Demonstrating the difference you make in the wider community, with vulnerable people, or with people facing language or communication barriers, can feel like a huge ask for any organisation, particularly in smaller organisations without dedicated roles covering impact reporting.

​As fundraisers, we can feel caught between funders’ expectations and our delivery teams’ realities, all while our service users are suffering from survey fatigue.

It’s the classic fundraising Catch-22: without impact data, funders are less likely to trust their investment will change lives, but without funding, how will you make a difference, let alone demonstrate it? And how on earth will you get your busy frontline colleagues to help you gather the data?

Don’t panic!

If you’ve ever found yourself staring at a funder’s well-intentioned “tell us about the impact of your work” and drawn a blank on all the impact you think you could or should be showing because all your organisation has been tracking to date is the activity outputs, you’re not alone.

Luckily, you do not need to employ a whole new impact person, or incur the wrath of your Service Delivery Manager. Nor do you need to panic-create a Google Form and email it to your entire database (there is a time and a place for a form, just not a panicky one, and not to your whole list). And you definitely shouldn’t halt all fundraising pending academic research analysis.

While I'm not an impact measurement expert, I am a thoughtful fundraiser and I like to creatively problem-solve while hopefully allowing everyone to get home on time. Here are a few tips and techniques I’ve seen work well for charities looking to demonstrate impact in very particular, or very general, populations...

You may already have the start of a good impact measure somewhere already. When did you last bring coffee and biscuits to your service delivery team and have a proper chat through what records they already keep, and see what you could be working with?

A charity I know, working intensively with extremely vulnerable people, thought they had no ‘change over time’ measures of wellbeing, until we looked at their Client Support Plan and its table of five wellbeing measures that they had been completing with each new client for 18 months. They hadn’t considered that this could be useful to fundraising, so hadn’t mentioned it.

One or two follow-up calls each week as each client got to their one-year anniversary is now producing the necessary data on impact.

​If you really are starting from scratch, that’s OK. You don’t have to have all the measures - even a snapshot is helpful. Be thoughtful about the difference your work can directly make. What would your delivery team say would be "a success" for the work they are doing?
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One charity we work with recently tweaked how their team ended their calls, asking “do you know what you need to do next?”. This is not only a simple metric of empowerment, but also a chance to check understanding on behalf of vulnerable service users.

Another charity, which intentionally keeps its helpline completely anonymous, asks one targeted question per quarter, thus building a databank of useful data on a range of issues without adding to the length of the call or risking identifying a caller.

The simpler the impact measurement, the more accessible it is. Focus on what you actually need to demonstrate. Trying to ask everyone every question, every time, can create barriers to people engaging with your impact reporting. Perhaps asking less, but tactically, can help you find out more.

I know a performance and live arts company working with adults with a learning disability that places a postcard with large, clear print on each seat in the house. You tear the card at a smiling, neutral or frowning face to indicate whether you’ve enjoyed the show. They’ve removed so many barriers to giving feedback - you don’t need to read English or even have a pen (although there’s space to write if you want).

Focus on what you need to demonstrate. Counting the smiles makes the Marketing Manager’s job much nicer, too.

“Great! Another form to fill in,” said no service delivery team ever, except with a side order of heavy sarcasm.

So, what are you already doing that you can adjust?

We worked with a team that added two quick questions to a form they already required all their sessional delivery staff to complete. Within a few months they had a decent, and growing, databank and a series of participant quotes. Making the new task part of an existing process or habit makes it far more likely to stick, and far less likely to cause friction.

You want to find out some things from the wider community at an event, but you also want them to like you when they go home. So don’t hand them a flappy printout or a QR code hiding a lengthy form!

I saw a brilliantly inviting feedback survey at a public event in London. Participants were placing sticky dots along five colourful bars set out like an asterisk, to rate the event on 5 measures. The interactivity was part of the appeal: who doesn’t enjoy playing a game?

​The next time you need to get a general sense from a large group of people, try going a bit Blue Peter, and ask people to show, not tell, you what they thought.

​If there is confusion about activity outputs (the numbers of people reached or things you did), outcomes (the differences those activities made) and impact (what changed longer-term for people as a result), some gentle coaching may be in order. Do you have a team meeting or a place where you can share successes?

