Fundraising Training
Charity Funding ‘Credit Crunch’ Trends
The credit crunch does mean that funders have less money to give away. Charities, particularly debt, relationship and mental health are all seeing increase demand for their services. At the same time there have been some high profile casualties, such as the Northern Rock Foundation and nationally funds are being diverted to the Olympics. When applying to local Trusts or Foundations it helps if you are aware of the characteristics of these grant bodies and why they were set up to distribute funds. • Can be set up by legacies, corporate foundations • Lengthy decision making dependent on a board or committee meeting • Grants from Charitable trusts and Foundations set up to distribute their income (often received through benefactor endowments) are often specific to regions and localities. • Many Trusts want to fund charitable education activities to benefit children and young people. • Charitable trusts and foundations are organisations specifically established to distribute money to good causes, so they are an important source of funding for many schools. There are several thousand in the UK; they differ enormously in size and scope and only a few hundred have paid staff • Charitable trusts and foundations can only fund things that are charitable in law. • They can only fund things that fall within the criteria laid down in their trust deed (their governing document). • Most give smallish, one-off grants and are reluctant to fund core costs, although some larger trusts fund projects over several years and some trusts do contribute to 'general running costs.' • To reduce administration costs, many trusts do not communicate with people who apply to them unless they decide to make a grant; nor do they make it clear when they meet (which may be only once or twice a year) or how they make decisions. More fundraising tips to get you to the top of the pile! • Most trusts and foundations give to recognisable 'good causes' but a significant proportion of the larger trusts are prepared to take risks and to support work that is 'hard to fund' or controversial. • Lots of trusts want their money to 'go further' and like projects which are a) innovative or likely to be replicated, and b) able to use their grant as a catalyst to lever additional money from other funders. • Set up a Grants library • Subscribe to free newsletters • Co-ordinate information • Set up an email group • Put potential deadlines in your diary Conclusion There is still a trend for giving, though this is not an the level of previous year. During these recession based times, charities applying for core funding would do well to remember the good news; it is estimated over 2000 grant schemes open to charities in the UK and Children in Need raised over £20m in 2009, beating last year’s total (£19m)-so there is still an appetite for giving.
Posted at 03:42PM Oct 27, 2009 by louise in Charity Fundraising | Comments[0]
