Insights

Most of the organisations I work with are quite small and rely on free resources. I am often asked where I look for funders - here they are in an article!

In this article you can read about

• Free resources

• Join a Facebook group

• Charity Registers

Free resources

1. ACF Foundation Giving Trends produces an annual publication reviewing top 300 grant makers https://www.acf.org.uk

2. Charity Excellence Framework FREE Funder Database – register and use it for free! https://www.charityexcellence.co.uk/

3. 360 Degree Giving lists grant giving data from 242 funders. Find out who they are funding to do what and what the levels of support are http://grantnav.threesixtygiving.org/

4. Livery Companies Database – there are 110 livery companies, comprising London’s ancient and modern trade associations and guilds. Most have a charitable arm and not all just fund the trade they are the association of http://liverydatabase.liverycompanies.info/

5. Directory of Social Change (DSC) has a paid subscription service called Funds Online – https://fundsonline.org.uk/ but did you know you can access the printed directories for FREE in the library?

6. Grants Online There are various Subscription options but there is also a FREE Newsletter www.grantsonline.org.uk

7. Competitors websites and accounts – who is funding similar organisations to you? Look at other organisations working with similar groups of people or other local groups.

8. 101 Ways to Grow Your Prospect List by Alicia Granger – if my list is not enough check this list of 101 other places to look at https://www.aliciagrainger.co.uk/ 

9. Your local council – many local councils have a funding officer or external funding team who may be able to help you with database searches. If you need the East Sussex or Brighton & Hove contacts (where I am based) let me know!

Join a Facebook group

I am in a number of Facebook groups where people share knowledge and information so get yourself into these groups!

• Fundraising Chat HERE

• Trust Fundraising Hub HERE

• Sussex Fundraisers Group HERE

• Fundraisers in Kent HERE

Charity Registers

Charity Commission England and Wales LINK

Use for searching and researching!

It is searchable: Not everyone realises that you can search the register of charities in England and Wales. Searchable areas include

• Classifications – Art, General Charity, Disability etc

• Who the charity helps – Children, Older people, People with disabilities etc

• How the charity helps – ‘Makes Grants to Organisations’

• Geographical boxes

You can Download when under 10,000 records

You can research – find out more about the trusts and foundations that you want to apply to.

I mainly use the England and Wales register but you may also need to look at

• Scottish Charity Regulator OSCR HERE

• The Charity Commission for Northern Ireland HERE 

I regularly speak to funders and read their feedback on applications received. A lot of applications fall into the same common pitfalls.

Here I share my thoughts on the practical steps you can take to avoid their pet peeves and start improving your applications.

Things to start right now

1. Stop using jargon and acronyms.

2. Check your spelling and grammar.

3. Think about your formatting (AND DON’T SHOUT AT THEM).

4. Show the evidence and don’t be anecdotal.

5. Get your outcomes, outputs and inputs the right way around.

6. Ensure you have the important practical information needed.

7. Make sure you haven’t forgotten anything.

1. Stop using jargon and acronyms

No one likes jargon so are you using it?

Jargon and unexplained acronyms make it hard for a reader who has little or no knowledge of your work to fully understand your application. 

Solution

• Make your application jargon free! Try to explain what you do in a way that is understandable to someone with no prior knowledge of your work. 

• Where acronyms are useful (we all love them to help with tricky wound counts) make sure that the first time you use it, you explain it e.g. Three Letter Abbreviation (TLA)

• Ask someone else to read your bid  – and not just people who work in your organisation and sector. I regularly ask my husband to read bids to make sure that I have made my case clearly.

• Sense check your bids – have you used clear,  plain language? Could you explain what you need to tell them more clearly?

• Print your bids off and read them on paper. Sometimes we miss mistakes on screen that we can see on paper.

2. Check your spelling and grammar

There are some brilliant tools out there to help with spelling and grammar. If English is not your first language or you struggle with spelling and grammar you can use these tools to help. 

Solution

• Draft your bid in Word and budget in Excel and not on the funders online form. That way you can run a spelling and grammar check.

• Be kind with your formatting – as you can see in this blog, breaking up the text with subheadings, different highlights and bullet points makes it easier to read and help you spot any mistakes.

• I love the Hemingway App (http://www.hemingwayapp.com/) for checking my writing. It shows you how clear your writing is and where you could make improvements.

3. Think about your formatting (AND DON’T SHOUT AT THEM)

The person reading your application could be reading hundreds bids so be kind to them.

Solution

• Block text is very hard to read! Use sub headings, bullets and different fonts to separate sections and ideas. If this article was written in block text, think about how hard it would be to read.

