In grant funding, there are very few things that are completely, universally true. The landscape of grant-making organisations, “funders”, is so big that there is probably an example of at least one organisation funding something that others don’t.
Who would have thought that there are funders who , there are although the work still needed to have a social purpose. That’s what makes it difficult to write a blog about things to know when applying for grants. Funders are not homogenous: some want tried-and-tested, others want innovation; some want opportunities to engage their employees in volunteering, others want anonymity. The list is endless. Some things are truer, and resonate with more funders, than others and the more of that 99% (of any issue) you can meet, the greater your funding potential. Writing applications is truly subjective , below are some tips covering effective content; 1. We’re not dealing with an exact science. Two people could read the same funding application and have wildly different viewpoints about its quality. If these two people are producing the application rather than, say, assessing it, this can sometimes lead to tension. The voluntary sector is full of passionate people and people rightly want applications to be the best representation of their organisation and work. But people can also become very attached to their own writing. 2. There are different types of funders (for whom different approaches resonate.)Emotive case studies might be persuasive to an independent, family-led Trust, whereas a What Works Centre (e.g. Youth Futures Foundation) will want to see outcome data and an evidence-based delivery model. It can therefore be hard to agree on the final content of an application. 3 .A great application “gets out of the way” - let the content of your organisation’s work shine. To borrow an analogy from sport: it’s a football referee whose performance is so good you don’t notice them. A funding assessor should be able to read an application without any prior knowledge of your organisation, project and beneficiaries and understand what you will do if you receive funding. If an application reads like a dissertation written by a university student trying to sound smart and struggling to reach a minimum word count, something’s gone wrong. Instead, a great application should feel like a good storyteller – detail-oriented enough so others understand what will happen, passionate enough so others know why it should happen. That’s easier said than done. A good application can only take you so far The longer you apply for grants, the more you learn to accept the limitations of an application. An application can only put your best foot forward - whether it’s successful or not is out of your control. Even the strongest possible application about a certain project or organisation can be rejected, as funders have calculations behind the scenes that you can’t always account for. They might have recently funded several other charities in your region and want to spread their grants. One of their trustees might have an underwhelming view on the benefits of the arts. A grants panel might have concerns about your financial position or a preference for charities of a different size. Some funders will search for any negative publicity about your organisation or its leadership, wary of reputational risk. Great applications can be unsuccessful and poor applications successful because the funder had few or no other similar grantees in terms of the type of work or geographic location. That’s the thing: your application does not exist in a vacuum. You often have no idea what you’re in competition with. Chances of success are a sliding scale Different parts of a hypothetical application contribute to a total score between 0-100. It’s 30 points for the strength of evidencing your impact to date, 30 points for your project delivery plans, 20 points for the strength of evidencing the need for your work, 10 points for your organisation being led by people with lived experience of a certain issue, 10 points for your organisation having appropriate policies. If you don’t have any outcome data from past work, or the data you have is only anecdotal, that’s 30 points knocked off your score. If less than 25% of your leadership has lived experience, that’s 10 points knocked off your score. Suddenly, you can barely score more than half the possible points, no matter how well-written your application is or how good the project idea is. This isn’t to put anyone off applying for funding, but it is so competitive – possibly more so than ever. If a funder has criteria you’re struggling to meet, or it feels like a square peg in a round hole, temper your expectations or consider whether it is worth applying for. When preparing for applications you should ask “can we apply without X?” or “will X be enough detail?”. Your response should be “ I can still apply, but we’re less likely to be successful”. Fundraisers applying for grants certainly have no easy job. With financial pressures, deadlines and a power dynamic with funders where you find yourself jumping through hoops, it can be incredibly stressful. Don’t go into an application half-hearted. Relationships rule What has been detailed above is with “cold” applications in mind, i.e. where there is no previous relationship with the funder. There are exceptions to criteria where there is an existing, positive relationship with a funder. Exceptions or leeway that didn’t apply the other 99 times out of 100. Usually, this happens with independent trusts and foundations, or corporate foundations/funders, but generally speaking you’re in a stronger position to receive funds if you’re known to a funder, regardless of what type of funder they are. For this reason, it’s often worth applying for a smaller grant first to build familiarity with a funder, rather than applying for the largest amount possible without any prior relationship. The importance of relationships is why the emergence of AI is not something fundraisers should be afraid of. Instead, platforms like ChatGPT can be a powerful tool to support bid-writing, not a direct replacement for a fundraiser. Like any tool, you get out what you put in. It can speed up research to support a needs analysis or research to identify 20 funders awarding grants to tackle digital poverty. However, if you ask it to write a bid without sufficient information about your work, or you don’t have quality outcome data, it won’t overcome some of the challenges highlighted above. A
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