Check out our latest case study, a community hall that was in desperate need of funding gets its make over thanks to 4Grants More details can be found here
Check out our latest case study, a community hall that was in desperate need of funding gets its make over thanks to 4Grants More details can be found here
Key Tips to Writing a Comprehensive Funding Bid
This can be very time consuming and confusing, 4Grants can do the work for you. If you do decide to apply by yourself we have listed a few tips below:
Phew your done! Once you have done all of the above your application could still be unsuccessful, we are here to help and assist you along the way.
4Grants provides a no win, no fee service that is used by organisations across the UK, you only pay us if we are successful in obtaining the grant. Recently one of our clients said “if someone came to you and offered you £10,000 if you gave them £1,000 would you do it?” It’s a no brainer for most organisations……
Contact us today at info@4grants.co.uk
Ambitious sport clubs across the country are looking to upgrade their facilities and equipment. Yet funding the improvements is often the biggest challenge. This need not be the case as, increasingly, there are funds available that all organisations can access.
4Grants work with organisations and clubs across the UK, we have the knowledge and experience of funding available for your club. Our service is unique in that we offer a no win no fee solution, you only pay us if we are successful in getting your club grant funding. The majority of the clubs we work with use their own funds (From fundraising) to pay our fees and we get this back (often 10 times the amount) in grant funding. We advise all our clients never to use any of the grants obtained to pay our fees.
We focus our efforts on community and grassroots clubs, not only with the improvement of facilities, but with the purchase of the right equipment to enable the club to grow and develop. 4Grants works across the sporting sector, we are aware of many funds that are not specifically aimed at sport, which your club could be missing out on.
Traditionally, clubs have used a range of methods to raise funds. These have included fundraisers such as: Dinners, tournaments, parties, social evenings, 6 a sides and sponsorship.
Change and development is never easy, most clubs are run by volunteers that simply don’t have the time, capacity and knowledge to apply for funding. There is help out there to make sure your club doesn’t get left behind.
If you are looking to upgrade or enhance your club’s facilities and are unsure of the funding streams or opportunities available, contact a member of 4Grants who are always there to help. info@4grants.co.uk
Third Party Funding Requirements
As part of the monies voluntarily passed by FCC Environment, the Government only allows FCC Environment a 90% credit against this amount.
In order to mitigate the losses incurred by participating in the Scheme FCC Environment (as a condition of providing Landfill funders with the funding)requires project applicants to secure the help of eligible ‘Third Parties’ who will reimburse them with an amount equal to 10% of the cost of the funding committed. In addition to the level of the grant this also takes into account the automatic levy charged by the Funds’s regulator ENTRUST together with a proportion of the costs associated with administering the grant.
Who can be a Third Party Funder?
The key consideration regarding Third Party Funding is the term ‘Unique Benefit’. Simply, a contributing third party cannot gain any unique benefit from the project put forward for funding. Examples of organisations which can be contributing third parties are:
As part of a Landfill Bid funders will want you to demonstrate the impact on the environment your new facility or refurbishment will have on the environment.
It involves getting the resources – money, equipment, premises etc. – that your organisation needs to carry out its work.
Fundraising should be an organised, planned activity. There are a number of steps to successful grant funding:
Step 1: Appoint a fundraiser or fundraising group
Step 2: Make sure you’re ready to be funded
Step 3: Decide what you need funds for
Step 4: Make a budget
Step 5: Locate funders
Step 6: Make applications
Step 7: Follow up
IMPORTANT : PLAN AHEAD!
The time between when you decide you need funds, to when you actually receive them is
likely to be about six months. It is important, therefore, that you start your fundraising well in
advance .
Stage 1: Appoint a fundraiser or fundraising group
It is essential that a person, or group of people, see fundraising as their responsibility.
Fundraising requires time and effort to be successful, so a person or team should commit
themselves to it. The most successful funding application will have involved a range of people
from within the organisation. This is because a successful fundraising application involves
communicating the vision of your organisation to a funder. That vision is, or should be, a
collective vision. This person or group should oversee all the following steps.