• Font size – don’t shrink to smaller fonts to fit text in, it’s just too hard to read. It is recommended that you use a minimum font size of 12 points.

• Margins – don’t push your margins as small as they will go. If the reader needs to print it off vital information might be missed. Again, it also makes things very hard to read.

• CAPITALS MAKE THE READER FEEL LIKE THEY ARE BEING SHOUTED AT – use them for subheadings but as the main text it makes your bid hard to read.

 I am going to be blogging some more about this so keep an eye out for on my website.

4. Show the evidence and don’t be anecdotal

I often say in training that there is a big difference between

• Anecdotal: ‘Our workshops are very popular’

• Evidence: ‘2000 people attended our workshops last year and 90% said that they would come again’. 

In many ways these sentences are saying the same thing, but the evidence provides concrete proof of how popular they actually are.

Funders want to hear about

• the need for your work and the evidence there is to back up that need

• the impact of your work and how you can show what outcomes and outputs have been achieved

Great data will help you with explaining need and impact. 

Solution

• Do not underestimate the power of data, facts and figures – use them where you can.

• The evidence shows that it is not just you saying that you are amazing but other people are too. As well as data, use your feedback or case studies to evidence the need for your work. For example a participant saying ‘I never thought I would be able to do something like that – they helped me feel so confident about trying’ alongside 90% of people stating they feel more confident after a session with us – would really strengthen you saying that you increase confidence.

• Are you collecting the right kind of data and enough of it? I will be blogging more about this in the future!

5. Get your outcomes, outputs and inputs the right way around

Talk about the numbers of things you have achieved (outputs) and the change that has taken place (outcomes). 

The Solution for me on this one is quite simple – I love the ‘Outcomes are a piece of cake’ from National Lottery Community Foundation in Scotland to explain the difference between input, activity, output and outcome.

Outcomes are a piece of cake!

6. Ensure you have the important practical information needed

This is a particular issue I find with arts organisations, but you see it across the not for profit sector. I read lots of beautifully crafted text, painting detailed pictures of the concepts embedded in their work, but missing the practical information. For a funder to support your work they need to be clear about the work you plan to do with their money. 

Solution

Have you covered the basics?

• Why – Why is your work needed? Why are you planning to deliver your work in the way that you do?

• Who – Who is your project aimed at? Who benefits from your work? Who will deliver the project?

• What – What is your plan? What will you do? What is the problem you are solving?

• When – When will the project take place? When do you need the funding and what are the timelines?

• How – How do you know your work is needed? How will you evidence the need for, and the results of, your project?

• Where – Where does your work take place? Where will the project happen?

I am going to be blogging about my Case for Support Canvas soon so keep an eye out for on my website

7. Make sure you haven’t forgotten anything

There were four areas that funders talked about that really bug them that were about attention to detail which were

• Not answering the questions

• Budget that doesn’t balance

• Missing info or attachments

• Missing the deadline

Solution

• We know that funders can ask similar questions but it’s really important to make sure you answer the question correctly. It’s not about what you want to tell them, it’s about what they need to hear/read. They may also be asking more than one question in a section so make sure you cover all of the things they ask for.

• Make sure you read the guidance and are clear about what the funder requires. If you are not sure, send an email or call them to ask. A funder would always rather you spent the time asking them a question than wasted time applying.

• Use Excel to draft your budgets, even when they have an online form. This will ensure you have covered everything and that the figures add up.

• Make sure everything that you mention in the bid is in the budget.

• Double and triple check your email or form before you press submit.

• If you need “sign off” within your organisation before you can submit your application, make sure you build that time into your timetable to allow for ‘internal delays’!

First of all I am really sorry that you did not get the vital funding you need for your organisation and your work. We know that there is not enough funding which makes the process competitive.

In normal times Trust Fundraisers are aiming for 1 in 10 success rate so that is nine nos for every yes! However, post covid people have been reporting a drop to 1 in 25.

We have to learn to build that resilience and understand that the rejection is not personal. It has taken me a long time to learn that. Even though my success rate is generally a 1 in 3 I still get knocked back more than I don’t. Moving on is key as you need to have the energy for the next one.

So, you didn’t get the funding – now what? What do you need to be thinking about, reflecting on and planning to do next? 

Looking after yourself

People are feeling the pressure more now than ever before. Are you taking care of yourself?

Please take a look at my article about mental health here below.

What kind of ‘no’ was it?