Stories can quickly move us from a "sessions offered" to "lives changed" headspace. For example, asking everyone in a team meeting “Tell us about a win from this week” provides a regular reminder that small moments are big changes. Every participant quote, feedback from a partner organisation, or observation from an activity is an opportunity to boost morale - and gives your fundraiser(s) a steady stream of new information to work with. 

You've just finished drafting an important funding application and you're confident that it sounds clear, compelling and unique.

Now, imagine that it'll be the 25th application that the funder has read that day. Many of them relate to the same community or cause area. All have been written by people working in the same sector, where organisations often use the same language to describe their work day in, day out.

Still confident?

I spend a lot of time reviewing draft funding applications written by charities and social enterprises, and it's amazing how often the same phrases crop up. Our work is innovative, high-impact, urgently needed. We have strong leadership, we're financially well-run, we're responsive and shaped by lived experience. Etc etc etc.

And it's hard to be critical, because often these things are true for the organisation that we're working with. The problem is that most organisations naturally want to say the same thing, whether they can back it up or not (and let’s face it - this is partly because funders often repeat the same words too, and are pretty unoriginal about what they’re looking for).

So the same words and phrases pop up again and again in funding applications, until they essentially become meaningless. Your application might not be inaccurate or untruthful, it’s just the victim of over-used language that doesn't really earn anyone any credit these days.

I often find myself giving similar feedback on draft applications: “I’m sure this is true, but can you actually demonstrate how?”

Showing - as opposed to telling - is often key to writing a more impactful funding application. Can you find more authentic, original ways of saying what everyone else is saying, and demonstrating that they’re true?

​​I’ve shared some of the most common fundraising application cliches below, with some tips on how to avoid them:

This is a guest blog from Gemma Pettman. Gemma has been involved in running our fundraising training courses for the past six years (time flies!) so we're delighted that she agreed to share some of her top tips from these sessions in the Lime Green blog.

According to research carried out by the Association of Charitable Foundations, grant-making grew to £3.7bn in 2020-21, a new high for the sector.

But while grant-makers are giving away more money than ever before, competition for funding remains fierce. We can assume a significant proportion of this total was allocated to organisations who applied via formal grants programmes, which gets you thinking about how many of us are writing funding bids at any one time.

A lot is riding on the strength of our applications.

We need to know our organisations and individual projects or services inside out. We must be able to speak confidently about the people we support and how this grant will make a practical difference. We need detailed budgets - and the ability to explain them. And we need to wrap all of this up in a way that meet the funder’s needs and demonstrates how, by backing us, they can meet their own charitable purpose.

With all of these requirements, is it any wonder our first drafts can end up a little dry?

Given tight word counts and even tighter deadlines, is there any point in adding some sparkle to our funding applications? Do we need to worry about our use of language or achieving grammatical completeness?

I think so.

Put yourself in the shoes of the person assessing your grant. They pick up the 26th application they have read that month, and it captures their attention from the first paragraph. It offers a compelling ask, backed up by some carefully chosen statistics, and paints a strong picture of the impact the grant could have. Now, I’m not suggesting wordplay alone is enough to secure funding, but it could certainly help your application to stand out and be memorable.

Writing skills are something I focus on when I’m delivering Lime Green’s Writing a Successful Funding Application short course and I’ve summarised some of the tips we share below. These are offered with the caveat that, first and foremost, you should follow the funder’s instructions to the letter. Whatever advice appears in their application criteria trumps the guidance we’re offering here. Think of these as general tips you can apply as and when appropriate.

Perhaps the most obvious advice but it is very easy to write what you want the funder to know, rather than responding with the information they have asked for. Try also to avoid getting lost in the detail. Often there is only room for your headlines – the big picture – so think about how you can summarise your most important points. Frequently questions have multiple parts, so it’s important to make sure you’ve answered every part.
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Self-editing as you write is difficult so I suggest you start by answering each question as fully as you can. Then you can go back and edit (and possibly re-edit) until you meet the word count. This helps you to concentrate on your key points and ensure that what you have written makes sense.

​In my experience, it’s also worth checking what constitutes a word – I have come across forms where everything from bullet points to dashes count towards the word total. If you’re in any doubt, do check with the funder.
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Staying with the challenges of the word count, aim for simplicity in your writing. Remove unnecessary words and consider restructuring sentences for clarity. Asking yourself ‘so what?’ in response to the statements you make can help you get to the heart of what you’re trying to convey.

