There’s no denying we aren’t in Kansas any more, Toto, when it comes to the fundraising landscape right now. It might as well be Oz, with the occasional proverbial farmhouse or flying monkey shaped obstacle on the road, as funders we have known and loved shapeshift or disappear before our very eyes.

To survive this, we know we need to change our strategy: fewer applications, more relationships, better success rates. But this is easy to say and harder to put in practice, particularly as a smaller charity.

I want to reflect on the experience of one of our charity clients that seems to be bucking the current trusts fundraising trends. They've done it by playing to their strengths and focusing on building relationships with funders. But this takes trust – not only between the charity and its funders, but between the fundraiser and senior leadership.
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3Pillars Project is a charity using rugby and sports-based mentoring to enable young men in the criminal justice system to develop skills and behaviours that break the cycle of reoffending. Their turnover is in the £500k-£750k bracket, so not tiny but not a large charity.

Their approach with beneficiaries, staff and freelancers is inclusive, open and direct. They are the first charity I’ve met that has said “we welcome challenge” and really meant it. Discussions and decisions happen in a flat hierarchy, and learning is expected. The project is a decade old (8 years as a charity), and they’re both nimble and confident.

So, how does this play out in fundraising?

Good strategy means saying no to many possible paths in order to choose the best one.

In fundraising, this looks like researching many opportunities to seek out the probable, not just the possible. It means looking hard at the opportunity and being able to make the call to pursue an application or let it pass by.

When organisations are feeling insecure, or their management is, the pressure to run down every opportunity can be overwhelming, and lead to fundraisers stretching themselves too thin trying to churn out hundreds of applications to “get the numbers out”. But 3Pillars feels more confident.

Of course, there have been times when a concern about the financial bottom line increased focus on the pipeline, but we have been able to remind each other of the importance of prioritising the right applications.

​We've challenged each other to be more realistic about which applications are possible in the given timescale. This two-way discussion gets them much better value in the long run from their fundraisers.

Keep up a steady flow of applications, but make sure they’re the right ones. Which brings us to…

3Pillars know what they do, and why. They have focused very solidly on creating a shared understanding of how their approach – their GAMEPLAN pathway from custody to community – works, what it doesn’t do, what ‘good’ looks like, and how they can show this.

We’ve worked with 3Pillars to draw out from their detailed staff handbook, impact reports and previous applications just what it is that sets them apart from others. We’ve worked out granular budgets from project plans, and packaged up their work to appeal to funders.

That doesn’t mean they don’t change or evolve their offer – they do, and they are co-developing their work with their participants and graduates. Being able to talk about how they are doing so is hugely helpful.

What they *don’t* do is chase the money.

We’ve looked carefully at which funders have the biggest overlap with their project(s) and we’ve discussed and agreed which angle to take to make the best argument for why this funder would be making a wise investment. We’ve taken time to understand their impact and their (excellent) monitoring and evaluation.

We don’t, and they don’t, invent a project to become eligible for a funder’s grant round. To do so would be to pull the organisation out of shape when an authentic fit is everything.

3Pillars has such a brilliant can-do attitude, it’s sometimes a little unnerving.

When I say “I’ve found this funder. They look like they want to fund exactly what you do, but they say ‘no unsolicited applications’ so they’ll need a bit of work via your networks to get an introduction,” my expectation is it may take weeks or months to find a connection and have a considerate conversation. 3Pillars Project has been known to come back in less than half a day indicating that not only do they think they know someone who might know someone, but that the someone also plays rugby!

However, it wasn’t always this straightforward.

Although early in our work together we identified that they were good at getting grants stewarded via a personal connection, we couldn’t always translate that to new opportunities we’d identified. We had some difficult conversations about the initially low ROI and took some time to build trust. We encouraged 3Pillars to see their strengths in building networks and connections, while we focused on writing compelling applications. We acknowledged the fact that good relationship-based fundraising requires a leap of faith, and time.

If at this point, you’re thinking that rugby charities with an "old boys’ network" advantage, that’s understandable, rugby does have that reputation. Having several team members who served in the Armed Forces doesn’t hurt either. But they still needed to do the work. You don’t automatically score from a good position on the pitch; someone still needs to carry the ball over the line.

I don’t hear “we don’t know anyone”, instead I hear “leave it with me”.

Often we don’t get anywhere (or at least it remains a work in progress) and that’s OK. But other times we’re invited to submit a proposal. Being willing to try to solve problems, and being prepared to seek and build links over months or years, makes fundraising so much easier. But it needs everyone to play their part...

Rather than their success being down to brilliant individual fundraisers (although we like to think we’re pretty good), 3Pillars has always recognised and harnessed the power of all their team to contribute to their fundraising goals.

The Chair and trustees’ contacts and networks, and those of every staff member, are valued. People are empowered to make connections and introductions where there’s a mutual interest.

We put in a smallish application to Matchroom Charitable Foundation, but around the same time a frontline staff member approached a personal contact there. The application was unsuccessful, but Matchroom Boxing came on board as a significant in-kind supporter offering valuable profile-raising opportunities. Through them, former British and Commonwealth Super Welterweight Champion, Ishmael Davis, has become an Ambassador and mentor to current 3Pillars participants.

The frontline team have daily contact with participants, and actively seek and share success stories, picking up snippets of testimonials and solid feedback from beneficiaries and partners. Listening out for comments and compliments, and proactively sending those round the team is a huge boost, and of course it’s vital for fundraising, marketing and social media.
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The CEO personally connects and contacts people, even hand-writing a personal cover letter accompanying their impact report, tailored to the recipient. The organisational culture is friendly to fundraising, with clear targets and expectations, dedicated resources, celebration of successes and learning, not blaming, where things haven’t gone well. 

3Pillars has enjoyed more trusts fundraising success than most charities, with an ROI of 23:1, close to three times the sector average (as per LarkOwl's excellent 2026 benchmarking report). This isn't based on a single big win, but consistent results over a two-year period.

Our work with them has brought in over £600,000 in grants, the majority from new funders.

And it’s not luck. Nor is it just because they are well-connected, well-resourced, or because Glinda’s on their side. It's because their fundraising is right for them.

They are following the advice we give to all charities – get in front of the right funders, send fewer, higher-quality applications – and they are doing it well. Their confidence is based on the quality of their work and impact. Funders trust that their grants will generate the intended social impact.

