Knowing when not to write a funding bid to a trust or foundation is one of the key principles in trust fundraising. Here Ben Wittenberg shares the ten questions the DSC asks itself before it even considers putting together an application.
On the whole, we in the voluntary sector are a principled bunch. Our organisational and personal values are at the core of what we do, and so they should be. But when it comes to applying for and accepting funding, those principles are regularly tested, and they are often tested in two quite distinct ways.
First is simply the desperate and crushing need to get money in – whether to meet targets, contribute to core costs or improve cash-flow that overall pressure is often hard to escape. Second is in the detail of any specific funding application. It’s those questions about every bid or application that assess whether the onerous reporting requirements are too onerous. Or whether the element of the programme that is a low priority for you is something you are willing to deliver in order to make an impact elsewhere.
But as an organisation, how do you make those decisions?
At the Directory of Social Change we faced a similar dilemma a few years ago. An item about grants in a board meeting sparked a discussion about who we might, or might not accept funding from. We covered what I’m sure is familiar ground to many. Would we accept funding from companies involved in the manufacture of say, arms or cigarettes? Or would we accept funding from organisations that have an especially negative environmental impact? How about if we felt that by working with them we could improve their practices?
We questioned whether it was any different to accept money directly from such companies, or from a grant-making trust whose income came from investments in them, before puzzling over the next logical progression that government’s activities are, in certain areas, far more dubious. If we wouldn’t accept money from an arms manufacturer, how could we accept statutory funding from the government that is their biggest customer?
And so the members of the executive were charged with producing organisational guidelines on where we might or might not accept funding from.
After much more discussion, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, we hit a wall. We’d come up with a list of criteria, think for a moment, and find an exception. Or we’d find another circumstance which would make all of the preceding criteria redundant. The best we could conclude was that we’d judge each situation on its merits – valid in its way, but not especially useful in ensuring a consistent approach, or, more importantly, one that could be applied by any of the potential staff members that could be involved in producing a funding application.
So we stopped. We looked at exactly why we were doing this, made some jokes about “because the board told us to”, and decided it was about our principles. What organisationally was right for us, and what felt comfortable in relation to our vision, mission and strategic objectives. And we identified these three key principles that we felt should underpin all of our fundraising activities;