Following our first online ‘Meet the Funder’ event with Lloyds Bank Foundation, we held another focusing on three funders a few days later. This time, the ‘Meet the Funder’ event welcomed and heard from Angela Haymonds from Enovert Community Trust, John Goodman from The National Lottery Community Fund and Jade Gough from Severn Trent Community Fund.
The session was recorded and is now available as an audio podcast or a video of highlights.
The full session complete with Q&A is available to listen to below:
Find specific presentations at the following times:
Enovert Community Trust: 33 seconds in
The National Lottery Community Fund: 35 minutes
Severn Trent Community Fund: 49 minutes
The shorter version, complete with presentation slides is available as a video here:
Our next virtual ‘Meet the Funder’ event on May 10th will welcome Ruth Burgess, who’ll be talking to us about ESF Black Country Community Grants. To attend, book your place here.
Did you know that over the last 11 years, Martin and I have supported nonprofits to access more than £11million in grant funding? You probably didn’t because we only recently realised this ourselves!
Given that Martin and I have recently completed our eleventh year at Dudley CVS, and because we’re both utter geeks when it comes to keeping records of the people and groups we’ve worked with over that time, we thought it would be interesting to pull together all of our data about successful funding applications we’ve worked on. We’re both pretty staggered by (and proud of) the results.
Martin and I joined Dudley CVS within a month of each other back in 2008. Over those years we’ve worked together and helped each other to offer the best support possible to all types and sizes of not-for-profit.
My role is about helping people that want to establish or develop their not-for-profit by providing them with information, guidance and support on a range of topics they’re likely to run into, including:
What type of not-for-profit? Such as the concept of social enterprise, the definition of charity, appropriate legal structures
Planning, including long term vision, mission, purpose-setting, project planning, reviewing the organisation, financial planning
Roles and responsibilities of the people that lead not-for-profits, including governance training for directors and trustees
Connecting with others, which is becoming increasingly important
Governing documents and registration
Compliance – including regulatory obligations, insurance, reporting and policies and procedures
Profile-raising
Asset development and asset transfer
Fundraising and income-generation
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When I support groups with funding, it tends to be as part of wider support to help a group become established and ‘funding ready’, such as Dudley Feelgood Choir, Wall Heath Tennis Club and Bayer Street Allotments, though I do also help groups to identify appropriate funders for their work or projects and they do the rest. The idea is to give support in a way that helps groups to become more skilled and confident in putting applications together.
Martin’s role focuses on income-generation and because of this, he primarily supports organisations with larger bids. Martin says,
“Like the support groups give to their beneficiaries to help them to increase their skills, confidence and ability to do things for themselves, the way I work with groups can start quite intensively with a lot of handholding until they are in a position to work on an application themselves with me on hand to review it before it’s submitted. Lots of the people I worked with years ago are now flying with their bidwriting!
I supported Dudley Voices for Choice who received £415,720 at the end of 2018. What stood out for me was how the group involved their beneficiaries throughout the process as well as the enthusiasm of the partners in the project led excellently by Sarah.
Overall 80% of the organisations I have supported during the last 11 years have received funding.
Over the last eleven years, between us, we’ve supported:
261 organisations
With 614 successful applications
To 113 grants programmes
Totalling £11,764,436.65 (65p!)”
Of course, this only covers the work that Martin and I have done to support organisations as that’s the data we have to hand. The real total over that eleven years is likely to be much higher if we could incorporate the support that our previous colleagues gave too. On top of that, for obvious reasons, we can only include the successes that our groups have told us about, which doesn’t always happen. Nonetheless, there’s some interesting things to say about the figures we’ve got.
The largest single grant was for £800,000 from the Football Foundation to a local community football club (one of Martin’s)
The smallest grants were two £30 grants from TESCO and the Blakemore Foundation to help the Seniors Luncheon Club get started in 2009 (they’re still going now!)
Here’s a breakdown by grant size:
86% of grants were valued at £10,000 or less. The majority of grants (35%) were for under £1,000, while 33% of grants ranged from £1,000-£5,000. This means well over half the grants (68%) were awards of up to £5,000. 18% of grants were between £5,000 and £10,000 in value. I think this suggests that most of these awards are contributions towards project costs, rather than core funding.
Which funding programmes have been the most accessed by the groups we’ve supported over the last decade? This graphic shows us:
67 of the 113 (59%) of funding programmes made one grant only (that we know of), the remaining 41% gave multiple grants amongst the groups we supported. When we support groups, we help them to identify the most appropriate funders for their needs, matching projects to funders’ interests areas and criteria. This is why there is a spread of 113 grants programmes.