​If you’re feeling inspired, take a look at their website. They do great work and the content is thought-provoking. Maybe you know someone who’d like to know about their work in prisons and Young Offender Institutions.

If you’re feeling slightly despondent, don’t see the whole journey. Have a think about which one of the elements listed here you could see as the next step to take:

• Perhaps bring a frontline colleague a coffee and ask for some good stories.
• Maybe revisit your prospect research – how well do you really know what any funder on your pipeline would be prepared to fund? What makes an application actually worth a punt?
• Do you need to refresh your content, project plans and your budgets? Does everything look suspiciously like it did last year, and the year before? Or are you constantly chasing novelty and losing the focus and clarity on what your organisation is for?

Fundraising isn’t getting any easier, but with a bit of thought, and team effort, it can feel a whole lot less like you need some ruby slippers to get you on your way.

​Good luck!

A good chunk of a Grant Manager’s (GM) time is devoted to trawling through annual reports and management accounts. Usually this is done with a tinge of dread, willing there to be nothing untoward in the accounts that would trigger further investigation.

As uninteresting as it may be, the financial and governance due diligence is the first hurdle for charities to jump over on the funding journey. Essentially, this is boiled down to the question of trust: can the keepers of money (the Trust or Foundation) trust the charity to use its money effectively?

As with much of the accounting world, this was often more art than science. 

The process starts with the basics: does the charity have enough unrelated trustees, are the accounts submitted on time, are they considered a going concern if externally audited?

​Very few charities succumbed to these checks, so normally it was straight on to more subjective matters, such as reserves, governance, and deficits.
 
The thorny issue of reserves got the Trustees going if they were too high (why should take OUR money when they can pay for it themselves?), and worried Grant Managers if they were too low (are they risky for a multi-year grant?).

Generally, my view was that these concerns could be assuaged with a decent policy and reasonable commentary in the annual report. Unravelling what was actually free cash and not tied up in buildings wasn’t always straightforward, even with the SORP requirements.

Anything outside of 3-9 months of expenditure was generally investigated, though I rarely saw anything approaching a year from place-based, community driven charities. A nice problem to have if so.

Unexplained issues with reserves are not helpful and should be avoided, as anything that adds time into the due diligence process lessens the attraction felt by the GM to your organisation. GMs are generally aware of the tightrope charities tread regarding reserves, so a clear explanation on the current predicament is all that’s needed.

As for deficits, these pose different issues.
 
One former colleague was adamant that no charity with a couple of years of deficits should be funded as it was ‘throwing good money after bad’.

Putting aside this view for a second (as it doesn’t take into account how effective the charity is at delivering its service), clearly there are a myriad of reasons why a charity might have logged deficits: deliberately to run down high reserves, an unexpected legacy dropping the year before, loss of a government contract, or not least that fundraising is increasingly like trying find needles in moving haystacks.

I always checked in with the charity if there were unexplained multiple deficits as I wanted to avoid the Barbara Streisand effect associated with highlighting any financial issues with a charity: i.e. the Trustees wouldn’t know it was there until we highlighted it, but once we did they wouldn’t think about anything else.

Once again, financial commentary within the annual accounts, or within the annual accounts can give the GMs confidence that the charity is going to be around for all or most of the grant duration. There seems to be more of an opportunity for charities to explain anything unusual in the accounts within funding applications now. This is a good use of time, as otherwise GMs could be using out of date information.
 
On the rare occasion that charities were honest about their existential crisis, it didn’t land well with Trustees. The old adage of ‘dependency’ still looms large, Trustees didn’t want to be ‘saving’ charities as what would happen when the Trusts funding came to an end and the Trustees head was turned in another direction?

The world of charity closures is complex, and not one I will go into here (instead check The Decelerator) but it suffices to say that unless they have a deeply personal connection (ever the caveat to process), your average Foundation Trustee won’t be pounding the table for funding to be granted to a charity on its last legs.

When I land on your home page, is it obvious who you are and what you do? Is information about your work and/or projects defined clearly under relevant sections that are easy to find and written in plain, simple language?

In a very similar way to approaching a funding proposal, a time-poor funder does not want to dig around to find the basics. If your website is littered with jargon, or if a funder ends up more confused about your work by visiting your website, this isn’t a good sign.

Alternatively, it might not be littered with jargon, but is your website too vague? Can I spend five minutes on your site and leave with a clear picture of your mission, vision, activities and impact?

For example, you’re a charity centred on a rare species that needs protecting from extinction. The information you provide about said species could be second-to-none, but if what your organisation does to help protect said species is shrouded in mystery or generic language, as a funder I am still going to question how you’ll be using my cash.

​Be specific about what you do and how you do it, but keep it simple.

Is the information you’re presenting online consistent with what you’re saying about yourself in your funding application? Do your vision and values align? Are you claiming one thing in an application whilst your website says otherwise?

Discrepancies in messaging can cause confusion and sow seeds of doubt in the mind of a funder. I’ve worked in smaller charities where often the way in which we internally speak about our work naturally evolves slightly over time, and frequently for good reasons.

You may not be intentionally trying to present a drifted mission or activities, but an outdated or misaligned website can easily discredit even the most well-written funding proposal if it’s not clear how it seems to fit with what you’re saying publicly.

Despite it being the front-facing centrepiece of your charity, sometimes the accuracy and consistency of the messaging on our website can simply get overlooked whilst we’re busy aligning everything else. When was the last time you checked the wording of your ‘about’ page against a recent application?

Of course, there is often necessity here for wider conversations around consistency of messaging across staff and volunteer teams, and it could actually mean that your proposals are off key instead. This is why we always recommend investing in an internal case for support that is routinely updated and is used consistently within an organisation to frame your messaging across different audiences.

​It’s also worthwhile agreeing on a regular review period for checking and updating both your website and your case for support, which might be anywhere from monthly to every few months, depending on your organisation. 

Last but definitely not least: credibility. Whenever a funder visits your website, especially for the first time, the question of credibility is front and centre. After all, they’re considering trusting you with their money and will be keeping their eyes peeled for potential red flags.

You might think that a super-polished website with expertly designed graphics and add-ons makes your organisation appear more credible, but if you’re a small charity, the opposite might actually be true.

