

Duty to Care?
How to ensure grant-making helps and doesn’t hinder
Definitions

Definitions
- We use ‘voluntary organisation’ to describe organisations belonging to the charitable sector; voluntary sector; community sector; voluntary and community sector; voluntary, community and social enterprise sector; third sector; NGO sector; and civil society, having an annual turnover of less than £500k.
- We use ‘trust’, ‘foundation’ and ‘grant maker’ interchangeably to refer to independent charitable trusts and foundations. Unless otherwise indicated, ‘funder’ also refers to independent charitable trusts and foundations.
- We use ‘grantee’, grant-holder’ and ‘funded organisation’ interchangeably to refer to voluntary organisations in receipt of funding from independent charitable trusts and foundations.
The day-to-day existence of voluntary organisations continues to be precarious, and they report that the challenges facing the most vulnerable in society are deepening.
We believe that foundations could be making adaptations to their grant-making practices in response to the circumstances and needs of small to medium voluntary organisations.
In this study we looked at examples of foundation practice from applications through to reporting, and propose actions and questions that other funders might consider.


What can we do to make it easier for people and charities to do their job well?’
Life for voluntary organisations in 2018
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The instability we described in our 2012 Duty of Care study feels like a permanent fact of life
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After recent scandals, the public and media have higher expectations of transparency and professionalism
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Organisations are trying hard to adapt and it is an ongoing journey (e.g. investing more in measuring and evidencing outcomes/impact; taking steps to diversify funding sources; and broadening service offers.)
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Organisations struggle with commissioning and procurement processes
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Organisations have been able to keep going thanks to the determination of their people
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Maintaining services is more common than growth and more organisations feel vulnerable.
Yes, we all need to be more enterprising and get a mix of funding but in a time of austerity and shrinking resources of funding across the board, just how Richard Branson-like do people think we can be?’
Foundations adapt
Conceive of the interaction between funders and voluntary organisations as relational – rather than contractual’
Call to action

2. Simplify processes
Could your processes be more useful and less burdensome for the organisations you fund?

3. Build relationships
Can you have “better conversations” with your grantees to build mutual understanding and honesty?
Read the report
What would really help is a three year significant grant so that I can develop the model rather than spend so much time writing funding applications and end of period reports.’
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