Our new grants programmes: what we've learnt so far

This summer we launched two new funds – Emerging Justice and Strengthening Justice – for organisations that are accountable to their communities and committed to using the law to influence wider change. As well as changing the scope of our grant programmes, improving applicants’ experience of applying for funding is a priority for us as we start making grants under these new funds. We proudly work in line with IVAR’s Open and Trusting initiative and are always looking at how we can better our processes, so we’re now offering flexible application formats, clearer criteria and new technical procedures. 

The deadline for the first round of our new grant programmes was in September. We received just over 100 applications (around double what we usually received under the previous strategy) and are busy with second stage assessments, so I wanted to reflect on what the first stage of our first round told us about the changes we’ve made. 

For the first time, you can now apply to us by submitting a proposal to another funder, other existing documents, video content or web links. In the run-up to the deadline a few people dared to ask: ​“I know you have all these application options but what do you really want?” – a sentiment I recognised from my experience as a fundraiser. So one of the reasons I wanted to write this blog was to say: ​“Really, we want you to choose the route that works for you.”

We were very alive to the risk that any one of the grants team might lean towards a particular method when they assess an application. This is one of many reasons why we read each other’s assessments and make a collective decision about the strongest applications.

Most people chose to answer our questions directly by submitting written answers. We heard that this was sometimes because existing documents did not centre accountability, a core priority for our new strategy. For Emerging Justice applicants, it was often because working on the law would be new to them, so that they needed to tell us something different to other funders. Others addressed this by sharing existing documents alongside a new document on accountability or use of the law. 

Although it was not something we weighed up in arriving at our shortlist, we are very pleased to have taken forward applications submitted through video and existing documents as well as our application form.

We noticed that a handful of organisations submitted highly designed documents. These may have been prepared for other funders or be a standard template, but for our next round we will make it clearer that we don’t need organisations to spend their time making applications beautiful: we are interested in what they have to say.

Another improvement we made to our application process was the introduction of access payments of up to £500 to help Deaf, disabled and neurodivergent people with applying. We’re happy that this offer was taken up during our first round.

In shortlisting applications, we had a much clearer set of criteria than under previous grant programmes. Focusing on 1) using the law for change and 2) accountability to communities helped us to make consistent decisions. But we also recognised that these were unfamiliar concepts for some applicants, so we decided to shortlist a larger proportion (around a third of applications) than our budget to give organisations the opportunity to explain more in a meeting with us. This means we have had to warn shortlisted applicants that the success rate at second stage may be as low as 50%, compared to over 80% in our previous strategy. 

Around half of shortlisted applicants had spoken to our grants team before submitting their application. While not a requirement, we encourage those applying in future rounds to make use of our 20-minute pre-application guidance calls to ensure they understand our criteria. This includes organisations that were not successful and are considering reapplying. Because of the high volume of applications, we did not offer feedback calls to unsuccessful applicants as we’ve done before. Instead we included more detail in the rejection notification, but we know that this is still likely to be frustrating.

We embedded an anonymous feedback survey into notification emails and will follow up to remind applicants to complete this. 

One area of feedback where we’re already making changes is our new Salesforce process. This received a ​‘marmite’ response, with some people experiencing it as straightforward while others finding it didn’t work properly. The quick response from our technical colleagues was highly valued by applicants. We improved the Salesforce process during the round and are working hard to implement other changes before reopening. 

Under our new strategy, we’re looking forward to sharing more about what we’re learning as we learn it. Once decisions on these first applications have been made, we’ll share what else we’ve understood from feedback and what we’re doing differently as a result. In December, we’ll also share the success rates for applicants to this round.