If your website appears disproportionately professional to the size of your organisation, a funder may question your decision to invest your limited charitable income into marketing and IT. Of course, in this day and age, people expect to see a certain level of modernisation (clunky, retro websites also stand out!) but smaller or family trusts in particular remain wary of anything that looks too good.

More critically, could the claims you make on your website be misleading in any way? Even seemingly innocuous turns of phrase can unintentionally mislead.

For example, you’re a small charity supporting young people living in Herefordshire, who are not in education or employment, to access skills-based apprenticeships. You say online, ‘we help 10,000 people every month’. These sorts of phrases can cause problems, particularly because they pair a specific claim (i.e. 10,000 people per month) with a vague action word (‘help’).

What you actually mean is that your social media content reaches 10,000 unique accounts every month (which is awesome!). But what a funder might interpret is the claim that your organisation directly enables 10,000 young people onto apprenticeship schemes a month. Compared with your other impact data, it quickly becomes clear this doesn’t stack up, which raises a question mark.

With stakes high and hundreds of competing applicants, unfortunately few funders will ask for clarity or give you the benefit of the doubt, especially if you’re a new applicant. In the current fundraising climate, funders always need to whittle down their pile of applications. 

Having someone external read over the types of claims you make publicly – especially ones containing data – can be a really helpful way of picking up on these potential issues. Additionally, being transparent and surrounding your claims with specific details will help avoid misinterpretation. For example, if you’re claiming ‘100% of people said...’, tell us how many people were asked. 100% of two is still two!

I hope that remembering these three Cs – Clarity, Consistency and Credibility – when curating your website will help you explore how to best present your organisation and your work so that it sings to the beat of a funder’s drum. These points also apply to the information you put out on your social media channels or other public forums.

​But, as I said previously, funders may only be one of many different audiences accessing your website for various reasons, and the way in which information is presented here shouldn’t come at the expense of making it inaccessible to another key set of people, especially your service users.

On that note, digital accessibility should be a priority for your charity’s site, whoever you’re catering it for. Our friends over at Charity Digital have a host of helpful tips on this issue here.

Generally, these are where decisions are finalised and minuted. These minutes rarely escape the building, only to be seen by Grants teams and the occasional auditor (there are of course exceptions, such as the excellent City Bridge Foundation, where you can attend meetings and access their minutes).

These meetings are often held in surroundings incongruous with the subject matter discussed, which only adds to their surreal nature. At one funder, the meetings were followed by a lavish three course meal with drinks.

​In theory, most of the work has been done before the meeting; these gatherings are the final scrutiny and sign-off for the release of the funding.

The pre-meeting processes are generally a variant on a theme. Applications come in, Grants Managers (GMs) assess them against the organisation/fund criteria to make recommendations to the Committee. Any contentious or particularly large grants will generally be discussed with the Chair before the meeting.

​Sometimes the grants which are ‘recommended for decline’ will be simply listed, sometimes they will have the same level of detail as those ‘recommended for approval’. GMs will produce one-to-two page summaries, including a brief introduction to the organisation, key financials, where the money will go and commentary/recommendations.

So far, so good: the process is generally as you would expect. 

What the Committee sees is the tip of the iceberg of the GMs, who would have checked, read, and written much more only to be distilled into a couple of pages. In my experience, the percentage of these documents actually read before the meeting is variable, and sadly lower than you’d expect.

GMs have to accept this and be ready to have a clear ‘pitch’ for each charity, and to prepare for any likely questions.

Committee Members are often families or people who are very familiar with each other, and are often very busy. Often, they will cram a few meetings into one day, with the Grants Committee relegated to the second or third meeting of the day.

GMs go into the meetings prepared to the hilt, with in-depth knowledge of each bid, but they cannot account for Committee members who may have sat in lengthy, tense meetings with patience wearing thin.

This weariness can manifest in various ways; annoyance at perceived jargon terms (‘Theory of Change’ being a particularly contentious term with many trustees), changes of heart, or temporary amnesia of the strategic objectives. In short, the decisions made here are made by humans, who may not be at their best. 

Committee Members generally have a trusted network, many of whom may run or be trustees of charities. I’ve assessed many applications that have no bearing to the strategy, but have been personally recommended, so unless you discover a major issue, the grant will sail through.

One extreme example saw a Committee member attempt to discredit other applications because their personal application was recommended for decline (because it targeted a completely different demographic).

This is rare, but the most asked questions from Committee members (if they have questions) are generally around whether we trust the individual at the helm of the charity. Either that, or "do they really need our money?" if the charity dares to build up anything like a reasonable reserve.

These questions are generally easily answered by GMs, but problems come when the Committee starts diving into how the charity operates or understanding its role; this is when the dreaded "I’ll find out more and get back to you" occurs, leading to more work for a potential decline. 

In saying all of this, generally Committees accept the GMs’ recommendation, especially after a few meetings together building up trust. The key currency in the meetings is trust; effectiveness of a charity is rarely discussed (the Committee is more likely to debate as to whether the organisation is suitable for its funding). If the Chair keeps to the agenda, these meetings can be simple affairs, as recommendations get nodded through.

​The flipside is when a grenade is chucked into a meeting and affairs turn volatile and unpredictable – such as differing personal view, a preference for another charity, or a questioning of strategy – often unravelling months of work from the GMs.

In short, there is only so much the GMs can control, and the reasons for a declination might not be clear cut. Often feedback is euphemistically put to the charity, whereas the real reason is that a Committee member has had a bad experience with that charity or doesn’t think they are ‘worthy of their money’.

If I was going to offer one piece of advice, it would be that clarity is key.

Your funding bid is often relayed to trustees second or even third hand, so absolute clarity on the need, issue and your approach is vital. You can provide clarity by using plain language, using a summarising introductory paragraph, using bullet points, and getting a second pair of eyes on the application to ensure the ask is clear (if this isn’t possible, then at least re-reading with the sole purpose of checking whether a reader can understand it first time).

Oh, and make sure that there is nothing that could give the Grants Manager or Committee an easy out: no late accounts, an up to date website, and a clear explanation of reserves is a good start.

​Make the life of a GM easy, and hope the Committee isn’t too tired or upset. Control the controllables and hope for the best. It’s the power balance in action, and unfortunately, it’s the game charities are increasingly forced to play. ​

Last month, I wrote by far my worst-ever performing LinkedIn post. This month, I’m writing a blog out of it.

Cast your mind back to early January. Easy enough as it wasn’t much different to now – just a little darker, a little wetter, and with Donald Trump defecating marginally more on the global news cycle.

