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Facebook Groups

• Fundraising Chat
• Fundraising Consultants & Freelancers UK
• Community Fundraisers Network
• Corporate Fundraising Chat

Meetups

Charity Freelance Chat
A monthly meetup for freelancers working in the charity sector.

Social Leaders Lunch Hour Huddle
Free monthly meetup to share leadership challenges, connect with peers, get relevant support and grow your skills.

Newsletters & Blogs

Lime Green Consulting Unconventional Wisdom
A round-up of the more unusual and outside-the-box recent thinking.

Michelle Stein Handmade Fundraising
An excellent fortnightly newsletter including writing tips and fundraising idea.

Lark Owl The Nest Egg
Inspiration and practical suggestions on how to develop your income generation.

Apollo Fundraising
Ideas, insights and inspiration.Mostly arts fundraising but lots applies to everyone.

Kevin L Brown Fundable & Findable

Short Courses & Events

Get Grants Masterclasses
Low-cost ondemand training to build your fundraising skills.

Embrace Finance Bitesize Learning
60 minutes Lunch & Learn sessions.

Small Charity Friendly Conference
A day of learning, sharing experiences and connecting with other small charities.

JMB Consulting Uncharitable Festival
A brilliant series of events exploring systemic oppression in the third sector.

B&G Partners
Great occasional free fundraising training (individual giving & corporate)  through The Fore and CAST.

Online Resources & Other

The Ultimate Fundraising Books List

The Ethical Rainmaker
Podcast about nonprofits and philanthropy

The post Learning Resources appeared first on Charity Help.

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.

When assessing a request for funding, in addition to your submission funders will also be looking at other publicly available information, in order to get a clearer and more comprehensive pictures of your charity, CIC or community group’s work. This includes things like your social media presence and website, but also your published accounts, trustees annual report (if you’re a charity) or CIC 34.

Yet, even though we regularly attach these to our funding applications, very few of us make the most out of this document. Not only do we want to make sure our accounts tell a story which is well aligned with our fundraising, but for funding applications with very limited word or character count they provide an invaluable opportunity for extra information and rich qualitative data like participant stories and quotes. And where we can’t include images on application forms, they also provide the space to present your work more visually, including with photographs and infographics.

So what should you include in your Annual Report?

Your annual report provides important accompanying information to the accounts, it helps people understand what your charity does and should tell the charity’s story in a balanced manner, acknowledging both significant successes and failures.

TAR’s should follow a specific structure, and the Charity Commission provides guidance on what they should include – in particular for charities with a turnover above £500,000, who should follow the guidelines set out by SORP.

But Trustees can present the contents of their report in any order and under any headings that they choose. And although reporting requirements are lighter for small charities, a great, thorough report can have even more value when you’re less well-known

Things you might want to include, to help you make the most of this document:

• acknowledgements and thanks to current funders. This shows prospective funders others have already trusted you with their support
  
• information about your future plans. Vision is always great to galvanise fundraising. This can also be a great opportunity to include your theory of change.
  
• case studies and quotes from beneficiaries. This report provides the space for you to get your impact across through the voices and lived experiences of the people you support. 
  
• images and design elements will make reading your report a much more pleasant experience, and help you get your point across. Photos and infographics can also all be repurposed, and be used in your comms all year round.
  
• make sure your financials tell a compelling, clear story, which marries well with your figures and your fundraising strategy. Liz Pepler, of Embrace Finance, runs some really great sessions on Charity Finance to help you achieve this.
  
• keep your audience in mind – This document is a brilliant opportunity for you to be more transparent with your stakeholders and reassure your donors and funders that you’re investing their money wisely and running an efficient organisation which delivers what you set out to do.
  
• Think about accessibility – you should write your report in a way which is clear and easy to understand for a range of stakeholders. Depending on the people you work with you might want to provide easy read, plain text options, translation or a video summary in BSL.
  
  

Resources

Charity Digital, Six impact reports to inspire you https://charitydigital.org.uk/topics/six-impact-reports-to-inspire-you-9941

Image credit: Poole Communities Trust Annual Report, 2022-23

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Funders want to fund organisations which are well managed, solvent, have appropriate policies in place, and can adequately demonstrate impact – and a big part of fundraising is ensuring your organisation can clearly demonstrate this.

