Changes to our Project Groups
After a few successful years, two of our London Funders project groups are taking on a new shape. Good Practice in Grantmaking and Voluntary Sector Infrastructure Development will no longer have their quarterly gatherings and instead all members of London Funders will be invited to regular discussion sessions aimed at Learning from Funders. Buzzacott LLP will host these events about every six weeks and their facilities mean that we can comfortably have 30 or so participants around a table. We are starting with a discussion amongst funders on the virtues of scaling up good projects – and different approaches to sustainable growth. See above for the first meeting on 5 October: further meetings will be publicised shortly and we should be delighted to hear from e-bulletin readers with ideas for future topics (email Yvonne).
Recent meeting highlights
May 2010
Antonia Bance from the Corston Coalition spoke about how funders can work together strategically, drawing on the Coalition's experience in relation to women in prison. Lucy Price of Heritage Lottery Fund detailed the Fund's work in developing geographic and social priorities.
Download Antonia's presentation
Download Lucy's presentation
February 2010
Some very practical areas were covered at this meeting in February. Clare Fitzboydon of the Football Foundation spoke about the Foundation's move from an open application process to specific timescales and a new two stage process. Jennifer Layne, LB Haringey, made a short presentation to share some of the practice which led the Borough to winning the Commissioner's Award 2008 for their Compact Proofing Toolkit.
Download Clare's presentation
Download Jennifer's presentation
November 2009
Miia Chambers from London Borough of Camden talked about the developments to move commissioning and monitoring towards outcomes.
We also heard from Varsha Dadlani about the London Boroughs of Harrow's experiences in opening up their supply chain to VCS organisations.
Click here for Miia's presentation
Click here for Varsha's presentation
September 2009
A large group met to look at issues in commissioning – both practitioners and some members interested in understanding more about the impact of commissioning on organisations they support with grants.
The first part of the meeting was an exchange on commissioning practice and several areas were identified for discussion in more depth at future meetings – eg Haringey Council’s award-winning Compact-proofing toolkit and its Children’s Trust pilot and Harrow’s experiments in opening its supply chain to voluntary and community organisations to help them benefit from good prices for stationery, etc.
There was a session with two staff members from the Commission for the Compact, Richard Williams and Ruth Fennemore. They explained briefly how the Office of the Third Sector, Compact Voice, and the Commission for the Compact fitted together and encouraged confidence in how successful the local Compact had been, even in structuring the “architecture of commissioning”. There is provable value in better use of money and improved Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA) scores.
Ruth then talked about the new short publication on the Compact and procurement law and how the publication was developed (with full legal advice) partly because the law and regulation are complex, but also to emphasise that there need not be conflict between these and Compact practice and to discourage over-elaborate practice based on risk aversion. Discussion followed on grants (not normally subject to procurement law), the equal treatment requirement and how that can be fulfilled in a way that is helpful to voluntary organisations and others, how to implement full cost recovery, and value for money versus lowest cost.
Click here to download the Commissioning Guidance
Click here to download the Compact and Procurement Law
Click here to download the presentation
Click here to download Julia Pritchard's PowerPoint overview of the Commissioning support programme
More detailed minutes available for group members and other interested funders via Yvonne
June 2009
Collaboration was the main theme of the meeting, with funders wanting to explore how far it was a means of saving money for the VCS, as well as providing scope for improving capacity. There were two speakers:
Nigel Newton Sawyerr, Collaboration Manager, bassac, described his project, Collaboration Benefits, which is supports the whole spectrum of possible collaboration in the VCS from joint purchasing right through to mergers. The Programme provides:
1) resources: online good practice guidance as well as material and case studies
2) skills: training and enabling support providers
3) action: developing and testing collaboration.
He sees the benefits of collaboration as
- a stronger voice for the organisations involved
- new or improved services
- cost savings and efficiencies and
- better funding opportunities.
His many examples gave rise to good discussion and some consideration of the role of funders in encouraging and investing in collaboration.
To download his presentation click here
Victor Willmott, London Catalyst, provided a carefully analysed example of the costs and benefits of collaboration between funders. He talked about Health and Belief, a grants programme between his own organisation and Church Urban Fund. These are very different organisations in size, style and origin though with similar aims. CUF had experience of “mustard seed” grants up to £5,000 for church social action, while London Catalyst had good access to health organisations. They found mutual benefit in linking up in a pilot programme and are running the programme again. Both funders found their profile raised by the programme and were pleased to be in touch with a wider range of relevant organisations than they had been reaching. They also know that the impact of the work funded was higher than they might otherwise have expected from relatively small grants. Victor’s presentation includes pointers to assist the planning and preparation for collaborating and a list of the pros and cons of working jointly. Andrew Budd of GrantScape told the group about a programme that used the initial experience of Health and Belief as a springboard for a joint environment grants programme between his organisation and Church Urban Fund – further value added.
To download his paper click here
There was a lot of other information sharing, especially about efforts to mitigate the impact of the recession on local organisations.
March 09
Pursuing some themes from the February conference “The recession: we’re all in it together”. Group members shared detail of their own strategies to cope with reducing budgets and looked at helpful practice in grantmaking and commissioning in this period of crisis. They encouraged London Funders to undertake a survey of members about the recession as a way of collecting ideas and experience. To see a report of their discussion click here As their first step in looking together at tools and ideas they decided to explore in depth at their next meeting all aspects of collaboration between voluntary and community organisations - and funder collaboration too.
October 08
A half-day communications strategy “taster” workshop led by top media and marketing trainers sounddelivery to help funders improve their marketing to external audiences and target applicants. Download a copy of the workshop presentation.
July 08
The group looked at ways the voluntary and community sector could strengthen recruitment, retention of staff and professional development, and what role funders can play in this.
March 08
The group held a joint meeting in March with the Voluntary Sector Infrastructure Development group on quality assurance systems for the voluntary sector. Participants heard presentations from Sam Matthews, Director of Services at Charities Evaluation Services on the whole range of different performance measurement systems, and from Andrea Allez, Performance Improvement Manager at the National Association for Voluntary and Community Action on NAVCA’s Quality Award. Dowload presentations from this meeting:
Performance Hub hand outs:
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