For those of us hoping for a more positive 2026, the year didn’t start well. The US captured the Venezuelan President on 3rd January. Trump refused to rule out invading Greenland, touted military action in Iran, and directed threats at various other countries. NATO Chief Mark Rutte ominously said “we're not at war, but we’re at not peace either.”

There was frenzied speculation about what was really driving the world's most powerful and belligerent Wotsit: was it geopolitical strategy? Thirst for oil? Was he just unhinged? Or did he simply take a look at a world map and notice that Greenland seemed really big?

Around the same time, I listened to a podcast about the upcoming US midterm elections, how crucial they were to the MAGA agenda, and the very real risk they won’t be conducted freely and fairly. Joining some dots in my head, I wrote this on LinkedIn:

​It was a departure from my usual topics. It was speculative (arguably unhelpfully so) and pessimistic. I didn’t expect it to be everyone’s cup of tea. But I didn’t expect it to be LinkedIn Kryptonite either.

I can almost guarantee you didn't see this post. After six weeks, it’s had around 50 impressions (almost all of them me), compared to the usual figure of a few thousand, and 0 reactions. It’s been “seen” by 8 people, except it hasn’t really.

The post didn't appear in anyone's feed. It doesn't show up in my post history. When I sent the direct post link to people, they received a message saying "This post cannot be displayed", despite them being counted towards the paltry number of people who had seen it. It's like it never existed.

I couldn’t tell you exactly which words triggered this – it's not like this was my first post about politics or Trump – though I suspect the phrase “dying megalomaniac dictator mode” did me no favours.

Nobody is going to cry about the loss of one LinkedIn post. There's enough noise on there anyway.

Those of us who post regularly tend to get hung up on how our posts perform, and which topics get engagement. I’m fully aware this will always risk sounding vain and self-absorbed. Who really cares?
 
Except we should care, because it's part of a much larger and worrying picture.
 
We know that all the big social media platforms manipulate the content that we see, shaping what gets heard and what doesn’t.
 
We also know who owns these platforms, and their political orientation. In a rare moment of accidental tech bro transparency, they even lined up together at Trump’s inauguration. Jeff Bezos: Amazon. Mark Zuckerberg: Meta/Facebook. Tim Cook: Apple. Sundar Pichai: Google. Elon Musk: X.
 
You've probably seen people using emojis and deliberate misspellings when talking about Palestine, genocide or ICE, to avoid triggering the mysterious algorithmic trapdoors. A recent report by 7amleh - The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media gathered testimonies from anonymous LinkedIn employees alleging that the company’s internal political landscape was dogged by anti-Palestinian racism, and moderation practices were being misused to suppress criticism of Israel.

Meanwhile, worrying research by Best For Britain showed how multiple new TikTok accounts – set up with different ages, locations, dates and IP addresses – were shown far-right, racist content within minutes, despite doing nothing to engage with it.

We live in a world where content related to women’s health is routinely censored (a white paper by CensHERship found that 95% of women’s health creators reported censorship on social media), while Grok persistently allowed users to digitally undress women for entertainment.
 
Just this week, a teenage girl wrote a shocking account for The Guardian detailing her daily experience of objectification and misogyny on social media.

In a sector all about connecting with people, social media is crucial in enabling us to increase participation in our services, raise money, build movements.
 
And it’s so easy to be seduced by the analytics. As we invest time in creating content, we watch our number of followers, impressions and reactions creep up.
 
This creates a reassuring sense of progress and permanence. We talk about “our” channels, “our” audience, “our” income streams.
 
But is it really our channel if we have to routinely self-censor in order to be heard?

Is it really our audience if we could be cut off overnight – either because we get banned for something we say, or because a different tech bro takes over and decides to change the rules, making the game unplayable?
 
It might feel like we’re building something on solid foundations, but it’s actually a bed of sand.

And that's not to mention the obvious ethical implications of participating on – and generating income for – platforms that are contributing towards the very problems we exist to solve.

​It's easy to feel powerless – and it's likely that disengaging from social media would harm your mission, income and service users.
 
I’m not suggesting doing this, but I do have some alternative suggestions:
 
Recognise the risks: building your work on the shaky foundations of social media comes with risks – operational, reputational, financial. But my sense is that this is a common blind spot. How many organisations have risk assessments that detail myriad unlikely scenarios, but have never even considered the potential impact if TikTok was switched off overnight, or LinkedIn was bought by an intolerable tech bro?

Having an honest conversation about the risks and your vulnerabilities – and the extent to which you really have control over what you rely on – will be helpful, even if there aren’t any easy solutions.
 
More platforms, less exposure: while you can’t prevent a platform becoming unviable for your organisation, you can minimise the damage this would do. Being active and building a following on a range of social platforms will reduce your vulnerability to external events.
 
I say this in the full knowledge that, at Lime Green, we've gone pretty much all-in on LinkedIn since coming off Twitter/X in 2024. It’s easy to become over-reliant on a platform that’s working well for you. That doesn't make it a good idea.
 
Beware the meaningless vanity metrics: sites like LinkedIn and Facebook provide you with endless data, but how much is it really telling you? Does gaining hundreds of followers, or thousands of post impressions, mean you’re actually achieving your objectives? Do those people actually engage with you? Are they even active, human users?
 
I heard a conversation between journalists recently where they talked about feeling reluctant to leave Twitter/X because they'd accumulated thousands of followers, even though the algorithm meant their content never got more than a handful of likes. They eventually left, and lost absolutely nothing. Platform data can give you a false feeling of comfort, but it’s not always a reliable guide to where you should focus your efforts or remain active.

Look beyond social media: because it's important, but it's not everything. It might bring us lots of fleeting connections, but it can lack the depth of other channels, as well as being at the mercy of billionaires.
 
At Lime Green, many of the people we interact with most frequently are email subscribers. There are people who open and click on every email but have never even engaged with us on LinkedIn. Email provides a safety net that social media could never offer – there’s no single event that could disconnect us from subscribers, and we’re not reliant on a platform to be able to talk to them – and it often makes for richer communication. For your organisation, your golden channels could be email, or post, or phone calls, or SMS.
​
My recent experience on LinkedIn – combined with so much of what I read – is making me re-evaluate how best to use social media.
 