Stage 2: Make sure you’re ready to be funded
All funders require, as a minimum, that:
• You are a non-profit organisation with charitable or benevolent aims;
• You have a set of rules or constitution, stating your aims and how you operate;
• You have a bank account and keep financial records.
This is one of the ways of ensuring that their money will be properly managed and spent.
Certain things you might want to fund – a worker, a building, or a vehicle for example – give
you legal obligations. A funder will require evidence that you understand these obligations,
and that you have taken steps to comply with them.
Stage 3: Research and plan your project
Decide whether you want to cover your organisation’s general running costs, or have a
particular project, with costs of its own. Make a list of ALL the items that you could need to
pay for, for your organisation or project.
Divide the list into two categories – capital and revenue. Capital means items of equipment
that you usually pay a fixed one-off amount for –buildings, computers, vehicles, for example.
Revenue is on-going costs like wages, expenses, bills, core funding, etc..
Decide when you need the money for, and how long it has to last. For a project, there will
usually be a start and finish date, or at least an idea of how long it will last. If you are looking
for general running costs, you should include all your expenditure for one year, or two or three
years. It is up to you how far ahead you can accurately plan, but one year is a usual
minimum.
Stage 4: Make a budget
Budgeting is simply putting amounts to all the things you’ll need to spend money on. Budgets
should not be guesswork – get as near as you can to the actual amounts you will have to pay.
For example, get quotes for building work, get exact prices for equipment, ask how much rent
people pay for similar offices to yours, find out how much people get paid for the kind of posts
you want to fund. Don’t forget to include in your budget realistic amounts for contingencies
and reserves.
Funders will know if your budget is not accurate – your figures will be too rounded, or
unrealistic. A properly worked out budget is one of the most important elements of
successful fundraising.
Stage 5: Locate funders
Once you have made a budget you can start to look for funders.
Stage 6: Make applications
After finding appropriate funders, the next stage is to make a good application.
Stage 7: Follow up
You should think of fundraising as a long-term, ongoing process, not a one-off. How you treat
your funders is therefore important. You might want to go back to funders in future, or may
need to show new funders that you have a good track record of managing funds.
So once you have succeeded in getting your funds, there are 2 important steps to take:
• Say thank you! Many beneficiaries simply accept the money without acknowledging it.
Funders are human beings too, and will respond well to gratitude for the help they
have given. A phone call may suffice, a letter will be much appreciated, or you could
invite them to come along and see the project they have funded in progress.
• Make sure that you do all that the funder requests in terms of monitoring your work,
reporting and accounting. You may need to fill in a form or forms to show how you
have spent the money, or how the project or organisation is progressing.
If there is no particular information to provide, it is a good idea to send a report to your
funders. This could be not just facts and figures but also photographs of your work, to show
how the money is being used, and to bring your work to life. This will build a stronger
relationship with funders, which could lead to more support in future.
info@4grants.co.uk
Many grant funders will expect you to have completed some sort of consultation. If you need to consult people there are various ways of going about it. You choose the most appropriate according to what you need from it (robust data or understanding of what people think) and your deadline and budget.
1. What kind of information do I want?
− The main decision to make is over the kind of information you want to end up with. If you’re going to make financial decisions as a result of the consultation, it’s best to aim for robust data quoted in percentages – quantitative data (because it counts quantities of things.) That means doing a survey.
− If you want to know in depth what motivates your customers, how they feel about you or what influences them to think the way they do, it’s best to go for qualitative research, which usually means focus groups, mini groups or semi-structured interviews, but can be done in other ways. This information is very useful, but you can’t generalise from it, so it’s not as robust as percentages.
2. Surveys
− Surveys give you results in the form of statistics: xx% say this. If done well they are therefore robust – it’s safe to base financial decisions on them. However, they can take more time to organise and carry out than qualitative research. They may also be more expensive.
