Open and Trusting Comes to the Public Sector

A public agency’s¹ approach to funding the community and voluntary sector reveals what kind of relationship it wants – transactional, slow and risk-averse or straightforward, easy and trusting. 

Open and Trusting is a simple, practical framework to help you do the latter. 

Built on eight principles, Open and Trusting was designed in partnership with charities. And it’s grounded in the core belief that communities are experts in their place and should be treated as partners, not just applicants. 

Open and Trusting already counts a community of nearly 200 trusts and foundations that have committed to making their funding more human, transparent and flexible. Now we are turning our focus to how the same approach could benefit local authorities, the NHS and all public agencies that want their money to be allocated in ways that enable those working in and for communities to do their best work. 

Why this matters now

This is the right moment for Open and Trusting in public agencies.

Policy is moving towards place, partnership and community power. The Pride in Place agenda, the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026, the Civil Society Covenant and the NHS 10-Year Health Plan for England all emphasise neighbourhoodGoo working, shared decision-making, prevention and stronger partnerships with communities. In Scotland, the Public Service Reform Strategy calls for services that are preventative, joined up and shaped with communities – with power and resources shared more locally.   

This is all supported by a growing call for ‘relational’ or ‘person-centred’ public services: built on,

‘meaningful, open-system relationships between citizens and public servants – relationships that are flexible, responsive, and grounded in care.’ 

Funding is a practical place to begin 

Funding is one of the most direct ways public agencies interact with communities. It involves decisions about power, trust, accountability and relationships, making it a practical place to test new ways of working that can then influence wider organisational practice. 

Public agencies invest millions of pounds in communities every year through grant-making. Local authorities alone distribute more than £600 million each year, but there is still very little concrete support on how they can invest in ways that allow communities to flourish and thrive. 

This is where Open and Trusting helps. 

Designed to be responsive and adaptive to your context, the Open and Trusting commitments are a way in to looking differently at your forms, your timelines, your feedback, your reporting and the tone you set from first contact. You can start with one funding programme, or even one part of a process and test what changes.  

While Open and Trusting starts with making funding processes better, the behaviours it encourages, such as listening, flexibility, transparency and shared learning, are also the foundations of more relational public services. If we want public services to feel more human, more responsive and more joined up, Open and Trusting is one practical place to begin. 

What changes in practice?

Implementing Open and Trusting is not abstract – it visibly changes the way work is done. It might be that priorities are explained more clearly; unneeded questions no longer get asked; timescales become more realistic; feedback is proactive and timely; funding becomes more flexible and reporting more proportionate.  

This has a positive effect on organisations, who are liberated to plan long-term, reward and train staff, invest in infrastructure and respond to emergency needs.  

The impact on funders is also significant. Trusts and foundations who are part of Open and Trusting also free up time to focus on real impact and strategy rather than paperwork. Relationships improve. Using the Open and Trusting commitments, teams can start thinking differently about risk, control, and accountability. They may become more comfortable with shared learning and better at deep listening. They may feel more agency in accommodating flexibility and more confident in uncertainty, helping to move relational practice from statement to habit.  

In this way, Open and Trusting is not only about improving funding processes. It can also help teams build the confidence, habits and capabilities needed to share power, work with uncertainty and build stronger partnerships with communities. 

By testing and learning through grant-making, public agencies can also build practical evidence about what helps relationships with communities improve and what supports wider organisational change. 

‘There is no question that the Open and Trusting commitments have made us a better grant-maker,’

… was how one member put it in our January community survey. 

Start where you are

There is no single model when applying the Open and Trusting commitments. Every public agency has different rules and constraints, and Open and Trusting works because it is flexible and lets you start wherever change is possible for you. 

IVAR wants to work in partnership with public agencies who are exploring new ways of working. We are offering free support to several public agencies to begin embedding Open and Trusting in their funding practices. This could range from a one-off workshop to introduce Open and Trusting and start exploring what an application would look like in your context, to supporting you in the longer term, working alongside you to test, learn, and begin to embed new practice. 

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Find out more

To find out more about how we can work together, IVAR are running an online webinar on Open and Trusting in Public Agencies.

To explore further details and submit an expression of interest for your organisation, download the form below

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We recognise that every public agency operates within a different context and set of constraints.

If you would like to discuss the programme before submitting an Expression of Interest, we would be happy to book in an informal conversation.

1. By public agencies we mean local authorities and other statutory bodies, including the NHS, making grants to voluntary and community organisations.  ↩︎