Responding to Demand IV: Upcoming Changes to Our Open Grants Programme

In our recent posts, we outlined what we’ve been doing this year to improve our open grantmaking:

• Evaluating our grantmaking processes in the face of increasing demand and the effects of this on success rates, turnaround time and budget
• Developing an Impact Framework to help us prioritise which applications to fund when demand is high
• Introducing a two-stage application process for Large Grants to help us make decisions more quickly

‍Explaining our Impact Framework

We’ve been piloting the Impact Framework to help us make grant decisions for several months now. Beyond basic eligibility (which will not change), we are assessing applications on two criteria:

• Whether organisations embed lived experience of the issue they address in their work and decision-making
• Whether the project will make a significant change to the organisation and/or those they serve.

The two criteria are independent of each other and are assessed separately. Where demand is high, organisations that score highly on both criteria are more likely to be funded than organisations which score highly only on one criterion. In piloting this approach, we have seen that organisations which only score highly on one criterion are still often funded.

Changes to our application process

Our next step is the redesign and launch of new application forms to better reflect this Impact Framework, and a refreshed website. For Large Grants (£15,001 and upwards), there will be a two-stage application process. The first stage form will ask questions specifically against our Impact Framework. For organisations invited to the second stage, there will be an assessment of finances and project-readiness. We aim to always make our questions and assessments proportionate, and to reduce burden on applicants as much as possible.

We expect that Small Grants (under £15,000) will continue to be a one-stage process, and that, with the new Impact Framework as part of our assessment process, we can reduce turnaround times for a decision.

We know that the extent to which lived experience is embedded within an organisation, and how much change a project will make, are questions that can’t be answered, or assessed, in a ‘tick box’ way. Our first-stage application form will ask applicants to describe what lived experience looks like in their organisations, explain the proposed impact of their projects in their own words, and to attach existing documents which can give us more insight into these things.

Why ‘Lived Experience’?

We have chosen to prioritise and support organisations which embed lived experience in their work because:

• We believe the insight and understanding that comes from lived experience is an essential component of making impact on an issue.
• We know organisations led by those with lived experience have been underfunded (or excluded)  for many years due to systemic biases. We want to play our part in addressing this long inequity, and back these organisations to thrive, not just survive.
• We recognise that lived experience leaders are working on issues that have shaped their lives. They don’t always get to ‘walkaway’ at the end of the day. We want to recognise the contribution these leaders make to addressing disadvantage and marginalisation.

This decision has been motivated by our Equity Programmes, as well as our long experience as a capital grantmaker to grassroots organisations.

Why ‘Significant Change’?

We will prioritise projects that help organisations to make a significant change in their delivery (what they do), their reach (who they serve) or their financial security (by increasing their income or decreasing their expenditure). We have seen the impact that capital projects can make, and we know that even small grants can make a significant change to a small organisation - but also that small organisations can think big with the right opportunity.

Projects which help an organisation maintain their existing activities are less likely to be prioritised, although we expect to still fund some such projects.

Managing Demand and Impact

Demand is currently outstripping resources, and that is the immediate catalyst for the development of an Impact Framework and a two-stage application process.

While it is crucial that we can respond flexibly to demand, we also saw an opportunity to become more intentional and transparent about the impact we are trying to make: We want to enable organisations which are led by and for the communities they serve to make significant change in what they do through capital projects. We see this as an evolution of our current strategy.

We are committed to sharing findings about what we fund going forward - both the types of organisations and the types of projects, and our overall success rates. We hope this will provide useful information for organisations deciding whether or not to apply, but will also tell us how we are doing against our aims, and inform further improvements to our own processes. We know we won’t get everything right and we welcome feedback as we go.

In our next post we will share the timeline for the introduction of the new application process.

We shared our draft Impact Framework with some expert organisations, and we are enormously grateful for the rich insight and feedback which has informed the final version. Our thanks to The Baobab Foundation, Alliance for Inclusive Education, Do it Now Now, Inclusion London, Breaking Barriers, Migrant’s Rights Network, Action for Race Equality, Youth Leads UK, Get Grants and more.

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