The Big Lottery Fund awards millions of pounds to community groups and projects that improve health, education and the environment through its grant programmes. Managing bids can be challenging, but the Children's Society has been fine tuning its processes for 18 years, says Eudora Pratt.

The Children’s Society has over 18 years of experience bidding for National Lottery good-cause funding and we’re currently managing 24 ‘Reaching Communities’ Big Lottery-funded projects worth £10m.  

We have a dedicated grants team who work closely with our projects across the country and over the years we have implemented a clear process which has been fine-tuned for each application.

The process also involves having buy-in from our senior management team at the start to review project proposals against our core values and Big Lottery Fund’s criteria.

It helps enormously to have this level of focus from senior members as they can then encourage and motivate members of their teams, across our departments, who may be involved in the application once it has been approved.

Here are some of the things we’ve learnt along the way:
 
We must make sure that each bid will deliver the best outcome for children. Without a successful result for families, something has gone wrong along the way.

We have learnt to develop and maintain effective working relationships with key partners in the community. This is crucial because our bids will always focus on location and community-driven need.

So we often work with local authorities, health partners, or other voluntary agencies. Managing the partnership relationships is a critical part of the process and this can be difficult as everyone involved will naturally have different priorities. Finding a common ground always works.

We do this by identifying common targets that align with the Big Lottery Fund’s criteria so resources can be pooled and the risk of duplication is reduced.  We have learnt that having regular meetings with the right people in the room and having clear roles and responsibilities helps to create a sense of ownership. We have also developed ‘Working Together Agreements’ which act as action plans and these are regularly reviewed.

The whole bidding process can be complex and can require a lot of time and resources from staff. To make sure we have the right level of dedication we have to factor this in to the planning process. It’s important that staff are engaged early on in the process to ensure key tasks are delivered on time and within budget.

Understanding the local area and needs of families are vital for making a very strong bid. For example through consultation, we listen to families to ensure their voices are heard and that services are meeting their needs. We also review the needs of children through observation and participation. We see which provisions are already in place for specific communities, and which of these are working.

Finally, what works really well for us is having a grant manager to provide grant administration and act as the main point of contact between us and the Big Lottery Fund.  

The grant manager works very closely with our projects and any funding arrangement for new work is supported by a Service Level Agreement to ensure compliance with Big Lottery Fund’s terms and conditions.

Eudora Pratt is partnership development manager at the Children’s Society