Within that, the ten most prolific grants programmes were:
Dudley Council’s Community Forums (including previous Area Committee funding)
Awards for All (National Lottery Community Fund, formerly Big Lottery Fund)
Dudley Borough Small Grants Fund
Grassroots Grants
Rant About the Grant
Improving Physical Activity Fund
Reaching Communities (National Lottery Community Fund, formerly Big Lottery Fund)
What’s staggering in this list is that 6 of the ten programmes no longer operate and have not been in operation for some years now (programmes that have come to an end are: Dudley Borough Small Grants Fund, Grassroots Grants, Rant About the Grant, Improving Physical Activity Fund, Dudley Council’s Small Grants, BeActive Coaching Bursary). This chimes with our knowledge and our increasing encouragement of groups to look to new sources of income as grant funding opportunities continue to reduce, because the four remaining funders may not be able to increase their level of award.
What else can we say about these grants programmes? We can see how much they have granted the Dudley borough groups we’ve supported:
An enormous 55% of funding awarded to the groups we’ve supported has come from Reaching Communities, that’s £6,507,553.00 of the £11,764,436.65 total! This is perhaps due to a combination of the size of grants available through this programme, its popularity as a programme and the relatively high success rate it enjoys. Other popular programmes like Awards for All and the Community Forums give smaller grants (up to £10,000 and £5,000 respectively).
Martin says,
“As regards Reaching Communities I have a success rate of almost 60% in both number of successful applications and grant values. 50% of the groups I’ve supported with Reaching Communities have received repeat funding from that programme. These include Phase Trust (3), Dudley Counselling Centre/Dudley Community Church (3), Beacon Centre for the Blind (2), Age UK (2) and Headway Black Country (2).
As for high-value grants, some of my highlights are:
£538,524 over 3 applications to an organisation that supports older people
£513,525 over 3 applications to a disability charity
£1,238,328 from 10 applications from a faith-based organisation that supports vulnerable and disadvantaged people
£679,411 across 4 applications from an advocacy charity
£646,272 from 4 applications by a health-based charity
7 applications with a family support charity, totaling £289,016
7 applications supported with a young persons charity, totaling £1,019,710
15 applications supported from a charity that empowers disadvantaged people, totaling £566,465
6 successful applications supported from a young persons advocacy charity, totaling £614,592″
The National Lottery Community Fund (formerly known as the Big Lottery Fund) which runs Reaching Communities, features elsewhere in this top ten, with Awards for All, Advice Services Fund and the Youth Investment Fund accounting for around 10% of money awarded. So what does the picture look like if we combine the programmes run by one funder?
Unsurprisingly, the National Lottery Community Fund makes up 65% of the total money awarded to groups we’ve supported over the past eleven years. Other funders have contributed as follows:
Football Foundation 6.8%
Young People’s Fund 2.62%
Dudley Council 2.51%
BBC Children in Need 2.42%
Lloyds Bank Foundation 2.39%
Building Better Opportunities 2.38%
Sport England 1.89%
Ibstock Cory Environmental Trust 1.6%
Grassroots Grants 1.3%
Remaining funders combined 11.25
The National Lottery Community Fund is still keen to fund Dudley borough organisations and we have great links with John Goodman, the Funding Officer from The National Lottery Community Fund who covers our patch. John is available at our office on Wednesdays to meet organisations interested in accessing funding from The National Lottery Community Fund. To arrange an appointment, email John at john.goodman@tnlcommunityfund.org.uk.
A new fund for Dudley borough
Finally, Dudley CVS has recently launched a new fund for organisations that can develop and provide creative support for people who frequently use unplanned emergency care services (such as calling 999, attending A&E or Urgent Care Centre).
If you’re thinking of taking on a community building or facility, check out this excellent short webinar from Good Finance. It’s called ‘How to build a cocktail of funding for your community group’, but it covers so much more than that, as we all know that funding is about much more than asking funders, donors or supporters for money!
This webinar covers the things you’ll need to think about before you start and has a useful overview of fundraising options from Locality, as well as an introduction to social investment from Good Finance. It also contains an excellent case study from Stretford Public Hall, whose members brought its community together to bring a disused public building back to life, and ran a successful community share offer to raise the finance needed. Take a look at the webinar below.
