Alan Eagle discusses how and why he set up a new funding initiative that makes it quick and easy for small charities to secure grants

Last year I wrote about how many funders have seen a decline in both the number and, more worrying, the quality of applications that they are receiving [see The Fundraiser, issue 20, August 2012].

This, I suggested, seemed counterintuitive at a time when funding is in short supply elsewhere. I did some research into this with various charities and infrastructure groups, and the reason for this decline in applications seemed to be that charities have had to reduce their fundraising staff resources, and concentrate on securing core-cost funding before seeking small grants for projects.

Having finished my article by saying that I thought that funders needed to re-think their application processes and make sure they were proportionate and straightforward, I thought that I should practice what I preach. So, I thought hard about how I could offer grants that didn’t require charities to devote a lot of time and effort in putting together a fundraising application.

Community Plus was the grants programme that I came up with. I started by reducing the qualifying criteria, asking only that applicants were:

• a registered charity (so that I could carry out due diligence checks without the need for lots of supporting information);
•  local (with a maximum grant of £5,000 this would give me the biggest impact); and 
• helping disadvantaged people (this being the charitable purpose of the Santander Foundation).
   

Five-minute process

Instead of a full-blown application, we decided to ask only for single-sentence answers to three questions:

1. What will the money pay for? 
2. Who will it benefit? 
3. What will it achieve?
   

The process takes no longer than five minutes – and charities can gain a grant of £5,000 at the end of it.

Charities can either nominate themselves to receive a grant, or be nominated by members of the public or Santander staff. Building in the 1,000 Santander branches as participants meant that nomination forms could be dispensed and collected locally, with branch staff uploading each nomination, adding any local knowledge they have of the work of the charity.

I had consulted, at an early stage, with the Small Charities Coalition, the FSI and various local charities I met at funding events, and asked them what the voting process should look like. They were unanimously against having a public vote as they felt this would turn it into a popularity contest. So, we decided instead to give staff across the UK the opportunity to apply to be part of the selection panel. This panel would change regularly to give balance and to provide a chance for as many people as possible to be part of the process. It would also help to ensure that we have a fair system of awarding grants that also draws upon volunteers’ knowledge of their local communities.

There are no deadlines. Instead, we favour a rolling programme in which grants are awarded every two months.

First impressions

We ran a six-week pilot in September in Wales and the South West, offering £250,000 in grants. The key thing we learned from the pilot was to cut down the size of the form from A4 to A5, and not to leave the back of the form blank, as people would immediately fill up any empty space with unnecessary data, and our aim was to keep the process as ‘light-touch’ as possible.

The UK-wide launch followed with another £250,000 in grants, awarded in early December. Since then, the system has proved extremely popular: we passed the million-pound mark in April this year.

With a one-in-three chance of being successful (ten times better than our central grants programme) and the form taking no more than five minutes to complete, the result is a simple and accessible grants programme. In just six months, we have awarded over 250 grants, totalling £1.25m.

Home improvements

The reaction from other funders has been very positive, too. Many funders are currently revising their grants programmes to respond to the situation caused by the cuts in funding from elsewhere. There is definitely a desire among funders to improve processes and review grants programmes to make sure that they are getting the best they can from the resources at their disposal.

For some grantmakers, this may mean introducing more small grants programmes that recognise the challenges that many charities currently face with regard to their fundraising resources, and which make grants more easily accessible.

On the other hand, some funders are looking at awarding fewer but larger grants that can meet the need for core cost funding rather than project funding. Meanwhile others will be changing their grantmaking policies to ensure that the resources are going to the places where it can do the most good.

Trusts and foundations cannot possibly fill the gap left by the reduction in local and central government funding, but we can – and must – think about our role within such a radically changed funding landscape.

Alan Eagle is foundation manager at Santander UK Foundation

This article first appeared in The Fundraiser magazine, Issue 33, September 2013