Well, it's either that or just pack it all in, go off-grid and relocate to a cave in the woods. Some days it’s tempting, but I’m not quite there yet.

If you don’t love your job, leaving isn’t always the answer. There could be a way to ‘fix’ it.
 
This is particularly important in the current environment, when having a job can feel like a privilege to hold onto, no matter what.
 
Before knowing whether you could fix something, you need to understand what you might need to fix, or indeed if there’s anything that needs fixing.
 
It may be that any job - this one or your next one - will feel this way.
 
I studied Organisational Psychology, which is the study of human behaviour in the workplace. Like any academic discipline, it presents theories and frameworks to explain what’s happening. However, what tends to be missing from many of these theories is how individual priorities affect experiences inside work.
 
So rather than try to get a PhD and spend a decade developing a framework with my name on it, I sketched my theory out in a notebook, then refined it in Powerpoint:

The four quadrants represent the push and pull that we experience while in employment:

• Drifting - Primary focus is not work or career / Focus is your next job, not this one
• Comfortable - Primary focus is not work or career / Focus is this job
• Restless - Primary focus is work or career / Focus is your next job, not this one
• Invested - Primary focus is work or career / Focus is this job

While any employer can influence how you feel to some extent, these feelings are your own and they are influenced by many things beyond your immediate employment.

When you’re considering how you feel about your job, or indeed your wider career, it’s crucial to reflect on what these influences are.

The things that motivate us can sit across a spectrum from the intrinsic to the extrinsic.

Intrinsic = motivation to engage in a behaviour because of the inherent satisfaction of the activity

Extrinsic = motivation driven by external rewards: tangible, such as money, or intangible, such as praise 

​There can be an assumption that people who work in charities are intrinsically motivated. We have chosen a career that aligns with our values but which doesn’t pay as well as other careers do. This intrinsic motivation is gold dust for employers. It’s the kind of thing that big companies pay thousands to consultants to help them make their employees feel, so they enjoy their jobs more! However, it’s rarely as simple as that in practice.
 
When we hit our fundraising targets or do something particularly good, we want to be praised (extrinsic motivation), so if we’re not told well done, it can be demoralising.
 
Meanwhile, we want to know that the money we raised is going to be spent well (intrinsic motivation), so if we’re not convinced that it is meeting a need or being used well, it can make us feel less secure.

Drifting

• You hope to find a better balance elsewhere
• Doesn’t pay enough
• Employer doesn’t understand or respect your focus outside work
• Situation feels like enough is enough

​
Comfortable

• Meets your need for balance
• Pays enough
• Employer understands & respects your focus
• You have no energy to shift your focus to a different or next job!

Restless

• You’re bored or frustrated with the job itself
• Doesn’t pay enough
• You’re frustrated with the organisation
• You don’t feel sense of autonomy / control / respect

Invested

• Meets your need for progress / competence
• Pays enough
• Satisfies your values / hoped-for impact
• You feel a sense of autonomy / control / respect

Over three quarters of fundraisers are women (Breeze & Dale, 2020), which means that as a sector we’re far more likely to be balancing work with caring responsibilities: from children, to ageing parents, to a partner that always forgets to walk the dog.
 
But the push/pull of a life outside work isn’t uniquely experienced by women, caregivers or both. For some people their paid job gives them the security to pursue passions outside of work.
 
This is not something that your employer can directly influence! And nor should they.
 
Much like the adage, “it won’t get better if you pick it,” if someone’s primary focus is not their job and they’re doing it well, employers should recognise and accept this.
 
Of course, if your passions outside of work do affect how well you’re performing in your job, that is a problem! There is only so much leeway an employer can give without both of you needing to work out how to ensure your priorities are met outside work, and your responsibilities are met within it.
 
In contrast, there’s a scene in the first series of The West Wing, a TV show about a (very) fictional American President and his staff, where his Chief of Staff tells his wife that his job is “more important than my marriage.”
 
This blows my mind every time I watch it. Much as I love my work, I can’t imagine prioritising work over family. But this is a personal and valid choice.
 
There should not be judgement when it comes to reflecting on the things that influence your feelings. Especially don’t judge yourself.

​Do you want or need to earn more money? Remember, don’t judge yourself for your answer!
 
My weekly online shop used to be around £80-90. It’s now regularly over £100 and rising. My mortgage rate used to be 1.1%, it’s now nearly 4%, and I was pleased to even get that.
 
One of the main drivers for looking to another job will be how much you’re paid. And frankly, this can be a driver to consider something in the public or private sector instead. While the role of fundraiser doesn’t exist outside of our sector, our skills are chef’s kiss: other employers would be lucky to have us!
 
Or you may be feeling bored.
 
For all that fundraising is challenging, the day-to-day work can become repetitive. If you’re in an organisation that is risk averse, or doesn’t ‘allow’ people to have new ideas and try new things, it can become frustrating.

​When we moved into our first flat together, my now-husband knew that I wanted a bath. It was my non-negotiable.
 
There are things that feel important, but which - when forced to make a choice - aren’t that crucial. And then there are the things we won’t compromise on.
 
These change over time. Right now, raising a child with additional needs, I demand flexibility from my job. Perhaps in future it won’t be quite so necessary.
 
As you reflect, it is worth identifying what features and benefits, for you, are not up for debate.

We only have so much energy to expend each day. Some more than others, but even the Duracell bunnies of fundraising (thanks Alex Evans) have an upper limit.
 
Your options are either to try and fix things that you think could potentially be fixed or to try and find another job or career.
 
I once quit a job with nothing to go to. At the time it felt incredible! But I also had no dependents and lower monthly outgoings.
 
The feeling of saying “I quit”, especially if you’re in the Drifting or Restless category can bring a clarity of purpose that is empowering in the moment. Unfortunately this does not last long.
 
Once you have identified the things that are influencing your feelings, you’re in a better position to make a choice about where to put your energy: whether to Love your job or Leave it.
 
If this sounds familiar and you’d like to talk through your influences, your feelings and your options, Hannah offers a one-hour reflective session which you can book here:

https://peoplepurpose.co.uk/your-job-love-it-or-leave-it

Armed with strong coffee, ​I spent a few hours searching for funders with published guidance on the use of AI. I specifically looked at many large, national household names, did some Google searches and, yes, used Gemini AI (semi-successfully).

