Posted byKelly Johnson

This month, Community Action: MK were lucky enough to be able to host an online information session centred around funding. This came out as an area of interest and need from a group survey we ran, as well as our Collaborative Action Groups. Below is a round up of the session with some useful links for your interest.

Issues encountered when applying for funding

  • Grants are more competitive now
  • Applications are at the mercy of another organisations time frames Comply with what the donor is asking
  • Funding can be short term
  • Some funders will only fund registered charities
  • Timings of funding – do not want to fund projects that have happened before
  • Time pressured and milestones
  • Cannot make plans until funding is secured
  • Reporting and administration required
Question: How might you be able to diversify your current funding stream? (So that you are not reliant on grant funding?)
  • Alternative forms of funding (loans, trusts)
  • Corporate sponsors
  • Local businesses
  • Crowdfunding
  • Donations

Donors

Tips to remember:
  • Consider their criteria
  • Research really important – prioritise your funding approaches (recommended to be targeting up to 10)
  • Tailor responses to individual donors
  • Invest the time to research and identify the donors you’re likely to succeed with
Donor needs:
  • Eligibility criteria – first thing to look at
  • Exclusions
  • Requirements for any supporting documents / information / governance set-up
  • Geographical area of donor, as well as groups geographical reach
  • Typically funders won’t fund retrospectively
  • Re-applying – often can’t reapply within a certain period of time
  • Being critical – use an external source to help assess your own application to see if it meets the criteria and is likely to be funded
  • Check how much a funder will go up to
  • Ensure all parts of forms are fully completed i.e. with signature, date
  • Make sure that the application gets to the donor in enough time for it to be looked at
Common Donor Questions:
  • What are you looking for and where is the evidence?
  • Evidence of the need to be made clear – What is the evidence for the need?
  • What is this project leading to?
  • The number of people the project will reach – How many people will the project benefit?
  • How much will the project impact people’s lives?
  • What are you going to do? Make this clear.
  • Show that you are set up to manage funding. How are you going to manage the funding?
  • ‘Showcase’ – clearly show what you are able to do. What are you already doing and are able to do?
  • How have you found what the needs are in your community? ie, Have you talked to residents? Have you completed surveys with residents?
  • What is the evidence of need? How do you know that there is a need?
  • How can you show that your project has the intended impact? What indicators can you show? i.e. young people’s confidence has increased.
  • Have you thought about life beyond the grant? How will it be funded in the future? How will it be brought to an end?
  • What impact will your project have?
Tools to identify potential funders:

Livery Funding

With regards to livery funding, there are a couple of references below:

Useful Links:

Examples Of Policies And Principles:

Community Action: MK Information Sheets:

Remember: Community Action: MK are able to support you with sourcing potential donors through our funding search (mentioned above) and also act as an external source to look over your application / bid.

We also have a specific funding page (related to Covid-19) for your interest, as well as a dedicated funding section in our newsletter, that you are welcome to sign up to here.

Community Action: MK are here to support you, so if you want to get in touch regarding funding or have any other enquiries, please contact our team at support@communityactionmk.org or call us on 01908 661623 for a chat with our friendly team.