Here are the main things that I would take away from the webinar:
Funding options (led by Debbie Lamb, from Locality)
Business planning is incredibly important. You’ll have to be clear about what the running costs will be and what will generate income, as well as having a good sense of the advantages and risks of running a community building.
Be dispassionate. Try to be realistic about how viable this is and don’t let your emotions lead you to take on something that has very slim chance of success.
Think about your organisational structure and the people you have. Does your structure help you to manage risk and liabilities? Does it allow you to borrow (if you plan to borrow)? Does it allow you to raise money through a community share offer (if you plan to do this)? Do you have the right amount of people with the necessary skills and expertise to work as a team?
You’re more likely to be raising money through a ‘patchwork’. It’s very unlikely that you will have just one source of income.
This all chimes with my experience of supporting nonprofits with community asset transfer and funding. The strength of the team and its planning is really crucial to success.
The one thing I’d add here is that evidence of community involvement and buy in is equally important. It’s one of the key things Dudley Council will take into account when making decisions on bids for community asset transfer and funders like the National Lottery Community Fund make community involvement a key criterion of all its programmes. You’ll need to be able to demonstrate that the community has been involved in the development of your plans and that the community wants your project to happen!
In terms of community asset transfer in Dudley borough, Dudley Council has made a ‘How to’ guide which tells you what they look for in a robust business case and I’ve made a template business plan which is based on this. What the local authority will look for can be boiled down into a few things:
Realistic costings, projections and sources of income: Do you know what condition the facility is in? Does any money need to be spent to bring the building back into use and if so, where is this money likely to come from? Do you already have some confirmed resources to put into it? What are the likely running costs?
Robust income-generation model / evidence of sustainability: What activities will bring in income? How realistic are these? Have you spoken to people who are willing to spend money here? What evidence do you have to show that your income will be able to cover running costs?
Benefits for the whole community: How will the community benefit? How will people be able to get involved? What positive difference will this make? How will your activities link to local and national strategies? If your building will be used for just one type of activity, it’s less likely to get support.
Evidence of community-involvement in the plan: How have members of the local community been able to have a say on what will happen at your facility? Can they be involved as members or will they be able to have a stake in your project?
2. Social investment (Kieran Whiteside, Good Finance)
Social investment comes in many forms and, although it’s not particularly new, it’s constantly evolving. Not many of the organisations I’ve worked with have wanted to consider social investment, being put off by its repayable nature. In the current climate, though, I think groups should seriously consider it.
The starting point is to learn about what it is to find out about what type might suit you. And in this webinar, Kieran gives us a brief overview of what social investment is and what tools can help you to get started:
Social investment is repayable finance, where the investor looks for a social as well as a financial return on their investment. This means you need to be clear about what you need the money for, whether there’s an income stream that will help you to repay, and what social impact you will create (this is about ‘outcomes’ and I recommend the now archived ‘Getting funding and planning successful projects’ guide from National Lottery Community Fund back when it was known as the Big Lottery Fund).
The Good Finance website can help you to understand social investment. It has a diagnostic tool to help you to understand whether social investment is right for you and the type of social investment you should consider.
Community shares: This involves raising money from the community by issuing shares in the organisation through a formal community share offer. It’s a great way of demonstrating real community buy-in for a project, but only certain types of organisation can issue shares. The Community Shares Unit is a good source of information.
Blended finance: This type of social investment is typically a grant + a loan. It’s more common for investments of £250,000 or less.
Secured loans: Like a mortgage against an organisation’s asset. This means that the organisation needs to own a building / asset for use as collateral. Social banks, some high street banks and some specialist funders offer secure loans with typically lower interest rates.
Finally, crowdfunded investment: Different from rewards-based crowdfunding (Kickstarter, for instance), but more like peer-to-peer lending. You’ll find more information on Ethex or Community Chest
3. Case study of Stretford Public Hall, which ran a successful community share offer (Simon Borkin, Stretford Public Hall)
I was really inspired by the story Simon told of Stretford Public Hall and the power of a community coming together to make things happen!
Stretford Public Hall is a Grade II listed Victorian building that fell into disuse (for the second time) in 2014. In 2015 the Friends of Stretford Public Hall successfully used the Localism Act to get the building listed as an asset of community value. The group secured the freehold of the hall from Trafford Council which meant they could start refurbishment.
To raise money through a community share offer, the Friends of Stretford Public Hall had to set up as a community benefit society (or Ben Comm) so that the organisation could issue shares. This allowed members to invest in the organisation in return for shares, but the principle of the Ben Comm is that each member gets one vote, no matter how many shares they bought.