Where a funder had published guidance, I assessed their overall stance on using AI (from strongly positive to strongly negative), summarised their overall advice, listed the pros and cons they mentioned, and noted whether they use AI themselves.

By the time I reached 20 funders, I had a headache. Caffeine or information overload, who knows? I also felt like I had a decent sample size, including arms length bodies like Arts Council England and National Lottery Community Fund, national funders and local funders. It was getting harder to find new policies, so I stopped.

You can take a look at the raw data here. We’re be open to maintaining this as an ongoing resource for the sector, if that’s helpful.

A note on terminology. When I talk about AI in this blog, I mean generative AI: ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot etc.

Most funders were either neutral or generally negative about the use of AI. While some funders touched briefly on the potential benefits, most went into more detail about the risks. More on that below.

The most common view overall was “use with caution”. Funders won’t penalise you specifically for the act of using AI, but, in their experience, there is a decent chance it will make your application weaker.

Only one funder seemed to have an overall positive stance on using AI – perhaps unsurprisingly, a tech funder. And only one funder had a strongly negative stance – and they focused on the impact of using AI in policymaking, rather than in funding applications.

60% of funders declared openly how they are using AI themselves, with not a single one currently using it for assessing applications and decision-making. Good news for anyone worried about a world which mostly involves computers talking to other computers.

However, some funders are using AI to support things like their processes, grant administration, and meeting notes. Several funders acknowledge that this is a fast-moving area and clearly plan to keep their decision under review, suggesting they might start using AI more as the technology improves.

That’s the headline news. I’ve gone deeper into a few trends below.

Many funders now ask applicants to declare whether they have used AI. Given that they insist this won’t be a factor in their decision-making, I assume this is primarily to monitor how widely AI is being used, and its impact on quality.

Presumably, funders will soon have sufficient data to break down the success rate of applications written with AI, without AI, or partially helped by AI. I’d be fascinated to see this data published in future.

It’s a reasonable approach but, as always, the challenge is whether the question will yield honest answers, given the power imbalance in the relationship. A bit like the questions some funders ask about how long their application took and any suggested improvements to their process, you have to wonder whether fundraisers will trust that giving an honest answer won’t disadvantage them.

​The most common concern that funders had was the quality of the output. This theme came up repeatedly, exemplified by these comments:

Of course, the question is whether funders truly know if an application is assisted by AI. It’s hard to tell whether this a fair judgement on the overall quality of AI applications, or just the obviously bad examples.

But there’s an important point here. Large Language Models (LLMs) are created using a vast number of written work examples. They are, quite literally, an average of everyone’s writing. So what they produce will sound average. It would be a miracle if the language didn’t sound generic and monotonous, without the same phrases cropping up repeatedly. Not great if you’re a funder reading through 50 applications that day. And that’s before we get into AI’s tendency to “hallucinate” and make up statistics, sources etc.

Several funders were keen to emphasise that they don’t assess applications based on things like spelling and grammar. The “soul” of an application is evidently more important than its superficial appearance.

If we take funders at face value on this (and I do wonder if they overestimate their ability to strip out the unconscious bias when assessing applications), then this is encouraging to those fundraisers who aren’t natural or prolific writers. It also explains why AI – with its focus on format over content – isn’t proving hugely effective for application writing.

Where funders spoke positively about AI, they often cited how it can benefit grassroots community groups, people with little experience of writing applications, and those facing language barriers.

Particularly for these groups, some funders recognised the potential of AI to save time, improve accessibility, and support creativity. The implication is that it might help level the playing field for people who find writing applications hardest, even if it doesn’t enhance the work of seasoned fundraisers.

Reading their full statements, I can’t help but feel sceptical about this. It feels like a contradiction to simultaneously say that AI produces generic, inaccurate writing, but also helps people who lack the time, skills and circumstances to write a good application.

Being able to harness AI to write applications seems to depend heavily on your ability to access more sophisticated tools, write clear and intentional prompts, and spot what mediocre AI writing looks like. Logically, that will be harder for organisations and people who face barriers, not easier. In which case, AI seems more likely to widen the difference between good and bad, not reduce it.

​While funder more often focus on quality, many also refer wider implications such as the security of data (especially when using free tools), the lack of AI regulation, in-built biases that perpetuate discrimination, the erosion of copyright and intellectual property, and the huge environmental impact of using AI.

Unsurprisingly, sector-specific funders tend to zone in on the most salient issues for them. For example, Arts Council England voice concerns about the moral and legal rights of creators, Joseph Rowntree Foundation cite the risk of “scaling injustice”.

In general, funders in the arts, science and tech sectors – for whom concerns about the use of AI are likely to be directly relevant to their work – tend to have more detailed policy stances that look beyond the quality of output.

Firstly, read what funders are saying about AI, and heed their advice.

Many funders have impressively detailed and balanced statements on using AI. This is clearly a live issue, prompting plenty of reflection. Their advice on the risks of AI, and how to use it carefully and responsively, is generally sound. Their insights into how the use of AI impacts their assessment process – whether or not we personally agree – are significant.

Think of AI as a tool that can potentially support you with certain aspects of the trusts fundraising process, including as a sounding board, particularly in areas where you might personally be weaker. But only if you use careful, specific prompts, check the results carefully, and take steps to safeguard your data.

Don’t see AI as a primary solution to the current funding crisis. It’s unlikely to save you time, or improve the quality of your work, as much as you hope. This is really important to keep in mind when we’re all under pressure to save time, and AI companies are busy promising us the moon on a stick.

And if you don’t trust AI to draft your application, consider whether you should trust it to edit it. In asking AI to critique your draft or cut it down to the word limit, be mindful that there’s still scope for it to strip out originality and that language you’ve deliberately used to mirror a funder’s guidance notes.

Finally, as fundraisers navigate the use of AI in their own work, it’s also something our organisations will increasingly need to take a stance on. Funders are alive to the wider legal, ethical and environmental issues. Even if AI improves the quality of your work, you may well get asked whether it’s in line with your mission and values, particularly if you work in a sector where these concerns are most relevant.

Read more about our own views on the use of AI here.

Here is everything that went into creating your strategy. It’s the hard work that made everything possible. The sweat and the tears (hopefully not any blood, though I’ve been in strategy meetings that have come close).

Behind every bold vision and brilliant decision, there’s a whole lot of stakeholder consultation, analysis of the landscape, competitor research, and decision-making workshops.