=mc directors Clare Segal and Bernard Ross in their book The Influential Fundraiser (Wiley 2010) outlined the 9 different ways in which donors say ‘No’ and how to respond.

The nine fundraising Nos are:

1. No, not for this

2. No, not you

3. No, not me

4. No, not unless

5. No, not in this way

6. No, not now

7. No, too much

8. No, too little

9. No, go away

Find out more here

Can you ask for feedback?

Feedback is vital to understand the reason that you were turned down so if it has not been offered with the rejection – ask for it. 

If the funder doesn’t have capacity to give feedback they will let you know but I can’t stress enough how important it is to ask!

Whatever they say about offering feedback, thank them. 

When you get feedback try to look at it objectively.

• Could you have done more?

• Were you clear enough expressing you ideas?

• What was in there that wasn’t needed?

• What was missing?

What did you learn in the process?

No funding application is a complete waste of time because you learn about you and the funder. 

To develop we need to learn.

Every bid 

• teaches you something about your work

• refines how you talk about your work

• helps you understand the funder a little more

• shows you what you could do to improve your bids 

What could you do differently next time?

It is important not to regret what you did not do in the application but to ensure that you apply what you know now to the next application or set of bids.

Use your energy to move forward.

Ask yourself

• What do I know now that I did not know before?

• Now you read the application again – were you clear enough in your narrative and finance information? 

• On reflection, what could improve the application? Check out my article 7 ways to improve your funding applications you can start right now above

• What can I learn from others who were successful?

• Is there any feedback that will help me write better in the future?

• Did you fall into any of the common pitfalls? Check out my blog 7 ways to improve your funding applications you can start right now above

Does your case for support need a refresh? Please get in touch for me FREE Case For Support Canvas at lucy@nostoneunturned.uk.

Are there other funders out there for you?

Fundraisers often re-purpose their applications for other funders so can you think about applying to other trusts, foundations or lottery sources for this or similar work?

Check out my article – Find the best funders for you for FREE  above

Final Thoughts

I want to come back to your mental health. As someone who has had mental health issues in the past I can not stress enough how important I think it is to look after yourself and get support.

Data is vital to Trust and Foundation fundraisers.

• How can you make sure your bids don’t look anecdotal?

• How can you find useful data to support your bids?

Deprivation statistics

To check if the area you work in is an area of deprivation should look the Index of Multiple Deprivation data.

Lower-layer Super Output Areas (LSOAs) are small areas of a similar population size (average 1,500 residents or 650 households). There are 32,844 Lower-layer Super Output Areas (LSOAs) in England.

Here you can see the Indices of Deprivation: 2019 and 2015. You can explore

1. Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD)

2. Income

3. Employment

4. Education; Skills and Training

5. Health and Disability

6. Crime

7. Barriers to Housing Services

8.  Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index (IDACI)

9. Income Deprivation Affecting Older People Index (IDAOPI)

10. Living Environment

Explore the detail – it will give you a lot of useful information!

Sussex Community Foundation – Sussex Uncovered

“Sussex Uncovered aims to tell the story of the needs and strengths of our communities across Sussex. We started from the Indices of Multiple Deprivation, but have researched a wider dataset to give a broad picture of our county today.”

You can access the information

• in the report here

• or on the Sussex Uncovered where you can search local data across a series of themes, indicators and geography and run reports for particular areas around specific issues here

The data set includes useful data on

• Health, Well-being And Safety 

• Arts, Culture And Heritage 

• Skills, Education And Work 

• Community Cohesion 

• Isolation, Disadvantage & Access To Local Services 

• Environment And Public Spaces

There will be similar datasets from your local Community Foundation. You can find your local Foundation here

Cultural Engagement – Arts Council England data

If you work in the cultural sector check out the ‘Engagement in arts and culture dashboard’ from ACE here

The dashboard shows adult engagement in arts and culture with data from the Active Lives Survey (2015-17) at different geographical levels.

You can explore data from different geographical levels

• Local Authority

• County

• Local Enterprise Partnership

• Region

• Arts Council Area

• England

Your organisation data

Are you sharing useful information about your work with your funders?

Are you saying ‘our workshops are popular’ when you could be saying ‘95% of workshops participants would come again’? Both statements say the same thing but the second statement

• shows that it is not just you saying that you are popular

• confirms that you are asking participants what they think

• reflects that you value the voices of the people that you work with

Have a look at the data that you collect and see what others might be interested in. Have a think about

• Finance data – turnover, growth, percentages from different sources…

• Feedback data – what are the people accessing the work telling you about taking part? Do you also get feedback from the people who support them (parents, carers, social worked etc)? Are you able to show the journey they have been on.

