If you know of any others you would be happy to share please email them in!

Idox Grantfinder
Your council or local VCSE group might have subscribed to Idox’s Grantfinder database. Personally I think this is the best free resource out there. Here is a link to East Sussex County Council’s access and to Voluntary Action Camden’s access.

DSC Funds Online
Some VCSE groups subscribe to Funds Online. I don’t think it’s the most userfriendly, but it’s really comprehensive. I know the B&NS 3rd Sector Group offer this (here’s the rota for members) and so does Community Base in Brighton.

Grants Online
Your local council or VCSE group might have subscribed to Grants Online. Sandwell Council of Voluntary Organisation have here or you can access it from Adur & Worthing Council too here.

Funding Finder
Bath & North Somerset Council have a publicly available funding database here.

Grin
A daily funding newsletter for £15 per year. I think this is very good. More info here.

Charity Commission Register
Do an advanced search and select “Main way of carrying out purposes is grant making” from the “How the charity helps” menu.

Funders Collaborative Hub
This is a platform for funders to connect with each other – but ends up also providing a really useful list of funding opportunities – although not all will be open to applications.

360 Giving Grant Nav
Grants data from 300+ funders. I think the same data is available in spreadsheet form here.

Charity Excellence Framework – Newsletter
I find this database pretty much impossible to search, but their newsletter is one of the most comprehensive out there. You can sign up here.

The post Finding Funding appeared first on Charity Help.

Projecting fundraising revenue is a crucial step in every charity’s planning process – ensuring your operating budget is based on data, not hope and wishful thinking. This is particularly true of smaller charities, who might be relying on a smaller number of funding sources.

So how can you reliably forecast fundraising income? Although this is often presented as an impossible task, it’s actually very easy to do this accurately, providing you have been keeping a good record of past applications.

All you need is a spreadsheet for all your prospects for the year, with columns for:

• funders name
• amount of funding sought
• success rating (more on this below)
• amount adjusted to the success rating percentage

Risk Rating Funders

Forecasting grant income is all about managing risk. Every charity will have their own way of doing this, but I would recommend keeping it simple and splitting your prospects in 3 categories:

• funders who have never given to you before (cold prospects)
• funders who have given to you before, but have not made an ongoing commitment (warm prospects)
• funders who give to you regularly (regular donors)

Success Rates

To each of these categories, you will need to assign a success rate, working it out as an average over the past 3 years

For example:

If you applied to 50 funders over the past 3 years who had never given to you before, and 10 gave you a grant, your success rate for cold prospects will be 20%

Forecasting Income

Once you’ve done this, all you need to do is multiply amounts sought by the relevant success rating and add up.

So for example:

2024/25 Pipeline

Cold Prospects:
Trust A: £10,000 x 20% = £2,000
Trust B £30,000 x 20% = £6,000

Warm Prospects:
Trust C: £20,000 x 60% = £12,000
Trust D: £30,000 x 60% = £18,000

Regular Donors:
Trust E: £20,000 x 100% = £20,000

Forecast Grants Income for 2024/25 = £58,000

The post Forecasting Grants Income appeared first on Charity Help.