This is simultaneously the most important part of the strategy process, and the least interesting part once you’re done.

But it does have ongoing value. It’s important to document your process, because this is the evidence base for all your big decisions – why you committed to certain objectives, why you decided not to do certain things.

There are certain points when every organisation doubts their strategy. Perhaps circumstances have changed, new opportunities have arisen, new leadership have joined. You're wondering whether to change course.

This is when it’s vital to remind people (or explain to them for the first time) the thinking that underpinned your approach. Recalling your key methods, observations and conclusions can provide the confidence needed to stick to your strategy, or the context needed to change it where necessary.

When I’m working on a strategy, I’ll always make sure there’s a lengthy but clear report that documents all the work we did to lay the foundations for our decision-making. 95% of people will never read it again, and that’s ok. But when someone needs to reach for it, it's there.

This part is centre stage for a reason. It’s the main event, and a thing of beauty when you get it right.

Your published strategy is what everyone will read – it should be a summary of your main objectives and activities, your intended outcomes, and the big picture of why this is important. You should include your vision, mission and values, especially if you’ve updated them as part of your strategy*.

It's also helpful to highlight any key internal objectives that underpin your strategy, such as improving collaborative working, refining impact measurement or investing in fundraising. This helps to make you accountable ands build trust in your organisation.

But the key word here is summary. You want everyone to be able to understand it without getting confused or bored. Challenge yourself to keep this part to 1-2 pages if you can. I’m a big fan of presenting your published strategy as an infographic or chart, rather than paragraphs of text.

Use clear, concise, action-orientated words. Avoid jargon and acronyms. Ask key people (staff, service users, partner organisations etc.) to provide honest feedback on whether they understand and feel excited by it. It may be helpful to create a longer version initially then edit it down across a few drafts.

*I have some issues with the way that charities typically explain their mission and particularly values, but that’s a blog topic for another day.

A 1-2 page strategy may look exciting. But on its own, it's unlikely to achieve much.

Creating an internal strategy version will provide the full picture: detailed objectives, planned activities, timeline, key resources and infrastructure needed. This is the manual that helps your team to turn your strategy into reality: what they need to focus on doing, or changing.

This will be longer and more practical than the published strategy, but still less detailed than an operational plan. It will probably detail a more prescriptive approach for Year 1, then a more high-level plan for future years – this ensures your strategy feels actionable but not too restrictive.

You should still aim for clear and concise language, format it nicely, and avoid jargon. People must be able to find what they need, and feel clearer and better after reading it.

This full, internal version is actually what makes your 1-2 page published strategy possible. By putting all the important detail needed for internal use in a separate place, you can create a much clearer, more concise external version.

This a great way to create a strategy that caters for multiple audiences with different needs, giving them varying levels of detail. It enables you to produce something that's easy to both understand and implement.

After all, what is the point of a strategy?

We want something that holds us accountable, that we can measure progress against. We want it to serve as a guide for our team, helping them to understand what they’re aiming to achieve, what they should generally prioritise, and how they should approach tricky decisions along the way. We want to be able to retrace our steps in moments of crisis or doubt.

We don't want a lengthy tome that nobody ever dares open, but neither do we want something that feels too flimsy to be relevant.

The bow tie approach will help you to achieve what you need from a strategy, while removing this tension.

Is your organisation about to develop a new strategy? I'd love to have a chat about your plans and explore how we could help.

You’ve found a funder that appears to be well-aligned. It requests applications in writing, so you look for the address. It doesn’t appear to be a law firm or accountant at first glance, but it’s a mysterious P.O. Box,  peculiarly named house, or simply ‘Unit 146’… 

How can you tell whether your application is going to land in the hands of a trustee, in a huge pile on a solicitor’s desk, or be left for weeks in a mailbox that may or may not be watertight?

While a search engine can sometimes answer your question, often using Street View to examine the surroundings is a great extra level of digging. 

If you see a residential suburb, or detached cottage in the sticks, you can be fairly certain this is where a trustee or secretary resides. This provides at least some reassurance that your application will land directly in the hands of a relevant decision-maker.

An office block with tinted windows in a commercial district? Most likely a professional gatekeeper – you might want to reconsider whether posting something without prior communication is really worth it.

​Picking a random funder address, I’ve immediately been able to identify that this does, in fact, belong to a Post Office – and is therefore likely to either be forwarded to another address, or routinely collected by a secretary:

In this case, an initial phone call might give you an opportunity to ask whether the address provided is really the best one to use. You might want to consider using signed-for delivery, especially for larger bids, or decide to first send an expression of interest before taking the plunge with a full application.

It's a small detail, but could make the difference. Trusts fundraising really is like being a detective sometimes. 

​“We are currently closed to new applications. Please check back here soon for details of our re-opening.”

Have you ever read a statement like this and thought, ‘how soon is soon?!'

Is it a ‘dinner will be ready soon’, or a Labour Government 'things will get better soon'? They mean VERY different things, apparently.

In the current landscape, we're all waiting on tenterhooks for a favourite funder to reopen their programme or finally unveil big strategic changes. Manually checking websites takes time, and it's easy to miss a big announcement.

Enter Visualping: a tool that enables you to monitor specific webpages.

Just pop in the relevant URL and Visualping will notify you when the webpage is updated, so you can see what has changed. A great way to get yourself to the front of the queue when a funder wakes from their slumbers.

Do they even still make these things?! 

Indeed, they do, and not everything in my toolbox requires an internet connection. 

In a digitalised age – especially as we're engulfed by AI – preserving human touches is more important than ever.

Grantmaking trusts seem to have a tendency to move at a snail’s pace when it comes to modernisation. Many funders still only accept applications in writing. Yes, I mean snail mail. And, yes, the pun is intentional.

Whilst inconvenient, this method does allow you to retain some humanity – if you’ll let it. 

Instead of inserting your e-signature before printing, sign your application by hand. Instead of printing the address, get out your nicest pen and write it by hand.

It may take you a few extra minutes, but adding this personal touch and showing that extra level of care may well be the reason a funder picks up your application from the pile.

(Disclaimer: ok, this tool technically isn't free. But you probably have a nice pen lying around somewhere. This blog does not condone or endorse the shoplifting of pens, fountain or otherwise.)

We've all been guilty of writing that knockout sentence that we're convinced is going to conquer a funder's heart and mind, only to read it back the next day and realise it's an impenetrable word salad.

