Grant funding - towards sustainability

Avoiding dependency

Grant making bodies are such an important source of funding that it is vital for most organisations to try this route. Many, unfortunately or unnecessarily, depend on grants entirely. Keeping all your eggs in one ‘funding basket’ is not recommended. Funders are the first people to discourage you from becoming dependent on them. They will invariably ask you to show how you will survive after you have spent the grant, so you had better start planning for this straight away.

Is this where you wanted to go?

A more dangerous distraction is pursuing funding which is inappropriate to what you do or the way you work. You might take on a new development, which is so large that it changes the whole ethos of your organisation. The temptation can be irresistible if you know the cash will be easy to get hold of.

A similar temptation is to over-diversify

Taking advantage of grants to go for a third or fourth separate service or project with the result that you lose track of your priorities or distract your management effort from other important work. Sometimes it is right to go for expansion. However, you should think carefully about the implications before dashing off grant applications because you know they will succeed. Moreover, if you have second thoughts, do not be afraid to come clean with the funder. There may be a way to change the project before you start. However, if you break the terms of funding later the consequences could be serious.

Towards sustainability

The most effective users of grant aid are those, which generate their main income from contracts or trading subsidiaries and restrict the use of grants to enhancing or expanding on their core activities. That way they can survive even if every penny of grant funding disappears. Although complete sustainability is simply impossible for most organisations, it provides an aspiration and a way of working which is well worth keeping in mind and applying in a more modest way whenever you can.