Public agencies

The Open and Trusting Grant-making initiative has been a useful source of research and network in sharing lessons and good practice on grant-making. This reflective insight and engagement, as well as the experience of other funders, contributed to inform the development of Fair Funding Principles which will underpin the future funding relationship between the Voluntary & Community Sector and Government in Northern Ireland.

Christo McConnell, Co-Chair Funding Relations subgroup and Head of Programmes, Engagement and Impact, Voluntary Community Division, Department for Communities, Northern Ireland

It’s important to learn from other local authorities because whilst we only fund Leeds-based organisations, a lot of the organisations and artists we fund tour regionally and nationally. We ask, what is good practice? Can we learn from other local authorities? Because we’re all in a similar situation, our budgets are getting cut. If someone else has tested something out, what can we learn about the advantages or disadvantages? How can I shape it to suit my local authority?

Ann Wishart, Leeds City Council

We’ve just worked with our legal team on developing a new grant agreement. I think it would have been really helpful to have had a precedent grant agreement from other local authorities, to create something more proportionate. And I would have loved to have had another council to say, “we’ve been in this position, and we need to come up with a proportionate grant agreement, as well. This is how far we got.” I think a bit of just a bit of collectivism or solidarity would have been really helpful.

Rob Malyan, Sheffield City Council

You don’t have to commit to all eight principles all at once and have everything all up and done. There are some practical steps that we could work together on and think about.

Elaine Wilson, Head of Learning and Development at Corra Foundation, an intermediary funder who often work with Scottish Government

The insight provided by IVAR was extremely helpful during our co-design process of developing a Good Practice Guide to Grant-Making and Procurement for Suffolk and North East Essex ICS. The Open and Trusting eight commitments had been highlighted as good practice and they provided a robust benchmark for us to work from as we developed our own principles that have since been adopted by our statutory partners.

Rachel Jennings, Communities Lead, Suffolk and North East Essex Integrated Care Partnership

The Open and Trusting Grant-making programme has been an approach that has helped us significantly within Glasgow to begin discussions around developing a Glasgow Funding Charter. It has provided us the opportunity to discuss collectively with both funders and funded organisations on how relationships can be improved and how we move forward developing a shared vision in relation to grant-making. IVAR’s facilitation has been pivotal in commencing these conversations and providing us with a mechanism to do so.

Nicola Fullarton, Health Improvement Lead – Maximising Independence & Flourish Glasgow Partnership, Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership