Lloyds TSB Foundation rejects half of all grant applications
Howard Lake | 31 March 2011 | News
Lloyds TSB Foundation rejects about half of all requests for funding purely because they are not eligible and do not fulfil the Foundation’s basic criteria. For those that make it through the initial sifting process, the single biggest reason for rejecting applications is because they haven’t filed their documents with the Charity Commission.
“We do expect charities to have read our guidelines,” chief executive Linda Kelly told delegates at the Communications for Fundraising conference in London yesterday.
Applications should include the obvious, such as demonstrating good governance, good planning, an understanding of an organisation’s impact on its users or beneficiaries and good support for staff and volunteers. The good news is that the Foundation does fund core costs “because we believe with small charities core costs are what they need to do their job best,” Kelly said. Lloyds TSB Foundation has seen applications rise 24% in the last 12 months, although the amount available to give only rose by 1%.
Jenny Olsen, director of communications and marketing at the Community Development Foundation said that applicants “need to communicate the impact of what you’re going to do and what the outcomes will be.
“We will happily give tips to organisations,” she said. “We often advise organisations to form partnerships and then we will fund applications from these.”
What funders really want, said Clare Thomas, chief grants officer of the City Bridge Trust, is to be inspired by people’s stories. But applications need to be as clear as possible with no jargon or acronyms to confuse potential funders.
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.