The Community Foundation for Greater Manchester and the Frank Buttle Trust have been shortlisted for the grantmaking 2010 Charity Awards. 

Community Foundation for Greater Manchester

Providing funding for disadvantaged communities

“Helping ordinary people do extraordinary things” is the ethos of the Community Foundation for Greater Manchester, an organisation that engages committed donors and matches them with areas of concern.

Since the Foundation began in 1989, over £20m has been distributed to over 8,000 community groups and projects, improving the lives of many people in the region.

In one recent project, the Community Foundation worked collaboratively with Irwell Valley Housing Association (IVHA) to help realise the organisation’s aspiration to create a community investment programme that would deliver sustainable, accessible and measurable grant funding to benefit individuals and communities in their local neighbourhoods. IVHA provides homes and services to over 16,000 residents cross Greater Manchester. It wanted to invest £1m in its new Irwell Valley Golden Foundation, but then the Community Foundation convinced it to apply for match-funding through the government’s Grassroots Grants scheme.

“The match-funding opportunity offered by the Grassroots Grants scheme meant that we would double our money, which was an opportunity not to be missed,” says Dr Tom
Manion, chief executive of IVHA. “But what it really meant was that we could create an infinite and sustainable fund to be available and benefit our housing areas and residents forever.”

The Frank Buttle Trust

Employed new technology to speed up grant decisions

The Frank Buttle Trust is the UK’s largest specialist charity to award grants to individuals, providing small grants to severely disadvantaged families. Its grants tend to pay for essential items like cookers, washing machines or beds.

Following a review of its processes, the Trust overhauled its grantmaking system and cut the typical turnaround time for its child support grants from six weeks to one, without incurring any additional staff costs. At the same time, the number of grants awarded increased by 81 per cent and overall admin costs were cut.

The restructure was kicked off in 2004 when the new chief executive reviewed the Trust’s grantmaking practices and found that the entirely paper-based process resulted in extensive duplication of activities and delays in grant approvals.

An IT consultant was employed, who recommended the Trust install a bespoke database and grant management system which would consolidate administrative systems, introduce an e-application form, and automate decision management.

At the same time, partnerships with national and local social welfare organisations were drawn up to secure more funding, raise the Trust’s influence, and boost its sustainability.

Since 2004, child support applications to the Trust have doubled. Yet in the year to March 2009, the Trust awarded 10,397 grants, an increase of 81 per cent in five years.