​For more tips on editing down your written work, check out this excellent guide (with some cracking archaeology metaphors mixed in) by content writer Richard Berks.
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Some funders are specialists in your field and will understand the unique problems you exist to address. Many won’t be. Think about how you can help the funder to appreciate the issues. Explain what it’s like to be in the shoes of the people you support; consider whether you have space to include a short case study, or even a one-liner from someone you have helped.

​Remember, you’re communicating with a person (with emotions and empathy) rather than an organisation.
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If you’re of the vintage that remembers the Ronseal adverts, you will know what I mean by taking a ‘does what it says on the tin’ approach. If not, it’s shorthand for accuracy, brevity and something being as effective as it claims to be, so evidence any bold statements you make in your applications and clarify points that could cause confusion.
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Unless they tell you otherwise, assume the reader knows very little about your organisation and approach. Keeping this in mind will help you decide what information to include and what supporting detail will be relevant. Mirroring the funder’s language can demonstrate that you are familiar with their work and have read their guidelines.
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As I explained earlier, grant assessors may read hundreds of applications every year, so think about how you can make yours more readable.

​I suggest avoiding jargon and internal shorthand (those descriptions we use that are meaningless to people outside our organisation), using quotes or bullet points to break up text, and varying sentence length and structure. That can be powerful. Impactful. Plus, if the format of the application allows, you could even add photos or graphics.

Accurate spelling, grammar and punctuation demonstrates attention to detail. I like to print an application out in a different font and colour, then read it forwards and backwards to pick up errors. Because your brain anticipates what words are coming next, reading it from end to beginning helps you to pick up spelling mistakes, in particular.

​You can also use ‘read aloud’ software and listen to what you’ve written, rather than reading it. Finally, ask a colleague or friend – someone less familiar with the content - to read it for you.
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​It’s been eight years since we started providing trusts fundraising support to charities and social enterprises, alongside our strategy work.

In that time, we're thrilled to have raised millions of pounds in grant funding. We've had projects that have been a huge success, and projects that haven’t quite gone to plan. We’ve learned loads about what it takes to secure funding in a hugely competitive landscape, and what we need from an organisation to our job well.

Summer usually provides a rare opportunity for some down time to step back and gain perspective - whether that's while having a long walk in the sunshine (lesser spotted in 2023) or bobbing around in the sea on holiday (my personal favourite). So, this summer, we're reflecting on our top tips on how charities and social enterprises can work best with a consultant - whether that’s us or someone else.

These tips are focused on trusts fundraising, but many of the general principles apply to other types of fundraising too.

​It sounds obvious, but a consultant or freelance fundraiser can provide different things - they might bring valuable expertise or perspective that you don’t have in-house, or they might primarily provide extra 'hands-on' capacity at a time when, for whatever reason, you don’t have a staff member who can lead on the work.

Our work with charities and social enterprises can take many different forms. For example:

• Short-term strategic support to help an organisation create an outline trusts fundraising strategy and case for support, where they need external expertise to facilitate this kind of process.
• Short-term hands-on support to carry out prospect research and develop a new pipeline for funding prospects, to support a staff member who does have the ability to do the work themselves but is over-stretched working on urgent funding deadlines.
• Longer-term hands-on support for an organisation that wants to try setting up a trusts fundraising programme and applying for funding for 6-12 months, before deciding whether to commit to recruiting a fundraiser to do the work in-house.

​Asking yourself what you actually need - and how it fits with your existing capacity and expertise - will guide how long you need support for, the rate you should pay, and the exit strategy you’re working towards (see below). It may well save you money, if you realise that you only need expertise to help you with a very specific piece of work, or short-term support to address a capacity gap.

When working with an organisation, particularly longer-term, it's so helpful to be able to roll your sleeves up and really immerse yourself in their work and previous trusts fundraising efforts.

It's vital that we can spend time looking through project summaries, budgets, impact reports, previous funding applications, complete records of all submitted applications (successful and unsuccessful) and end-of-grant reports. This helps us piece together an organisation's strengths, weaknesses to address, and key opportunities to focus on. If we're missing information, we won't know key questions that we need to ask, and risk duplicating work that you've done previously.

