New funding advice service from Red Foundation
Howard Lake | 9 May 2008 | News
Social action development agency Red Foundation, has launched redreaders, a new service to help third sector organisations to submit high quality funding applications.
The service enables organisations to submit draft applications for statutory, trust, and corporate funders to a team of experienced consultants who then give feedback and direction to help the applicant ensure they have addressed the funder’s criteria and provide suggestions on how best to communicate and ‘sell’ the project they are applying to have funded.
The service is provided by phone and email with consultant ‘redreaders’ drawn from a pool of former fundraisers, project managers and grant makers.
It is priced on a fixed fee basis with a sliding scale according to different types of applications, with discounted fees for smaller organisations.
Red Foundation’s managing director Jamie Thomas explained the need for the service. “All too often funding applications fail,” he said, “not just because of competition from other projects, but because the applicant misses the mark by not meeting the funder’s criteria and guidelines.
“For many small to medium sized organisations, fundraising is undertaken by the director or a project manager, often with little or no support from other people. Redreaders aims to provide a second pair of eyes along with friendly advice and expert ./guidance, and it’s amazing the difference this type of support can make, from pointing out the obvious to helping charities to be that bit more creative in their approach.”
The new service follows the success of Red Foundation’s support service for organisations applying to the ‘vinvolved’ grant round from youth volunteering charity v last year, where over 80% of applicants using Red’s service were successfully funded.
Thomas added: “Of course no service can guarantee success but we’re confident that redreaders will be able to give third sector organisations the edge via a very affordable and accessible service.”
www.redfoundation.org
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.