‘I value the hard work that Community Southwark put into this event, i don’t know another borough that hosts insightful events to this level, thank you to the whole team’ Sophie Austin Dog Kennel Hill Adventure Playground.
The funding conference aimed to unite VCS groups and funders to discuss inequalities in funding processes and help VCS build connections with funders and be updated on the latest grants.
What an incredible day! We had 86 attendees at the event, 17 of whom were funders.
We were at the amazing Jessie Duffet TRA Hall on Wyndam road (E: bookings.jessieduffetthall@gmail.com).
The day began with a round of introductions from funders to find out who was in the room and what grants they had on offer.
We heard from the following funders:
Charterhouse in Southwark, Haberdashers Company, Henry Smith Charity, Impact on Urban Health, Inspiring Elephant Fund, London Catalyst, Newcomen Collett Foundation, Partnership Southwark, Peckham Settlement, Peter Minet, Rotherhithe Consolidated, Southwark Charities, Southwark Council, St Olave’s Foundation, Team London Bridge, United St Saviour’s, and Wakefield Tetley Trust
After a brief break we had a panel discussion on
‘What are the strengths and challenges for smaller and larger charities? How can they be supported?’
Information on the panelists:
United St Saviours is a local Southwark funder who provides small and large grants.
Southwark Council provides different grant programmes throughout the year e.g. ‘Culture Together’, Neighbourhood funding, and Black History Month.
Bede House is a local charity with 3 main programmes: A centre for individuals with learning disabilities to learn new skills and build connections, The Bede Starfish Domestic Abuse Project, and Bede Community.
Dream Achieve Believe is a local CIC who run a wide range of youth programmes.
Team London Bridge is a A Business Improvement District (BID) structure.
We then had an amazing lunch by two caterers. First was Cadien, who provided a Caribbean lunch consisting of BBQ wings, pumpkin rice, roasted vegetables, and salad (E: cadien.green@live.co.uk). Second was Falafel Rush, which provided fresh falafels, homemade hummus, and flatbread (E: ramzybdour@hotmail.co.uk).
It was the perfect time for everyone to network.
After lunch, we delivered 3 rounds of conversation cafes. There were 10 tables with 1-2 funders on each table, facilitated by the Community Southwark team who also made notes.
*Please note the conversations are open discussions and may highlight areas of need or challenges instead of answering the question.
Round 1: Reflecting on the panel discussion – How can groups of different sizes work together instead of competing?
Highlight:
Funder: Why do you want to grow?
VCS: We don’t want to grow bigger; we want to grow our capacity (e.g. employ staff). ‘When I say I want to grow, what I mean is I want to breathe’ (i.e. reduce pressure on organisation).
Challenges:
- People’s definition of big and small charities vary.
- Time and Challenges to build relationships.
- Risk of smaller groups being overlooked or undervalued.
- Unequal resources can complicate collaboration – ensure all partners (particularly smaller ones) are fairly renumerated.
- Charities aren’t trying to compete – it’s the funding landscape
- Addressing power dynamics between VCS groups
- When funders ask VCS to collaborate, can risk misunderstanding the complexity of this. Utopian, not practical as it creates more work.
- This requires time, which a lot of groups don’t have. Can funders make room/make time for this to let people come together and test partnerships?
- Narrow funding pots are a barrier
To explore:
- Having a better understanding of how funders prioritise grantee applications.
- Building narrative of the value of relationship building – case studies, peer learning, etc.
- Trying to create partnership projects by combining skill sets.
- Having acknowledged and an awareness of existing work or projects, environmental and social awareness.
- Equally sharing money for different-sized organisations creates transparency.
- Ensuring smaller orgs can afford insurance, accountancy, IT, etc.
- Grassroots groups often have to be experts at ALL the things – larger groups can help cover skills gaps and support.
- Need for clear agreements, a memorandum of understanding at the beginning.
- Trustees need to be involved from very early.
- From funders’ perspective, joint funding bids are appealing as it maximises impact and shows how organisations know what is in their area, they are expert in local knowledge and have lived experience of collaborators.
Round 2: What are the top tips for making a successful application? Are they different for different sized groups?
Highlights:
“When a funder invites contact, make contact!”
Common top tip from all funders is ‘less is more, use an elevator style pitch’.
Top tips:
- Be Concise.
- Mindful of mission drift.
- In the application, establish the need – how is your org/activity different from others in the area.
- Make your annual reports clear, as it shows that you have spent time on the narrative.
- Find creative ways for funders to connect to service users (e.g, film, testimonials, storytelling)
- Get an outsider to read your application for sense checking.
- Have conversations with funders before writing a bid to ensure eligibility.
- Be specific: Adopt a ‘who, what, when, where, why?’ approach.
- Less about needs, more outcomes, delivery and impact.
- AI can be helpful, but make sure it’s tailored to your organisation to avoid being generic.
Round 3: Discuss in pairs, then as a group– reflecting on today, what are your key learnings? What are your next steps, and what do you need to achieve those steps?
*Take the risk to pilot new initiatives
*Use my position to influence others to make better decisions within communities (e.g, other decision-makers within the organisation)
*Make time to attend events like these and network
*More training on funding applications
*Building case for support, funding pipeline and elevator pitch
*Council suggestion to try to work with TRAs to access Getting Involved Grants, which are often undersubscribed.
Feedback
100% of attendees rated the event positively. This included ‘introduction of funders’, ‘panel discussion’, ‘networking’, and ‘conversation cafes’ (group discussions).
Highlights:
- “Opportunity to build face-to-face relationships with funders”.
- “Meeting lots of people, moving about the tables, hearing directly from funders, the generally convivial atmosphere, the efforts of the Southwark team in programming things thoughtfully and the generous provisions for food and coffee”.
- “Meeting other organisations in the borough. Understanding of the work of Community Southwark.”
“I left feeling positive and excited about the work I do, which is not always the case when talking about fundraising! Everyone I spoke to was passionate about their work and giving to the community – it was heartwarming and made me proud of what we achieve in Southwark.”
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