− To give you the findings in the percentages you need a survey must be are based on a questionnaire. This means that they only deal with a limited number of topics, and the boxes to tick for responses are likely to be pre-set. Therefore you may be limiting the answers that your respondents can give. To avoid this disadvantage, it’s best practice to carry out some qualitative research before you design your questionnaire. Then you can make sure you cover the topics that your customers think are important, as well as the ones you do. That adds to the expense though.
− Surveys can be done in different ways but the most common methods are by post (or self-completion), by an interviewer face-to-face, by interviewer on the phone, or online. Each method has its pros and cons.
2.1 BY POST (SELF-COMPLETION)
− Postal surveys are generally cheaper than other methods. That is their main advantage. The other one is that you don’t have an interviewer there, so respondents may be more likely to give you an ‘honest’ response.
− Some postal surveys can get very good response rates, but if people aren’t expecting your questionnaire, you’re likely to get less than one-third of questionnaires returned (i.e. a response rate of less than one-third or 33%). Sometimes response rates can be as low as one in ten (10%). This means that your respondents are a minority group, and can’t really be seen to represent the whole population (i.e. your respondents are not representative of the population).
− There are things you can do to improve response rates, such as targeted publicity, sending out personalised letters, using white envelopes, making the questionnaire look attractive, and sending out reminder letters or second questionnaires, but all these things cost more.
− The second disadvantage, which is a considerable one, is that the people who answer your survey choose to do so. People who respond to questionnaires are likely to have strong views (positive or negative) on the subject, or they just like filling in forms. That makes them likely to be different from the majority of the population, so your respondents are even less representative of everyone.
− The third disadvantage of a postal survey is that there is no-one to help the respondent work out what you mean. They have to use their own judgement if they’re in doubt, and different people may decide that you mean different things. Therefore your questions may not all be answered in the same way, or respondents may not understand them and may not answer them all. Postal or self-completion surveys have lots of mistakes. Therefore your questionnaire needs to be first-rate.
2.2 FACE-TO-FACE
− Interviewing is a skill, and should be done by fully trained interviewers. The common standard for a well-trained interviewer is the IQCS (Interviewer Quality Control Scheme – see www.iqcs.org).
− If your interviewers know what they are doing, they will be able to make sure that all respondents understand what you mean by your questions, and answer in the same way. There will therefore be fewer mistakes – you get better quality data for your money.
− If there’s an interviewer present you’re also likely to get a higher response rate – a good interviewer knows how to encourage people to take part, and how to keep them interested. That makes the data more representative of the whole population (your respondents are less of a minority group), and so it’s more robust.
− The downside is that a poorly trained interviewer may be influencing the way that people respond to questions. That means that your results may be biased.
− The main disadvantage of face-to-face surveys, however, is cost. You need to pay people to travel to and spend time in the place where you want the interviews to happen, and they also need to eat. Face-to-face is higher quality, but more expensive than self-completion.
− Another thing worth noting is that you may need people’s address details to identify those you wish to approach for the survey. Alternatively you can choose a random starting point within an area or ward, but there’s more about that under sampling…
2.3 TELEPHONE
− Telephone interviews are often seen as a compromise. You get better quality data, and higher response rates than a postal survey, but the interviewers are fixed in one spot. Therefore it’s less expensive than face-to-face. Telephone interviewers may still influence responses, but quality controls mean that this is easier to identify and correct, as (at a call centre) supervisors can listen in to calls.
− The problem with telephone surveys is getting hold of telephone numbers. Some people are ex-directory, some only have mobiles (which are more expensive to phone and may change quite often), and a lot are now registering with the Telephone Preference Service (www.tpsonline.org.uk), which means they don’t want to be contacted and you may get fined if you phone them! For all of these reasons if you choose a telephone survey some people won’t have the chance to take part, which makes the data less representative of the whole population and therefore less robust. However, at the moment this isn’t felt to be a bar to carrying out market research by phone.