When you start working with a consultant, give them online shared access to as much relevant information as possible, and ask them what they particularly need to do a good job, and how far back in time it's helpful to go. If necessary, you can always redact sensitive information or ask them to sign a specific non-disclosure agreement.

​Sharing information at the start of a project is important, but inevitably your plans will change as time goes by. For example, winning or losing statutory funding can have a key budgetary impact, service user feedback may change how you intend to deliver a project, unexpected developments might bump a capital funding need way up the priority list, or meeting a funder at an event may open up a big new opportunity.

As external consultants, we may not be regularly involved in staff meetings - particularly if we’re working remotely - so it can be easy to forget to pass on important news to us. That's a missed opportunity, because we'll often be able to offer advice or adjust our approach in response.

Specialist trusts fundraising consultants bring expertise on how to 'package' a project, present information in a budget and phrase things in applications. It's very likely that our approach will be different to your own, and may initially make you feel uncertain or even uncomfortable.

If you're paying for specialist expertise, you should avoid undermining that investment by micro-managing the work or shutting down new approaches. We've previously worked with organisations where unfortunately applications became vastly more time-consuming to write, not to mention weaker, because of well-intentioned meddling. As a result, we raised less money.

However, that’s not to say you should give a consultant complete freedom, particularly if it compromises your ethics and values - for example the way you portray your service users, use photos in applications, or who you're willing to seek funding from.

I'd recommend having an honest and open conversation about this at the start, being clear about any “red lines” that mustn't be crossed, and sharing written information about your values and ethical fundraising policy if you have it. As well as reassuring you, this will also give your consultant confidence and freedom to work within those limitations.

​One basic principle of good consultancy is to ensure that the organisation receiving support is in a better position by the end than they were at the start. Yet this isn't always the reality - we’ve seen organisations end up in a real mess when a previous consultant walks out the door, losing access to application content, records of applications submitted and even key contacts at funders.

This is why you should always ensure that you “own” - and have continuous access to - all the content and information produced on your behalf. Agreeing a regular meeting cycle, including key information to be provided in updates, also helps. A good consultant should appreciate the importance of this - for example, we always like to make sure we’re working out of a shared Google Drive or Dropbox folder, and encourage organisations to check files regularly and ask questions or voice concerns at any point.

Try to have a clear exit strategy in mind, for example, aiming to recruit and hand over the work to a staff member after 12 months. When are you expecting your relationship with a consultant to come to an end, and what do you need to know, have and feel confident about by this point?

​As well as owning your information, it's equally important to own your relationships with funders - they are funding you, not a consultant, and investing time in strengthening these relationships will help you raise more money in the long run.

When working with a charity, we'll always encourage you to take the lead on making introductory calls or attending meetings with funders. We'll tend to work in the background - briefing you on what you might want to ask or tell a funder, and supporting at meetings when requested - not because we don’t enjoy speaking to funders ourselves, but because we think that (with support) you’re the best ambassador and advocate for your work, and the right person to build that relationship. This ensures there's no disruption whenever you're ready to move on from working with us.

If you're speaking to a consultant who boasts about having brilliant relationships with funders themselves, always query how this has come about, and check that it's not at the expense of the grantee organisation being front and centre.

One of the topics that I currently find myself talking about frequently - when working with organisations on funding bids or delivering trusts & foundations training - is the need to differentiate your work and avoid the perception of duplication.

​This isn’t a new issue, but is perhaps more important than ever. With such high demand for funding, and trusts & foundations so overstretched, one of the ways that funders can maximise their impact is by being really careful and strategic about not funding very similar organisations or overlapping services. From their perspective, if one organisation does something well already, where’s the benefit (or at least urgency) in funding another organisation to do it too?

Often, this is an explicit decision-making criterion for funders. They will assess your application not simply based on the quality and impact of your own work, but in the context of how many similar services exist - or they have recently funded - in any given cause area or geographical area. I've seen this frequently cited in feedback given by the National Lottery Community Fund, for instance.

While this makes sense, the issue is whether a funder's perception of the similarity of your work to others is really accurate. The last thing you want is to see a key application rejected because there are some key differences and nuances in your work that you haven’t explained properly.