The truth is, it's all too easy to get bogged down in our writing, and too close to our work.

One of our top application writing tips is to keep the reader’s interest. Your application will very likely be one of many reviewed that day. The stakes are high if you want them to read from start to finish, and not get bored half way through. And keeping your language balanced, clear and interesting is key to this.

This is why I love ​Hemingway, an online tool that reviews your writing and suggests way to make it bolder and clearer. Just copy/paste written text into the box and it will flag sentences that are hard to read, and words that have a simpler alternative.

​This isn’t a perfect tool, because of course it doesn't know the recipient or the context in which you’re writing. However it’s still a great starting point for reviewing the first draft of a funding application or end of grant report.

Here's an example of what Hemingway will tell you, based on this section of writing. The irony of my first sentence being flagged red is too good to change.

I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve reviewed a funding application, only to end up with my head in my hands after reading the word ‘important’ four times in two sentences. 

Other routine offenders: vital, support, difference, community, help, valuable, improve, affect, impact…

All very topical words. All very clear and easy-to-understand. But all very quickly become redundant when used frequently in quick succession. 

I know how difficult I find trying to organically come up with alternative words that mean the same thing (synonyms). An online thesaurus has often been my lifeline to avoid giving the funder cognitive indigestion. 

‘Important’ soon becomes key, major, significant, noteworthy, prominent, influential, central, leading…depending on the context of my sentence.

There’s a crucial caveat, though. Don’t be tempted to use overly complex words to impress. Straightforward language that gets to the heart of your point will always be better received by a funder who’s grimacing at the number of applications still left on their desk for review before 5pm.

The two tools immediately above can help you to refine your writing. But when it comes to basic proof reading – catching and correcting silly typos – we often rely on our brains and eyes.

But these are fallible, especially when we're tired and re-reading our application for the fifth time, half an hour before the deadline. It's too easy to end up reading what we think we've written, not what we actually put down.

​(Fun fact: my cat once walked across my keyboard while I was proof reading an application before sending it to a charity client, leading to a very confused conversation about the strange series of characters that appeared midway through my otherwise rousing grant request.)

Read aloud software is great for spotting the mistakes that my eyes miss. When a voice reads your writing out loud, there's no hiding place.

Microsoft Word and Google Docs have built-in read aloud tools. Or check out an online tool like NaturalReader, where you can choose from a wide range of different voices, accents and genders. Just make sure you check the privacy policy of any online tool that you use, especially if you're inputting sensitive information.

Got any unexpectedly useful tools in your own trusts fundraising toolbox? Let us know in the comments ⬇️

(TL;DR: somewhat, but not hugely)
 
Over the years, more funders have gradually opened up their eligibility criteria. A decent number funders – particularly larger, more strategic and more relational ones – will fund CICs. Others that traditionally haven’t funded CICs, like Lloyds Bank Foundation, have recently started including CICs for specific funding programmes. More progressive funders often recognise that, for organisations focused on long-term systems change and campaigning, being a registered charity can be too restrictive.
 
But this shift has always been very slow. As a whole, the funding world moves at a glacial pace. A significant proportion of funders, particularly the shy types that don’t have grantgiving staff and shelter behind a law firm or solicitor – including many sizeable family foundations – still have a blanket "charities only" policy. Jem Stein’s excellent LinkedIn post – and the discussion it prompted – covers some of the funding challenges for CICs.

My gut feeling is that many funders simply haven’t got their head around what a CIC is – to them, “charity” is shorthand for “vaguely trustworthy” and anything else simply isn’t. And in the current climate, with funders overstretched by huge demand, there's not much incentive to open up eligibility. Restricting applications to charities is one quick way to reduce the number they receive. I worry that even funders that officially fund CICs will be thinking along these lines too.
 
Just to complicate things further, there are funders in the opposite camp – they don't openly say they fund CICs, but will consider it if they know and like your work. This is where a relationship-driven approach or initial phone call can really help.
 
In my experience, you’re more likely to persuade a funder to fund your CIC if you can give a good strategic reason for your choice. For example, if you have a clear, credible vision (even if long-term) to generate a significant portion of your income from trading, or you want to undertake activities that are problematic for a charity. If you’re a CIC simply because it enabled you to register more quickly and keep your governance simpler, then – rightly or wrongly – that’s less likely to wash with funders.

​Regardless of legal structure, this can be problematic.
 
Firstly, seeking grants primarily to subsidise the cost of your activities is rarely a compelling proposition for funders. I’ve seen organisations outline this very literally in applications, for example: “A grant of £10,000 will pay for X students to enrol in our course at half the personal cost.”
 
I understand why organisations start off thinking along these lines, but funders want to enable social impact, not subsidise the cost of activities. They care about the Why, not the What. To get their attention, you’ll need to completely reframe your proposition.
 
Secondly, if you’ve historically focused on trading, you may not be set up to measure and demonstrate your impact – because you haven't needed to. Even if you create a robust way of doing this from now, you may not have an existing track record of impact data, and you'll be competing against others that do.
 
Finally, you’ll need to consider your wider communications materials beyond your application. Funders will search for these, whether you provide them or not. Even if you write a brilliant funding application outlining your future plans, if your website is geared around selling things to customers, and you don’t have things like an impact report, this might put off funders in an ultra-competitive landscape.

​I really don't want to discourage and demotivate people – it’s hard enough right now as it is. But, even more so, I don’t want to encourage organisations to spend time and money on things that are unlikely to yield a return.
 
You might think that the hardest part of being a fundraising consultancy right now is securing funding, or finding clients. But it’s actually having difficult conversations with people who need funding and want our help, but where we feel we're unlikely to achieve success together.
 
If you’re a CIC, or organisation pivoting away from trading income, it’s worth thinking about the challenges above and how well-equipped you are to work through them. Putting in place the foundations for trusts fundraising takes time, and funders currently have little appetite for taking risks on unproven grantees. Now is a tough time to start securing grants. Don't get me wrong, some will succeed. But plenty more will not.
 
We’re absolutely open to working with CICs and other forms of not-for-profit via our strategic support and training.
 
And we’ll still explore providing trusts fundraising support too – but we’ll need to ask you plenty of questions.

Because, when deciding whether we can help you, we'll always focus less on “How much do you need funding?”, and more on “Do we think you can achieve a positive return on investing in our support?”