2.4 ONLINE
− In research terms, the disadvantage of online research is that you’re limiting it to people who have internet access. Numbers with access are steadily increasing, but you’re still excluding a considerable minority of the population. That makes the results less representative of local residents, and therefore less robust. However, if everyone in your population has internet access (for example if you’re surveying online customers), that problem doesn’t arise.
− Security software means increasingly that pop-up surveys won’t ever make it to the screen, so invitations sent out by e-mail (if you have up-to-date e-mail addresses), or letters posted out (if you don’t) are perhaps a better method of recruiting respondents. If people sign up to the survey you can them direct them to a web page, or e-mail a link. Be aware that this best practice route of giving them the chance to ‘opt in’ means that fewer will respond, which makes your respondents less representative, and so introduces bias. Still, it remains an acceptable method for market research.
− Online questionnaires can be made more appealing than paper ones, which increases the response rate. However, designs need to consider the spec of the ‘average’ pc (people won’t respond if the questionnaire won’t open because the file is too large). They’ll wait for about eight seconds before clicking away.
− You don’t have an interviewer with an online survey, which removes bias introduced that way, but also means that your questionnaire needs to be clear. You can set it up to minimise mistakes, so the data you collect online is likely to be very high quality.
− Unless you have a friendly IT department who won’t charge you extortionate rates for their expertise online surveys are not a cheap option. Costs are probably comparable to postal surveys. However, the advantage is in the speed at which huge volumes of questionnaires can be processed. Online surveys are ideal for surveys that are regularly repeated, and deal with large numbers of respondents. The set-up costs are quickly outweighed by the advantage of using the same questionnaire programming each time.
− Online surveys are also useful for respondents like young people who see paper questionnaires as boring, but may be entertained by the pictures and special effects in an online questionnaire. They are also useful for academics or senior professionals who have limited time, but can log on whenever they have the time.
3. Qualitative research – feelings and perceptions
− Qualitative research doesn’t restrict the topics that come up for discussion. The whole process is less structured than a survey, and respondents are able to introduce additional ideas. It’s a balancing act though, to get the right weight between time spent on your interests and on the respondent’s. The job of the facilitator is difficult but important – again it’s a real skill to keep the discussion on track without leading it, and whilst remaining flexible.
− If we want to engage local people (as the Government is trying to encourage authorities to do) we need increasingly to treat residents as partners in decision-making. Therefore they must be able to understand the background and implications of their decisions and recommendations. To achieve this they need to be given relevant background information and helped to understand it. This takes more time (and so more money), but the results may have greater weight. The ultimate goal for engaging the community is sometimes devolving or sharing decision-making power:
Service user representation on decision-making bodies
Neighbourhood appraisal
Large-scale community events
Policy conferences
Community associations
Round tables / User fora
Citizens juries
Deliberative focus groups
Residents’ fora
Tenants’ associations
Focus groups
Referenda
Simulations
Residents’ panels
Neighbourhood fora
Public meetings
Service-specific surveys
Regular (tracking) surveys
Residents’ surveys
Video box
Quality check phone calls
Complaints and suggestions
Mystery shopping
Advice leaflets
Newspapers
Reports
3.1 FOCUS GROUPS
− The basis of qualitative research is usually a group discussion facilitated by a moderator, based on topics set out on a broad topic guide. Focus groups tend to take the form of a gathering of 6-10 individuals for 1-1.5 hours to discuss a given topic, which they may not know much about. That is perfectly acceptable, since you want to collect the views of a variety of people, both ‘expert’ and not.
− The advantage of a focus group is that the moderator can really probe and find out what is behind people’s views and experiences. You can gain a closer understanding of what your customers think. The disadvantage is that you are only talking to about 6-10 people each time.
− When recruiting focus groups you need to allow for dropout, but you also need to aim not to have more than 10 people there. If you have less than six that can also be difficult, as people feel more visible and may be reluctant to speak out.
− As for surveys, the people you include in the consultation should be broadly representative of the population you’re targeting. Therefore for a Borough-wide consultation you need to try to include both men and women, young and old, white and minority ethnic groups, disabled and not. It works better to have people with similar outlooks at a group, so it doesn’t work well to combine old and young people together, and sometimes that applies to combinations of different ethnic groups. If you can afford it, it’s best to do more than one group.