Beyond a well written proposal, this also means having good policies and systems in place, documents up to date, and all the necessary information at hand. Below is a check list – but don’t worry if you haven’t got everything in place yet. Development is a process, and, depending on your organisation size and project, you can often start fundraising with just a few things in place! Absolute essentials are in bold below, and you can download a colour coded check list at the end of this article.

1)Financial Management

• UK Bank Account in the correct name with two or more unrelated signatories
• Most recent set of accounts (signed & audited if relevant)
• Bank statement from the last 3 months
• Yearly Budget / Forecast 1 – 3 years
• Reserves Policy (Charities)
• Key Financials: income, expenditure, reserves (free and restricted)
  

2) Governance

• At least 3 unrelated Directors / Trustees / Committee Members
• Governing Document (Constitution or Articles of Association)
• Charity Commission and/or Companies House numbers
  

3) Policies & Compliance

• Safeguarding Policy (reviewed annually)
• Health & Safety Policy (reviewed annually)
• Public Liability Insurance
• Equal Opportunities Policy (reviewed annually)
• DBS checks (if relevant, renewed every 3 years)
• Privacy Policy
• Data Retention Schedule
  

4) Impact

• Beneficiaries numbers
• Outputs & Outcomes Framework
• Aggregated demographic data
• Case Studies
• Theory of Change

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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

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Definitions

Overheads are the costs which are necessary for the organisation to operate, but do not relate specifically to one project. They typically include administration and management staff costs, premises, IT, governance costs

In order to run projects and programs (both of which grantmakers are generally more happy to fund), community groups need to cover their core costs. The term ‘full cost recovery’ means securing funding for all your organisation’s costs, including the direct project costs and a proportionate share of your organisation’s overheads.

The full costs of your project are all the costs directly relating to the project plus the project’s share of the overheads.

How to calculate your project’s share of overheads

You need to find a method which effectively reflects your organisation’s situation

• Based on the number of direct project staff

When? f the number of direct project staff fairly reflects the relative sizes of your projects. If there are many volunteers working on projects it may be appropriate to include volunteer time in the calculations.

How? Identify the staff working on all your projects / programmes (excluding non-project staff). Add together all project staff hours. Divide each projects staff hours by the total number of staff hours for all your projects to come up with a percentage.

For example:
Your organisation runs 2 projects

Project 1: 4 staff, each work 30 hrs per week = 120
Project 2: 2 staff, each work 15 hrs per week = 30

Project 1 share of overheads: 120 / 150 = 80%

• Based on the number of beneficiaries

When? if beneficiaries across all your projects incur a similar level of costs. This method won’t work if you run a mixture of resource intensive projects (for example a mentoring programme) and much less costly projects (an open access youth club)

How? Add the number of beneficiaries across all your projects / programmes. Divide each projects beneficiaries by the total number of beneficiaries for all your projects to come up with a percentage.

For example:
Your organisation runs 2 projects

Project 1: 60 beneficiaries
Project 2: 30 beneficiaries

Project 1 share of overheads: 60 / 90 = 67%

• Based on premises usage

When? for venue-based organisations, where premises costs represent a substantial part of your overheads

How? Identify all the projects that use your space. Work out each project’s level of usage by multiplying the number of hours they use your space by the square meterage of the space. Divide it by the level of usage of all your projects.

If the projects used the rooms for different numbers of weeks in the year the percentages would be based on: floor area x hours occupied per week x weeks occupied per year.

For example:
Your organisation runs 2 projects

Project 1: uses your main hall (50 m2) for 2 hrs/week = 50 x 2 = 100
Project 2: uses your small hall (25 m2) for 5 hrs/week = 25 x 5 = 125

Project 1 share of overheads: 100 / 225 = 44%

Resources

The National Lottery has produced a spreadsheet to help you calculate the direct and overhead costs for your project and estimate your projects’ share of overheads

The Centre for Social Value, Philanthropy Australia and SVA conducted research on the impact of insufficient funding of charities indirect costs here

This article on the Stanford Social Innovation Review highlights “the nonprofit starvation cycle”

The post Full Cost Recovery appeared first on Charity Help.

Funding for arts projects is incredibly hard to come by, and available funders are hugely competitive. Beyond the usual suspects, this working-document inventories smaller, lesser known funds for arts projects.

Abderrahim Crickmay Charitable Settlement
Up to £10,000 towards revenue, capital or project costs for individuals and organisations associated to the world of dance.

