New guide on how to learn from unsuccessful grant applications
Howard Lake | 8 September 2011 | News
The Centre for Charity Effectiveness at Cass Business School has published its research findings on how charities can learn and benefit from unsuccessful grant applications. The research, funded by Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), also examines how grant makers can help unsuccessful applicants.
The report, ‘The Art of Refusal: Promising Practice for Grant Makers and Grant Seekers’, provides guidelines to help charities reduce the time spent on unsuccessful applications. These include the need for preliminary contact with grantmakers, receiving and responding to unsuccessful applications, seeking and using tailored feedback and how to manage the news of grant refusal within their organisation.
The report also features guidelines for grantmakers in the role of pre-application processes, the methods of grant refusal and best practice in giving feedback.
The qualitative research project studied more than 100 grantmaking organisations and 40 grantseeking organisations.
Jane Arnott, CAF’s Senior Advisory Manager for Charities and Grant Makers, said: “It’s an old but true adage that we learn more from our failures than our successes. That’s why we felt this was such an important piece of work to fund. I often have conversations with charities who are puzzled as to why an application failed. I hope these guidelines will help both charities and grant makers to improve the process and ensure less time is spent on unsuccessful applications.”
‘The Art of Refusal’ is launched today at the Grant Refusal Workshop which the Association of Charitable Foundations (ACF) is organising for its members.
The guide can be downloaded from
www.cass.city.ac.uk/research-and-faculty/centres/cass-centre-for-charity-effectiveness/resources
Photo: Sean MacEntee on Flickr.com
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.