Frustration and disappointment often accompany a grant application refusal – on both the applicant and grantmaker sides – but a guide released today aims to outline best practice for rejections and ensure that even refusals offer value to grantseekers.

The Art of Refusal covers a variety of subjects including how to try to avoid a grant refusal and how to deal with and learn from one.

For grant-seekers, the guide encourages early contact with the grantmaker and offers advice on how to respond to the rejection, solicit feedback and manage the bad news within the organisation. Grantmakers are encouraged to adopt best practice in feeding back, outlining their funding parameters and how to go about refusing an application.

The guide is released by Cass Business School’s Centre for Charity Effectiveness on the back of research funded by the Charities Aid Foundation which studied over 100 grantmakers and 40 grant applicants.

Jon Fitzmaurice, one of the report co-authors and a visiting fellow at Cass, said: “We found there was a lot of frustration on both sides. Grant-seekers wanted more feedback even when it was good news and grantmakers recognise the need to give feedback but struggle to find the time to do so in detail. If both sides work harder at this process the sector will benefit enormously.”