• Case Studies – are you using your stories well?

• Diversity data – what about the data of the people in the organisation and the people you work with? What do you know about them? Does that reflect your local community?

Other organisations data

On Mental health Mind shares key facts on how many people experience mental health problems, suicidal feelings and self-harm. Includes stats on risk factors and availability of treatment. here

If you need data on Disability, Scope shares Disability facts and figures here

Think about a bid charity working in your sector and then check out their website for useful information.

Funding Funders

If it is funders you are looking for – check out my article above

What else?

What other data do you use? Let me know!

This used to be such a throw away question at the start of the conversation. Now it is a big question. 

As a fundraiser I get knocked back a lot – we get a lot of nos.

The nos are hard and for many people the nos are hitting them much harder now than they ever have. 

As someone who has had mental health issues in the past I can not stress enough how important I think it is to look after yourself and get support. 

Looking after yourself

Have a think about

• How are you?

• How is your mental health?

• Are you getting support?

• Are you taking breaks?

• How is your time management?

• Are the ‘nos’ hitting you harder?

Why does this matter right now?

• You can not do your best work for your organisation if you are not ok.

• You can’t write well if you are frazzled.

• This has always been an important question, however, in a post covid and a cost of living crisis the world is very different.

Stress Bucket

I really like the Stress Bucket metaphor.

I have talked to a lot of fundraisers in organisations and freelancers who are feeling the pressure more now than ever before. There is so much uncertainty and we are missing the normal every day. 

What can you do to relieve some of that stress? Personally for me it’s meditation, exercise, time management, family and having a coach.

Music Venue Trust has put a list of mental health support services together here if you need more support and help.

Self Care

For me I know that having positive mental health is something that I need to work on every day. I need tools and techniques to stay on top of things. Below I have shared my 5 key tools for self management and 5 tools for work management. When I feel things are starting or fully out of control. I go back to getting these 10 things back into my day to day.

Here are some of the self care tools I use to manage my mental health 

1. Mediation. I use Headspace. I use the app to refocus, exercise, go to sleep and to help my 7 year old. Sign up for 2 free weeks.

2. Exercise. I hate it but I do it! Sometimes I just go for a walk.

3. Connect with others. This is even more important right now when we are limited to who we can see. Everyone is feeling the pressure right now so reach out to others too. I have various WhatsApp groups and Facebook groups I use to get support and support others. I have a coach who keeps in one track and people that I do co-coaching with.

4. Reduce caffine. am a massive coffee addict so I always hydrate before I caffeinate! Make sure you make time to eat and eat what makes you well. And this is a note to myself – drink less coffee!

5. Doing nothing sometimes. We all need down time so make sure you are getting some whether that is reading a book or watching a series.

Self care at work

It is also really important to manage yourself whilst you are working. Why?

It takes an average of about 25 minutes (23 minutes and 15 seconds, to be exact) to return to the original task after an interruption

Professor Gloria Mark,

Department of Informatics, University of California

These are some really distracting times – the news, social media and our phones take so much attention and they are designed to keep that attention so don’t let them! Here are some of the tools I use to organise myself

1. Multiple Inbox

I use 4 in mine which are quick (things under 5 mins that I need to do now), longer (take a bit longer but need doing now), to do (things that need adding to my to do list) and newsletters.

A few times a day I go to my inbox and sort the emails into these inboxes, I deal with the ‘quick’ things (and move them to ‘to do’ as needed if a task or follow up is needed), I then do the ‘longer’ ones. Once a day I look at the ‘newsletters’ and the ‘to do’. With my ‘to do’ inbox I put these into my Todoist (See below) and assign a day you do the task returning to the email when I am doing the task. 

2. Do not use folders in your email!

You use the search function to find emails so why do you need folders?

“Using folders to organize and find emails wastes 14 minutes per day” and “Archiving emails into many folders using a mouse wastes 11 minutes per day.” – that is two hours a week – one day a month, think what you could do with an extra day!!! Here in this Harvard Business Review Article here. I just put everything in a folder called ‘Admin’ so it sits at the top of the list above the ones described above.

3. Bullet Journal

I still love hand written to do lists and diary so the bullet journal is perfect for me.

There are lots of brilliant resources to help get you started but all you need is square or dot paper and a pen – what could be simpler!

4. Pomodoro technique

25 minutes work, 5 mins rest – simple as that.

I have this lovely timer as well as digital ones that I use.

Need to talk?

If you want a chat email me on lucy@nostoneunturned.uk