant-making trusts who have unapid trustees are computer-literate or have access to their own computer.
Sue Hathaway
Development Officer
Rushmoor Voluntary Services
2 May 2008
I think this initiative is a great idea and worthy of consideration. It could save groups a great deal of time and worry. Staff and volunteer turnover can often lead to loss of information and expertise, particularly when it comes to completing application forms to funders. This task can often be quite daunting to new recruits and not-so-new recruits!
Evelyn Currie
External Funding Support Officer
Aberdeen City Council
1 May 2008
While I support the idea that there could be a central place where some standard information could be placed - eg mem & arts, accounts etc, there will always be a need provide individual applications to individual funders - even if they are within the same organisation - as the criteria for funding will be different in each case and therefore the case that you make will be different in each case. As funders become much more prescriptive in their desire to achieve certain outcomes, the need for applicants to be more precise and detailed in how they approach each funder will increase.
Barry Bryant
Director General
Seafarers UK
1 May 2008
Given the incredibly wide range of funders and donors, I think on a national basis this would be too huge to manage successfully, but it can certainly work within a discrete sector. The major UK maritime grant-makers have formed an informal grouping known as the Maritime Charities Funding Group (MCFG), and one of our short-term objectives (almost achieved!) is the establishment of a common application form and sharing such data across the Group. We also joint-fund research projects and generic development work for all UK seafarers, and share this on a no-cost basis to the 150+ maritime service deliverers. So far, CC and IoF seem impressed!
Emma Tracy
Development Director
St Antony's College, University of Oxford
1 May 2008
When I was director of the Oxfordshire Community Foundation and was a member of the South East Voluntary Sector Funders' Forum, we discussed this very issue at great length.
The difficulties of having a common application form were often down to the different purposes of funding bodies, particularly statutory bodies, who might require very different information on which to make their judgements.
The solution we trialled at the Oxfordshire Community Foundation was to have a 2 side A4 common enquiry form, which asked the very basic questions about the application - and for smaller requests below £500, we considered this form to be adequate for decisions. For larger requests, our Grants Manager would contact individually and enquire for the specific information that might be required for the particular income streams we were managing. We hoped to eliminate wasted effort for applicants in this way.
What I hoped was that this common enquiry form could be used by all the members of SEVSFF and we could circulate the forms to other possible interested funders, assisting applicants who regularly are frustrated in their attempts to find out what other funding streams were available.
I would also suggest application forms should have a tick box for "accounts and constitution lodged with the Charity Commission website?" For most funders, the consitution is only required to check that the organisation is formally constituted; and the accounts only need to be examined once - both of which can be done on screen.
Overall, I think there already exists a mechanism for saving time, postage and effort (via the Charity Commission website, which is free to access) - and funders should take advantage of this.
David Shamash
Director
Covent Garden Group Foundation
30 Apr 2008
I thought GuideStar UK already provides this - or if not all of this, could expand its database to cover all.
Barbara Lawton
Funding Officer
Age Concern Cheshire
30 Apr 2008
Whilst it is sometimes frustrating to repeat the information requested by different funders, a generic or shared database is not the best route. Applications, projects, funders, organisations and groups are all individual and different, and the process should therefore remain individual and different.
Helen Butler
Project Manager
Independent Arts
30 Apr 2008
A lot of this information is on the Charity Commission website if you send in a full report. It's the way that projects have to be tailored to fit the grant funder's criteria and also the budgets that take time. These, unfortunately, are not uniform.
Charles Marshall
F/R and development mgr.
Scottish Seabird Centre
30 Apr 2008
Sounds an excellent idea and hugely saving in time and effort
Les Hems
Director 3rd Sector Data & Analysis
GuideStar
30 Apr 2008
GuideStar promoted this idea about 2 years ago and hoped the the "lead funder" project headed by DWP and DFES would deliver a mechanism that created standardisation and removed wasteful duplication.
GuideStar already offers such a document desposit service for charities. We are also actively trying to engage with local government and grant-making trusts to use this and other information held by GuideStar - so that we can fulfill the role of an "information brokerage".
Margaret Thompson
Administrator
Yapp Charitable Trust
30 Apr 2008
For our grantmaking we already use a mixture of the Charity Commission website and Guidestar. Guidestar already offers registered charities the opportunity to put their own info on the site. We work only with small charities. They don't have paid fundraisers and do waste lots of time on small applications but I wonder whether they would have the capacity to keep a database up-to-date.
Gerald Coleman
30 Apr 2008
Sounds like a good idea worth trying. At least it should be unbiased as it is issued to all and would not be geared to just one possible donor.
John Moore
Deputy Chief Executive
Rural Community Council
30 Apr 2008
Splendid idea. As long as funders, particularly statutory did not see it as an opportunity to reduce funding in view of reduced time spent.
Geoff Cannon
Chair of Finance Committee
CAUSE(NI)Ltd
30 Apr 2008
I think that this is a very good suggestion. Too much time is spent on applications for grants, often with little or no success. It would be both a time saver and a cost reduction.
Gail Pussard
Finance & Resources Director
Treloar Trust
30 Apr 2008
Excellent idea. What the Charity Commission might need to note is that a fee could be charged for being the gatekeeper. Given the amount of time and therefore money saved, a small fee based upon turnover would pay for the service and pay for itself for users.
Peter Lyne
Vice-president
Disabled Motorists Federation
30 Apr 2008
Congratulations Trevor Lockwood on his suggestions regarding establishing a central data bank. Over the last five years I have applied to numerous grant giving organisations, alas, without success! I am constantly faced with the monumental task of filing applications. Regrettably,it would appear that the judging panels of certain funding organisations are simply missing the points that charities are making.
As recently as 25th April I attended a charities workshop with DirectGov in London. A common theme discussed was that there is an increasing need for charities to network more closely in view of the vast amounts of money being extracted by the 2012 Olympics, from the budgets previously 'earmarked' for the third sector. Many small charities will disappear without trace if they do not receive the correct support from funding bodies.Keep up the good work Trevor!
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Join the discussion
Khalila Hassouna
Development manager
CISS (Paris, France)
22 May 2008
The French government has recently set up an online data bank where charities can lodge grant applications to public funders as well as their financial and administrative data. Charities can actually control funders' access to their data and follow the whole application process online. After experiencing a few technical problems, this system works pretty well now and saves a lot of time.
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