Please don't please me

Like it or not there is an imbalance of power in the relationship between the funder and fund seeker. The funder has the money and makes the decisions about who gets it. Whilst we can argue that without organisations to give the money to, the funder cannot fulfil their mission (so they need you as much as you need them), it rarely feels like that to those who are applying.

But this imbalance of power can get in the way of funders being able to help. For example, if you have received a grant from a funder who offers ‘funding plus’, there can be additional support on top of the grant. This can be the chance to network with peers; additional training; employee engagement for corporate funders or paid-for expertise such as an accountant or consultant. If the grant recipient does not feel able to openly reveal areas of organisational weakness, they can miss out on this valuable opportunity.  And if they do say they want help with e.g. business planning but feel unable to mention that there are issues in the leadership team, then any help provided is unlikely to succeed.

On the other hand, the funder may have noticed an area which needs strengthening. We get to see lots of examples of good practice and may by comparison observe areas for improvement in e.g. user involvement or governance. Our motivation is to help strengthen the organisations we fund. We want to improve outcomes for service users or increase the chances of the organisation continuing and securing other funding. At an individual level, I feel it is my duty to share anything I have noticed. However, funders are not experts in delivery and won’t have the complete picture. So my observations may well be wrong or other inter-related issues may rightly have a higher priority. If I tell the grantee my thoughts and they do not feel able to disagree then they may go ahead with my suggestion in order to ‘please the funder'.  This results in wasted effort as the support could be misplaced and the organisation is unlikely to give it their full attention and commitment.

Not surprisingly, the urge to please a funder is strong. But it shouldn’t get in the way of working in partnership. As the one with the power, it is up to the funder to try and create the conditions for a grantee to be open, to feel able to disagree, to challenge suggestions and decline offers of support. When I ask for feedback on our funding process, it is a strangely reaffirming experience if I get negative feedback from a charity we fund. It means they feel able to ‘speak truth to power’ and we are all the better for it.

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Who wants to be a secret millionaire?

There is a long-held cultural belief that anonymous giving is good:

“When you give to the needy,

do not announce it with trumpets”

Matthew 6:2

An anonymous donation means someone wants to give money to a cause and doesn’t want or need any recognition for their generosity. Sounds very altruistic, however, there are a mixture of reasons for either staying anonymous or making your donation public and they don’t fall neatly into good or bad.


Giving anonymously keeps the attention on the cause and not the donor. It means the individual avoids getting swamped with further requests for money and may help reduce the risk to their personal safety. But it does mean that they escape public scrutiny of their giving. This may be a significant factor in their decision, especially if they are funding something controversial or something that falls outside of their associated public profile.


For those who ‘trumpet’ their giving, going public may bring recognition and status. Donors declaring their charitable gifts are taking a risk when they make this public expression of their personal values – literally putting their money where their mouth is. Their open support can lend credibility to a cause and inspire others to give. This is certainly the case with the ‘giving pledge’ for the super-rich but also works for other philanthropists. I recently met with one who said they give openly because they want to be a role model and encourage others like them to give.


But what about the charities getting these gifts? Getting a no-strings attached cheque in the post has a certain appeal, but actually it can put charities in a difficult position. First of all, they miss out on building a relationship with the donor and benefiting from the other help they could bring: credibility, leverage, expertise. And truly anonymous gifts, trigger an ethical discussion. In the Institute of Fundraising’s ‘Donation Acceptance & Refusal’ guidance it states that gifts over £25k must be reported to the Charity Commission because of the issues of money laundering and other criminal activity. A quick Google search brings up several examples of organisations having policies refusing anonymous gifts as “the risks of accepting a gift with no idea of its provenance are too great” (see link below).


So whilst there may be a strong cultural pressure to be humble and shun the spotlight, there are a number of good reasons for donors to be open that may actually benefit your cause more.


http://alumni.reading.ac.uk/page.aspx?pid=912

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Plans: get them out of your head and on to a page

Doing the paperwork rarely gets a positive reaction. More often it is seen as a necessary evil and is described in terms of an external driver such as “we have to do this for our funders”. There is a real sense that charity staff producing documents are swapping front line work for tick-boxing exercises.

But I am a big fan of writing things down, and here’s why.

One situation where I think it is really important to write things down is planning. When I visit a charity and the CEO says “we have not written down our plan but we all know what it is”, my immediate thought is “Really?” When there is a jointly created and clearly written plan, a group of Trustees are still likely to interpret and describe it in different ways, giving more emphasis to their priorities. Even if it was true now, what about new staff – do they get told the full plan when they join? How are they helped to remember it and implement it in their everyday work?

A written plan aids strategic thinking. The very act of agreeing on the exact wording to write down helps to get clear agreement. Otherwise everyone holds a slight variation in their heads and the differences go unidentified and unchallenged.

It also saves lots of time. You really would not want to tell everyone your 1, 3, 5 and 10 year vision every time it is asked for. Much better is to have it in a simple document that can be referred to at Trustee meetings, given to funders, and used for staff induction. Not a piece of paper that sits in a drawer but one that is regularly used, reviewed and updated.

The plan belongs to the charity and not the individual. When it is held in the CEO’s head then it can easily be lost or changed. What happens when they leave or go off sick? Or change their mind? The CEO or Chair may well be the driver of the strategy but it is much more likely to be achieved if the whole organisation is part of the process and working to a shared aim. It is hard for others to own the plan when it is in someone else’s head.

Research has also shown (see link below) that we are more likely to achieve things we have written down. You can imagine why this works – you have committed to a public statement and so can both hold yourself to account and be held accountable. Trustees can measure the performance of staff and the charity against the stated ambitions. And you will also know when you have achieved something you set out to do and can celebrate your success.

So when it comes to paperwork, don’t think policies, procedures and plans are a distraction from your ‘proper’ work that you only produce for funders. Think of them as important aspects of your work that ensure everyone is literally on the same page and that stop you having to repeat yourself over and over again. If you roll your eyes when asked to produce your plan, it is probably time to write it down and value it for the helpful record and tool that it is.

Dr. Gail Matthews found that you are 42% more likely to achieve your goals just by writing them down. http://www.goalband.co.uk/uploads/1/0/6/5/10653372/gail_matthews_research_summary.pdf

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