To set up a community share offer, the organisation had to draw up a business plan and a formal share offer document. Both of these are available on the Stretford Public Hall website, along with lots of other information about how the organisation is run.
What struck me most about this case study was the importance of engaging with the community and the real openness to involving the community in the organisation’s set up and decision-making. It really shows that the friends of Stretford Public Hall did the legwork to make sure the community was engaged and motivated, resulting in the organisation successfully raising £255,000 over 56 days from 790 people in the community and 7 organisations. It’s that kind of community involvement that decides whether a venture will succeed.
Dudley Voices for Choice (DVC) is a user led self-advocacy organisation that supports and empowers people with learning disabilities and autism to speak up for themselves and their peers, actively participating in community meetings and strategic meetings with the council and health services around the borough. Recently the charity celebrated a funding success, having been awarded a grant from the National Lottery Community Fund totalling £415,720 to maintain a regional self-advocacy network.
Martin, Funding Officer at Dudley CVS tells us more about his support, the application stages and the success achieved at the end of a long but rewarding process.
Almost 2 years ago (April 2017) I was approached by Sarah Offley (Project Manager at DVC) enquiring about funding for a regional forum comprising 12 West Midlands Self Advocacy charities previously in receipt of statutory funding. Following cuts by local authorities they were concerned that their essential work may not be able to continue. They wanted to maintain the network and work on a consortium bid to secure funding.
I met with the network in June and was enthused not just by their passion and desire for the work they were doing but also, and most importantly, by the ongoing involvement of their beneficiaries in the work they were carrying out. The self-advocacy was guided by support workers however the direction and decisions were led by beneficiaries i.e. people with learning disabilities. This influenced me in suggesting they approach the Lottery large grant programme Reaching Communities bearing in mind their stipulation that all funded projects must involve beneficiaries throughout the various elements of the work e.g. planning, delivery and evaluating. I provided them with a contact at the Lottery who they could speak to.
Over the remainder of 2017 and into January 2018 Sarah and her team worked on putting together a stage one application receiving support and encouragement along the way from Dudley CVS and the Lottery grants officer. I explained the time-scales involved over not only two application stages but also the possibility of a telephone interview along the way pointing out the importance of having strong evidence of need to show the Lottery how essential their work was and the need for it to continue.
They took on board the challenge led by Sarah. It was decided to submit the application via DVC rather than as a consortium bid. The emotion and passion provided by Sarah was key in the success of the application. Working closely with Sarah we were able to capture all of this translating it into words that would convey the message to the Lottery whilst at the same time highlighting the massive importance of their plans and what they wanted to achieve.
Having been invited to submit a stage two application they were guided and supported by initially Dudley CVS but, very importantly, all along the journey by the new Lottery grants officer for Dudley John Goodman. Sarah received great support also from Claire who was there to proof read her submissions and give her feedback where appropriate. An excellent team effort all round.
In early December 2018 Sarah received the news that they had been successful and that the Lottery had agreed to provide them with a 4-year grant totalling £415,720. The good news was embargoed until February 14th when a launch event was held at DY1 where all the charitable organisations involved in the network attended along with many beneficiaries, all celebrating together having achieved a fantastic result.
All of this would never have taken place without the dedication and hard work of everyone involved in the network. Detailed planning and many discussions took place over an 18-month period to rejuvenate the regional forum looking at what they wanted and how they would approach the work/do things differently in the future. Everything centred on the importance of people with learning disabilities having their voices heard and being able to be remunerated/paid for delivering excellent advocacy work to others. This was a key issue throughout as they looked at what was important to people with learning disabilities so they could understand their rights and consider the many opportunities available to them alongside the challenges they may face.
One of the interesting areas of the application, and the ongoing work that will take place over the next 4 years, is the involvement of Regional Champions. They will champion the great work going on throughout the network and feedback key information and case studies so evaluation of this great work can take place throughout the 4 years and beyond. They will have a defined role and purpose continually learning and developing so that they have transferable skills that they can use now and in the future in the work place providing them with good employment prospects and opportunities that they can take to the job market.
All of this will be delivered alongside Local Community workers who will ensure everything runs smoothly and people with learning disabilities are given fantastic support throughout.
To sum up all of this is a short quote from Sarah when she said “we were encouraged to just go for it” which is directed at the process of applying to get the money but can also be used as a mantra for the beneficiaries in all of this as people with learning disabilities are encouraged to “just go for it”.
Dudley CVS blog 