“No, let’s just have a conversation”: Making M&E more human

Q: Who is The Fore and what makes you different?

Francis: The Fore is the UK’s only venture fund dedicated to backing the best small charities and social enterprises. Like a venture fund, we support high-potential leaders and ideas, but instead of financial return, we focus on lasting social impact.

Top-down interventions aren’t cutting it. A lot of the most effective solutions to the problems we face already exist in communities, but with so little funding reaching grassroots organisations, their amazing ideas rarely make it into the mainstream.

That’s where The Fore comes in. We give the organisations we back a wraparound package of unrestricted, multi-year funding of up to £45,000, as well as training, skilled volunteers, peer-to-peer networks and impact measurement support.

Q: Why does this approach work particularly well for small organisations?

Small organisations tend to be flexible, adaptive and ingenious. They’re not wedded to long-established ways of working and they have their ear to the problems on the ground. If something doesn’t work, they can pivot quickly.

That makes them particularly well suited to The Fore’s approach. We focus on backing strong leaders and organisations where our funding has the potential to be genuinely transformative, whether that’s helping them to grow sustainably or strengthen how they operate.

This kind of agility is exactly what seed funding is designed for. A relatively small amount of money, used well, can be transformative in a way that’s often harder for large charities because of governance and infrastructure.

Q: Can you give an example of the kind of things you fund?

Francis: We often fund the unsexy but transformative stuff. CRM systems are a great example, or bringing in a first paid staff member.

We don’t dictate what people should apply for or try to squeeze them into boxes. They tell us what they need. During due diligence, they work with one of our consultants to really kick the tyres on the proposal and shape it together – with the charity leader always in the driving seat. And that’s why we don’t expect perfection at the first stage,  we know ideas need to evolve.

An open and trusting approach to monitoring & evaluation

The last thing we want is for organisations to feel like they need to spend weeks pulling together a huge report. We’d much rather have an honest conversation and capture what comes out of that.”

Q: The Fore does monitoring and evaluation in a very ‘slimmed down’ way compared to many trusts and foundations. What does that look like?

We don’t ask for long written reports. Our monitoring and evaluation is centred on a conversation – usually 45 minutes to an hour – with one of our consultants, who have experience across the charity, business and commercial sectors.

We talk about what’s happened over the last year, what’s been hard, what’s worked, and how things are going against the stretch targets we set together at the grant’s outset. It’s quite broad and quite informal in tone, but we do write it all up afterwards and take a proper log of it.

The aim is to keep our monitoring proportionate while still being robust. The last thing we want is for organisations to feel like they need to spend weeks pulling together a huge report. We’d much rather have an honest conversation and capture what comes out of that.

Q: What are the benefits of this approach?

I think you get much more honest, much richer information. When monitoring is just a report, people naturally want to present everything in the best possible light. A conversation creates space to be open about what’s actually been hard, what hasn’t worked, and what they’ve learned.

It gives charity leaders a chance to step out of the day-to-day, take stock and see the wood for the trees. It often becomes part reflection, part strategy session – and they come away having actually talked through what they’re doing, what’s working, and what they want to do next, rather than just feeling like they’ve ‘reported’ to a funder.

Those conversations unearth things that just wouldn’t come through in a report. You might realise two organisations are doing something really similar, or someone mentions something they’re doing really well, and that leads to new ideas or new connections. You just don’t get that from paper.

Q: Why did you decide to take this approach?

We’re very aware of the power dynamic between the funder and the funded. It would be very arrogant of us to think that we know best, or that we know what an organisation needs better than they do.

That awareness really shapes how we approach monitoring and evaluation. We don’t want it to feel like something that’s done to organisations — we want it to be useful for them as well as for us.

Q: How do targets fit with such a flexible approach?

We set targets to keep organisations focused on what they want to get out of the funding, but we’re real — we know plans might need to change.

We’ll always say, don’t be afraid to come to us if things aren’t working. Maybe you thought you needed one type of role and it turns out you needed another. Maybe you piloted something and it didn’t work, so you’re going to pivot and try something else. That’s absolutely fine.

What we look for isn’t blind, strict adherence to stretch targets. It’s much more about whether it’s within the spirit of what you’re trying to achieve as an organisation.

People will offer to send a report or a slide deck, and we say, “No – let’s just have a conversation.””

Q: Does this process give you enough information as a funder?

Yes. After each M&E round we pull together qualitative learning from the calls, and charities complete a very short quantitative survey – things like income, unrestricted income – which takes about ten minutes.

We synthesise that learning and feed it back into our funding decisions and due diligence. We’re not narrowing what people can apply for, but we are constantly learning.

Q: How do charities respond to this approach?

Francis: Honestly, it’s overwhelmingly positive. Sometimes the reaction is shock and disbelief. There can be a sense of, “Is this a trick?” People will offer to send a report or a slide deck, and we say, “No – let’s just have a conversation.”

That reaction is obviously really nice for us – but it’s also a bit sad, because it’s indicative of the experience a lot of the organisations we work with have had when reporting their work.

Once the conversation gets going, they really settle into it. We’ve had lots of feedback that it feels like a coaching session, or that people come away with clarity or an action plan.

Q: What would you say to other funders considering a more conversational approach to M&E?

Francis: I would always say to other trusts and foundations: feel the fear and give it a try. Even just pilot it with one or two organisations and see what you get.

I think the first port of call always needs to be: what is it that you actually need from the monitoring and evaluation process? And even with more restricted funding, I still think you miss the opportunity if everything’s just a report. Those conversations unearth things that just don’t come through in a report – they give you a really power to join the dots.

The Fore is part of Open and Trusting — a community of funders who put trust, respect and flexibility at the heart of grant-making.

A lighter-touch approach to monitoring and evaluation reflects several of the Open and Trusting commitments, living up to principles like being proportionate in reporting, asking relevant questions through open conversations, accepting risk as part of genuine partnership, and communicating with purpose to support learning over compliance.

Video Q&A – Open & Trusting and Us

IVAR also sat down with Francis to answer snap questions on how The Fore approaches grant-making, the hope he draws from working with charities, and advice for charities in 2026.