Alice’s WonderDance
Exists to carry forward the vibrant, joyful legacy of Alice Aguiar; a fearless, expressive, and generous dancer who moved through life with rhythm, light, and compassion. The grant fund ( up to £2K) is available for both community organisations and young people to remove barriers so that every child can access dance, explore their passion, and grow through movement in a safe, empowering space.

The Ampersands Foundation
Funding for a wide range of visual arts projects – including but not limited to exhibitions, artist commissions, public collection enhancement, collection care, artists’ residencies and educational projects

Art Cry
Micro-grants to support artistic interventions in public space which responds to social/political events.

Bagri Foundation
Grants of up to £150K are available for UK not-for-profit organisations that promote the sharing of traditional or contemporary Asian culture.

Brian Mercer Trust
They allocate 10% of their funding to encourage and support the development of emerging artistic talent (working broadly in the field of visual arts) within the North West of the UK.

Charlotte Aitken Trust
The Charlotte Aitken Trust is dedicated to the support of literature, writing and reading. It is funded by the estate of the celebrated literary agent Gillon Aitken (1938-2016).

Creative Debuts
Each month, a £500 grant is awarded to a UK-based Black artist as no-strings-attached financial support.

Creativity Pioneers Fund
Provides selected organisations with an unearmarked grant of 5,000 euros to help cover general operational costs and any critical costs to successfully developing activities.

DBACE
£60,000 prize fund for creative entrepreneurs who are driven by a mission to build and sustain social value through their enterprise.

DIDYMUS
Focus is on widening access to and participation in the arts, by making grants to small UK registered charities with an annual income of under £1 million in Greater London and Yorkshire. A small number of grants of up to £10,000 for up to 3 years are available for projects which make the arts accessible, inclusive, exciting, and enriching, with a specific emphasis on increasing quality opportunities for those who are less likely to engage with the arts, or face barriers in doing so.

Eranda Rothschild
Supports the education and outreach work of arts charities but prioritises work which is well known to the Foundation.

Fentons Arts Trust
Up to £6,000 for artists at the beginning of their careers.

Fidelio Charitable Trust
Up to £5,000 for individuals and groups who would not be able to carry out a project or activity without financial support, particularly those who are at an early stage in their careers.

Grand Plan
Offers grants of £1,000 to people of colour, aged over 18, living in the UK, looking to make a leap with their creative practice.

John Lyons Charity
Up to £5,000 for schools and arts organisations in London, to deliver high-quality arts activities aligned with the national curriculum.

Film TV Charity
Grants of up to £10,000 for mid-to-senior Black and Global Majority individuals working behind the scenes in film, TV, and cinema – and of up to £25,000, available for Black and Global Majority-led production companies and industry organisations.

Gisela Graham Foundation
Funding for smaller charities concerned with the propagation of the creative and performing arts, in particular, training and equipping young performers and artists.

Grand Plan
£1,000 grants to people of colour based in the UK who want to bring a new creative project to life. Support creativity in all its forms, including: poetry, paintings, fashion, zines, music, food, flowers, photographs, workshops, and events.

Lochlands Trust
Grants, generally for under £5,000. are available to UK registered charities for general charitable purposes, with a preference for charities working in the areas of culture, the environment and medical charities, including hospices. The Trust has some preference for supporting charities in East Sussex, where it is based.

Maria Bjornson Memorial Fund
The Maria Bjornson Fund supports artistic enterprises, arts-related activities and individual artists. 

MGC Futures Bursaries
£5,000 to support for theatre makers with creative projects and training at a pivotal point in their professional development.

PRS Foundation
The Open Fund for Music Creators supports the development of outstanding music creators of all genres and backgrounds at different stages of their career with grants of up to £5000.

Scops Art Trust
Multi-year grants of up to £30,000 per annum available for music projects, including music performances at local arts festivals, instrumental and choral music groups and adult and children’s music education projects.

Schroder Charity Trust
Grants of up to £5,000 towards core and project costs to charities registered in the UK for work under the Trust’s priorities – including Arts, Culture and Heritage.

Shears Foundation
Grants of £5,500 from charitable organisations in the Tyne & Wear and Northumberland regions who are working in one of the Foundation’s priority areas – including the development of culture and the arts.

Span Trust
Grants between £5,000 and £20,000 that will alleviate poverty, disability, age or ill health, and advance urban regeneration – including advance and support for the fine arts.

Speaking Volumes
Funding for small arts organisations that are diverse-led and/or working with underrepresented voices to develop and deliver a discrete project with an international partner. £7,000.

The Arts Society
up to £3,000 for projects across all aspects of the arts and heritage. Particularly encourage applications for projects that provide access to the arts to those who would not normally have access to them.

The Elephant Trust
Up to £5,000 for fine arts and small organisations and galleries producing new work or exhibitions.

Wingate Foundation
Support for charities to develop performing arts work which cannot be funded from the usual sources, as well as for training and professional development for creative talent or the technical professions.

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In his closing keynote at the Charity Finance Summit earlier this month James Plunkett, chief practices officer at innovation foundation Nesta, said that charities were “very slow” to embrace the “first wave of the internet and innovation” and missed out on potential benefits as a result. 

The 2023 Charity Digital Skills report found 78% charities cite digital as a priority for their organisation. 8 out of 10 see improving their website, digital and social media presence as the greatest priority for the year ahead.

However, just under a third of charities don’t have anyone in charge of leading their digital progress, which is an increase from 22% in 2022, and the number of charities who have a strategic approach to digital has decreased to 48% this year.

There are probably many factors contributing to the voluntary and community sector’s remaining behind in terms of digital capacity, including lack of suitable funding, the fact that two-thirds of organisations have an annual income of £100,000 or less and perhaps even the relatively older age profile of sector trustees compared to the general population (24% of trustees are under 45, compared to 57% of the general population).

Digital Grants

The Fat Beehive Foundation: Digital Grants
small grants of up to £2,500 to charities with a turnover of less than £400,000.

The Space
commission projects to empower the cultural sector to be digitally inclusive.

Access Foundation
grants of between £20k to £100K to UK charities and social enterprises focused on changing people’s lives by helping them bridge the digital divide.

Open Technology Fund: Internet Freedom Fund
funding to bring ideas to life that advance inclusive and safe access to global communications networks.

National Lottery Organisations Digital Evolution Awards (NI)
funding to upskill NI arts organisations in the use of new, emerging and immersive Digital Technology and create Digital Art.

SMART Capital Equipment Fund (Wales)
this fund provides grants to support organisations to purchase equipment which increases productivity through adoption of innovative technologies.

GSR Foundation
fund projects which work to ensure no one is excluded from participating in, or benefitting from, the advancement of technology and its role in human progress.

Worshipful Company of Information Technologists
up to £15,000 for projects which make use of information technology, and relate to one or more priority area: education, inclusion, IT for charities, and public understanding of IT.

The Leeds Digital Inclusion Fund
grants of up to £10,000 are available to community organisations aimed at ensuring that individuals and communities in Leeds have the skills, support, and equipment to be active online, now and in the future.

Support In Kind

The Developer Society
pro-bono support for charities and nonprofits looking for design support for digital projects

Google Ad Grants
up to £7,000 per month in search ads shown on Google.com

Digital Candle
free digital advice for charities – Ask us a question, and we’ll connect you with a volunteer expert. No question is too broad or too niche.

Charity Digital
one stop shop for digital donations and discounts for Nonprofits

Resources

Catalyst – 7 tips for writing a winning digital funding grant application
https://www.thecatalyst.org.uk/resource-articles/7-tips-for-writing-a-winning-digital-funding-grant-application

Catalyst – how to budget for future digital costs
https://www.thecatalyst.org.uk/resource-articles/how-to-integrate-digital-costs-into-your-operating-budget-budgeting-for-digital-part-3-of-3

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If you know of any others you’d be happy to share, please email them in, or comment below.

Centre for Cultural Value supports the development of new research projects between the UK cultural sector and academic researchers.

Education Endowment Foundation supports the development and evaluation of programmes that aim to raise the attainment of young people, particularly those from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

Nesta provide capital to tech businesses and social sector organisations with strong technology skills and/or a technology partner to develop innovative solutions closely aligned to their impact goals

Paul Hamlyn Foundation fund research and development, commission evaluation and provide grantees Evaluation Support Consultants.

Peter Sowerby Foundation provide research grants to projects that are providing innovation and transformation in health and social care

The Young Foundation fund community-led research and innovation projects

UK Research and Innovation fund research and evaluation of programmes across sciences, economy, social sector, arts and the environment

Wellcome Trust fund research taking creative approaches to important questions relating to life, health, and wellbeing

What Works Network – GOV.UK provide support and guidance about monitoring and evaluation for public sector organisations

Youth Endowment Fund fund work to learn about the effectiveness of different approaches to preventing young people becoming involved in crime and violence.

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