Covid-19: The diary of a small funder
I am also the Co-ordinator of the Yorkshire Funders Forum (YFF) and a trustee of the Leeds Building Society Foundation. This blog gives a snapshot of my experiences during the first weeks of the UK Covid-19 crisis from a small funder’s point of view.
11 March
The number of coronavirus cases is really starting to ramp up in London, but in Yorkshire all seems calm and everyone is carrying on as normal. My trustees encourage me to do as many visits to applicants as possible and today I visited a primary school in inner city Leeds who are part of a music programme.
However, the stock market is plummeting and my trustees are fearful of how much lower our fund’s value may drop and how much we should give out in grants at the March meeting and beyond.
18 March
The situation has changed so drastically in seven days. I’ve always worked at home for the Trust, so no big change there, but my trustees have asked me not to make any further charity visits in order to protect mine and the charities’ health. Having driven around Yorkshire for the past seven years, meeting the most inspiring and dedicated charity workers, I find this difficult to comprehend and feel that surely this will only be for a few weeks?
The YFF steering committee and I have made the difficult decision to postpone our 20 May Spring Conference which is a real blow as these events have happened twice a year, every year since 1992.
It also dawns on me that our cheque payment method for grants is going to cause some real challenges for our grant holders. Luckily our Relationship Manager at the bank agrees to increasing our daily online payment limit within minutes when this would have usually taken weeks to agree and hours of form-filling. Every cloud has a silver lining.
25 March
Lockdown has started and it’s awful to hear about the number of UK deaths and how many lives Covid-19 is destroying. Our March trustees’ meeting is this week but we’re not able to meet in person so what is the best way for the eight of us to communicate for the meeting? I’ve heard of Zoom but am not convinced that my two trustees in their 80s will be able use this, so decide to set up a good old-fashioned BT conference call account which works well.
The trustees decide that as there are very few ‘normal’ enquiries and applications coming in, for the next few weeks we should give out small £500 Fast Grants to charities and churches in West Yorkshire that are helping on the frontline by delivering food and continuing to support the most vulnerable to get through the crisis. It’s also agreed that we need to ‘meet’ monthly for the short term, as opposed to our usual three times a year, to make sure our grant-making matches up with local charities’ changing needs during the crisis.
1 April
The Fast Grant telephone and email enquiries are coming in nice and steadily. The Fast Grant sub-committee of trustees are doing a brilliant job reviewing the applications I put forward within 24 hours, and then I’m informing the successful applicants and making the grant payments the next day.
8 April
The Fast Grant enquiries and applications are coming in thick and fast now, but it’s just about manageable and being able to provide immediate support, even in a small way, really makes me feel that our Trust is doing our bit to help those most in need.
15 April
We’re getting so many Fast Grant enquiries and it’s proving more difficult for the trustees to decide on who to support. We’re now realising this is a bit more complicated than we first thought, and now that the trustees can see the current bank balance on the statement for online payment purposes, this is putting each applicant’s financial position in a whole different light and making it harder for the trustees to agree. It is also felt that some charities are tailoring their requests to fit with our criteria and this isn’t sitting well with some trustees. Who said giving away money was easy?
22 April
The Fast Grant enquiries have slowed down and we have another trustee call where it is agreed that the focus of our grant-making from May should shift towards unrestricted Resilience Funding for local charities in order to help them get through the crisis and come out the other side.
After the mad scramble to provide emergency support, it has become clear that what small charities will need for the medium-long term are friendly, flexible funders to turn to who can provide grants to pay for running costs. The Sir George Martin Trust has been here supporting Yorkshire charities for the past 64 years and we are determined that we will play our part in ensuring as many local not-for-profits continue their excellent work for many decades to come.