− The role of the moderator is very important, and is hard work. A moderator can either make or break a focus group. They need to be able to make people feel comfortable enough to talk, but they also need to make sure that no one person dominates the group. If there is someone keeping quiet, it is the job of the moderator to give them the confidence to speak out.
− The moderator doesn’t take part in the discussion or voice opinions – they are there to be a sponge, drawing out and soaking up a range of views. They shouldn’t lead the discussion, and should not put words into people’s mouths, however they need to make sure that the topics of interest to the client (the Council) are introduced. If these topics aren’t interesting to the attendees, they need to be able to cope with that situation in a productive way.
− In a discussion that is flowing well the talking happens amongst the group members, and the moderator’s job is to watch body language, and only interject comments or questions here and there for clarification. However, if a group is uncomfortable the moderator needs to take a more active role to get the conversation going. Care needs to be taken to make sure that the discussion doesn’t turn into a question and answer session between moderator and attendees. The moderator should not be seen as the ‘expert’ on the topic in hand, or attendees may hesitate to speak out.
− If the moderator doesn’t have an assistant to take notes, it’s helpful to make a tape recording of the discussion. However, this can only be done with the permission of all those present. Quite often the moderator also has to take notes.
3.2 DELIBERATIVE CONSULTATION
− Deliberative consultation is qualitative research that goes further than getting people to give their ‘top of the head’ views. Instead it makes them go through a stage of ‘deliberation’ or weighing up the pros and cons to come to a decision or recommendation. To do this they need to be provided with, and understand, all relevant information before the discussion and decision-making can take place. This information needs to be presented in an accessible way, to make it easily assimilated by non-experts.
− Deliberative consultation on a large scale takes the form of citizens juries, where a group of people are invited to attend a session lasting several days. During this time they hear evidence from expert witnesses and at the end of the consultation they are required to provide an answer to the question they have been set. For example, citizen’s juries have been set up to deal with the problem of which local hospital should be closed, given resource constraints. They tend to be expensive!
− On a smaller (and cheaper) scale, it is possible to carry out deliberative focus groups to provide solutions to a problem. These are slightly longer than ordinary focus groups, and are attended by an ‘expert’ (for example a Council officer) who makes a presentation giving relevant background information, and who is there throughout to act as an information resource. The Council officer does not take part in the discussion unless invited to contribute by the group, and should not sit with the group. Like the moderator they should not contribute their own views to the discussion, and therefore need to watch their body language even when they are not speaking. The discussion tends to divide into three stages: presentation, questions and answers, and then discussion.
3.3 DEPTH (SEMI-STRUCTURED) INTERVIEWS
− A middle stage between a survey and a focus group is a depth interview, where the interviewer asks questions from a short topic guide, and probes for the reasoning behind the answers. There are no suggested responses, and so it can be useful to tape record the interview, if permission is given. If additional topics are of interest to the interviewee, the interview should be flexible enough to allow these to be investigated without a script.
− Depth interviews can be done face-to-face or (to reduce costs) by phone. They need experienced interviewers to be successful, who know how to probe responses fully.
3.4 E-MAIL SURVEY
− If you have up-to-date e-mail addresses for all your population, it can be cost-effective to carry out qualitative research using e-mail. This involves e-mailing a list of questions to respondents who have agreed to take part. The respondents then type in their responses within the e-mail or attach them as a Word document (making them as detailed or short as they wish) and e-mail them back again. This is a useful and flexible way of consulting senior managers, professionals or academics, who can complete the survey in their own time, and without the constraints of a questionnaire. It can extract large amounts of detailed information.
Gillette has announced its ‘Great Start’ programme which celebrates the role of coaching and supports coaching excellence by offering coaching grants awarded through the scheme. The announcement marks the second year of Gillette’s partnership with sports coach UK sports coach UK is a beneficiary organisation of Gillette’s ‘Great Start’ programme and is not affiliated to the IOC or London 2012, re-affirming the brand’s promise to help support coaching development and invest in sporting legacy beyond London 2012.