So differentiating your work is important. And in a more general sense, being able to clearly and confidently explain your place in the local landscape - in terms of which service gaps you meet, and who you partner with or take referrals from - will always inspire confidence. This will not only increase your chances of securing funding, but also help funders to learn more about the complexities on the ground in your area of work.

​Firstly, differentiation doesn’t mean being absolutely unique. Nobody realistically expects you to be the only employability service in Lancashire, the only organisation educating young people about climate change etc.
 
What’s important is demonstrating why your service or approach is more accessible, more appropriate and more impactful for the specific people that you support.
 
This isn’t about trash talking what other organisations do. There may be perfectly good reasons why your user group would face additional needs and barriers when trying to access more generalist support offered by another organisation, or a specialist service set up for people in a different situation.
 
To give some examples from my own previous work, there may be a clear need for:

• A specialist employability project for people with a learning disability who wouldn’t get the time, patience and one-to-one support they need from an existing programme that wasn't designed for their needs.
• A support group for vulnerable single parents who worry that existing statutory services could be connected with social services, so accessing that support might result in them losing their child.
• A youth centre located in a specific inner-city neighbourhood, for young people who simply wouldn't travel to existing facilities because of demographic differences or the complexities of local gang territory.
• A programme of extra-curricular activities delivered in partnership with local schools, where the schools are supportive but wouldn’t have the capacity to run the activities themselves, due to funding constraints or other priorities.

 
With all the above projects, there’s a risk that a funder could incorrectly perceive them as being surplus to requirements, or already covered by existing service provision. But a compelling case for support - clearly explaining how you're different and situating your work within the existing landscape - will significantly increase your chances of securing funding.

​Firstly, it helps to have a curious and critical mindset. Put yourself in the shoes of a funder with no prior knowledge of your work and ask how they might perceive it. Why do you deliver activities in a certain way? What other services could the people you support choose to access? And why aren’t those services accessible or appropriate for their needs?

Once you've asked the right questions, seek out convincing evidence of how your work is different:

Centre the perspective of the people you support. Make liberal use of testimonials, case studies and survey data from your service users. Enabling them to talk about their own experiences, needs and barriers - and the value they see in your work - in their own voice will always be more powerful and compelling.

Draw on your own lived experience. Did you establish your organisation in response to a specific unmet need, or to prevent others from going through the same experience as you? Do your senior leaders, project staff or volunteers have lived experience that enables them to intuitively understand and address the gaps in local service provision?

Describe what is happening on the ground in your area. Did your local authority previously provide more accessible support that has been lost in recent cutbacks? Has the closure of another charity impacted the needs of the people you support? Has another organisation approached you to address a need they know they can’t meet?

Describe the evolution of your own work. Perhaps you've learned through experience that a different type of service is needed. Can you show how previous feedback and evaluation data has enabled you to hone and improve your work over time, and become more collaborative with other local services (e.g. through referral pathways, strategic partnership working)?

Cite independent research. You might be absolutely convinced that your work is different, but do you have third party evidence to back it up? Look for independent studies or local data that highlight gaps in local service provision, or examples of other organisations working in a different region that have successfully achieved impact by tackling a similar issue or gap.

Remember that your work doesn’t need to be completely unique or mind-blowingly innovative to be different and valuable. But don't take it for granted that a funder will understand that - you need to build a compelling case for support that clearly explains why your work is vital for your own particular service users.

In a world where funding is ultra-competitive, spending time carefully situating your work within the wider delivery landscape - and avoid perceptions of duplication - is an investment well worth making.

​In a cost-of-living crisis, it feels strange to be sharing advice with organisations that have the perceived luxury of having *too much* money. I know that the reality is very different for most charities and social enterprises in the current landscape. But some organisations are in a much stronger financial position (on paper at least) and this presents its own set of unique challenges. We've worked with several organisations with high reserves recently, so I wanted to share a few tips from a fundraiser’s perspective.

Frustratingly, many funders still seem to insist that holding anything above 3-6 months’ running costs in reserve is inappropriate. Some organisations very prudently aim for unrestricted reserves that are a bit above this level. But for the purposes of this blog, by "high" I mean organisations that are sitting on - or are perceived as sitting on - substantially higher reserves, for a variety of reasons.
 
The first and most obvious reason is that they simply do have very high reserves. Maybe this has accumulated over a prolonged period due to excessive caution or even mismanagement by the Board, or maybe there’s a good reason why it’s prudent for a specific organisation to hold substantially more funds in reserve.

High reserves can also be circumstantial. A charity could have recently enjoyed a large unexpected fundraising success, or received a significant legacy, and hasn’t decided how to spend the money yet. Perhaps they’ve been saving up for major capital work, the launch of a significant new programme, or something else that can't be actioned yet. In these cases, while the high reserves might be temporary, they can still raise a red flag for a funder, especially if unexplained.

Alternatively, a charity may have high reserves because of the specific way it was set up and operated. Some organisations are established with a large endowment (i.e. gift of money) that can be relied on to keep funding its services for decades. However, eventually the trustees may realise that if they continue this way, they’ll eventually run out of money. So they want to start securing grants from trusts & foundations, but are in a tricky position - essentially not wealthy enough to continue on the previous trajectory, but too wealthy to look like a compelling cause for grant funders.
 
Finally, some organisations may just appear wealthy because they own property or major assets. Perhaps this has been the case for a very long time, or maybe they’ve recently been gifted property. Often this gives them vital stability and fit-for-purpose premises to run their services more effectively, and they’re extremely reluctant to sell up. While owning the property is completely different to having high unrestricted reserves, in my experience some funders will only glance at a charity’s accounts in a simplistic way and may still perceive them as being wealthy, even if it doesn’t translate into having money available to spend on services.

This will be especially helpful if you're set up in an unusual way, own high-value premises or are temporarily holding significant funds in reserve, as explored above. Bear in mind that while more proactive funders may query anything unusual with you, others will go ahead and make a decision about funding you simply based on the information that is publicly available.
 
Think through any particular concerns or misconceptions that a funder might have when looking at your annual accounts, then explain the reasons or rationale why the organisation is in that position. For example, is there a specific reason why a large amount of money has come in but not been spent yet? Would selling property have a damaging impact on your service delivery? Use plain English and once you've drafted something, show it to others (including those with no finance or fundraising expertise) to check that it is clear.
 
One key learning point for Boards and management teams during the pandemic was how quickly an organisation can become financially vulnerable when a major external event cuts off several income streams. Many organisations now feel that having higher reserves is a strategic necessity to ensure stability for service users and staff. If you've made changes on this basis, this is something to explain concisely to funders.

You can then use your template copy in funding applications, either in response to specific questions or in those ‘Anything else that you want to tell us?’ boxes. If there’s something that you want to tell a funder but you don’t know where/how to include it, don’t hesitate to contact them and ask. You should also consider using any template copy in your annual accounts (see below).

In my experience, organisations rarely think about grant funders when putting together their annual accounts, even though funders will request, download and examine the accounts more than most other audiences. Despite this, the process of finalising your accounts and writing explanatory notes is typically done by an accountancy firm in collaboration with an organisation’s finance manager and/or treasurer - people who collectively may not have any fundraising experience themselves.
 
The result of this is that your accounts may well unintentionally raise an avoidable but damaging red flag for prospective funders. For example, I've seen organisations show a significant level of unrestricted reserves on their accounts when in practice that money has been (or is in the process of being) restricted or designated for a specific purpose. Nobody has queried the decisions made about how to allocate reserves and how to present that information in the accounts, because nobody is considering it from a funder's perspective.
 
I'm absolutely not saying that you should write your accounts solely with funders in mind, or present information in an intentionally misleading way. But involving your fundraiser(s) in the process can be very helpful, particularly if your financial position is a little unusual.

While taking the time to clearly explain the reality of your financial position helps, sometimes you need to think about changing that reality too.
 
We're operating in a crisis funding landscape, with funders scrambling to respond to urgent social needs exacerbated by the cost-of-living crisis, having had no time to recover from overspending during the pandemic. They receive urgent requests for support every day, so they’re unlikely to find it very compelling to fund you over another organisation for work that you could easily afford to do yourself.
 
One way to turn your high reserves into an advantage is by pledging to match fund any grants received. For example, if you’re fundraising a six-figure sum to refurbish your main building, could you pledge to make a contribution from reserves to cover 50% of the cost, with the remainder funded by grants? This requires careful discussion with your Board, but it might boost your application success rate, and open up funders that will only consider making a grant once part of the funding is already in place.