The grants are available to both aspiring and amateur coaches who wish to further their qualifications. Applications for grants open from the 9 May 2013 via the brands Facebook page www.facebook.com/GilletteUK. Gillette is also continuing to supporting the UK Coaching Awards hosted by sports coach UK which celebrate the role of coaching in encouraging participation, performance and excellence. As part of the Great Start programme Gillette is offering people the chance to nominate a coach who deserves recognition for their work for the UK Community Coach of the Year Award.
England Rugby League Head Coach Steve McNamara said: “The brilliant thing about the ‘Great Start’ programme is that it recognises the importance of supporting coaching in the UK and the integral role it plays in nurturing the future sporting talent of Great Britain. Without great coaches there would be no great athletes and it is essential that we continue to invest in coaching to ensure our future champions get the right training and support.”
Gillette brand manager, Jared Regan, commented: “Gillette has a rich heritage in sport and we appreciate the crucial role that both amateur and professional coaches play in the success of sport in the UK. Coaching is the sporting embodiment of a great start and we’re absolutely delighted to be able to sponsor these grants for a second year and give more people the opportunity to feel at their best by giving back to their community through coaching.”
sports coach UK CEO Dr Tony Byrne said: “Gillette understands that without the tireless efforts of volunteer coaches and educators, the next generation would not be inspired to pursue careers in sport and new talent would remain undiscovered. We also know that the cost of gaining a qualification is seen as a major barrier by many aspiring coaches, so we’re delighted that Gillette’s Great Start programme will enable more people to develop their skills”.
From 22 April 2013, charities and Community Amateur Sports Clubs (CASCs) can sign up to make repayment claims electronically.
The new service, Charities Online, is being introduced in response to customer feedback. It will make repayment claims faster and easier by filing online. The current R68(i) print and post repayment form will be replaced by three options for making claims.
These guides tell you what Charities Online means for your organisation and how to prepare for it. Simply visit:
Charitable trusts are bodies set up to do good. Money – capital – is invested and the income is spent each year. Trustees are responsible for the money and for how it is given away.
Charitable trusts in Britain give away something like £750m a year. They get tax concessions on their money because they are “charitable” – the Inland Revenue has to be satisfied that they use their income for purposes that are charitable in law. In practice this means that most trusts will only give grants to registered charities.
On average, charitable trusts give something to one in twenty or so of the appeals they receive. Many trusts are limited as to the geographic area they can make grants to. Usually trusts give smallish amounts (even trusts with large incomes) to local appeals – £50 or £200, not thousands. And often giving by trusts is one-off and for capital, not revenue. Trusts may help you buy the sand-pit for the community centre, they’re less likely to help you heat it or pay the salary of a worker.
There are exceptions. A few trusts are more interested in funding running costs or salaries of projects.
Trusts don’t have to publicise what they do, what sort of things they give money for, how you apply – or even that they exist at all. Some are very open about what they do, some aren’t.
Many trusts meet only once or twice a year. You may need to get applications in well in advance of meetings.
Most trusts don’t have application forms. In these cases you need to write a letter. Make sure it looks as if you’ve written to them personally; if your letter looks like a circular you stand less chance of success.
It’s worth spending time making sure you’ve got information on the trusts you intend to approach which is as accurate, up-to-date and comprehensive as possible. It’s a waste of your energy and effort writing the wrong letter to the wrong funders and trusts are understandably frustrated when they receive applications from projects which fall outside their remit.
For help on applying to charitable trusts please speak to us today.
To ensure your group is ready to apply for funding, 4Grants have produced a checklist which you may find useful.
About your group
What kind of Group are you? What legal structure does your group have?
About your groups policies and procedures:
About your group’s funding:
Many grants are complicated and time consuming, 4Grants can take away the hassle and apply our knowledge and experience to your funding bids. Contact us today for further information.