The Grantmaking Tango: Issues for Funders
Howard Lake | 12 June 2024 | Blogs
The Grantmaking Tango, a classic framework for reflective funders published 20 years ago this month in 2004, is still available for free download.
The Grantmaking Tango: Issues for Funders is a short but influential report by Dame Julia Unwin DBE, written in her capacity as policy adviser to the Baring Foundation and published in June 2004. Reprinted in 2005 it has been freely available to download from the Baring Foundation website ever since, and remains one of the clearest and most practical introductions to the theory and practice of grantmaking published in the UK.
At its heart is a simple but powerful framework. Unwin identifies three distinct styles of funding (giving, shopping, and investing) and invites grantmakers to think honestly about which they are actually doing, and whether that matches what they intend.
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Each approach has its own logic, its own relationship to grantees, and its own implications for how power and accountability flow between funder and funded. The framework is deliberately simple enough to be used in board discussions and staff strategy sessions, yet the analysis behind it draws on over a decade of Unwin’s hands-on experience advising trusts and foundations.
Funders behind the report
The report was jointly funded by the Baring Foundation, Bridge House Trust, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and the Lloyds TSB Foundations. Together these organisations comprise a coalition that reflects the breadth of its intended audience. The report covers the impact of different funding mechanisms, the relationship between funder and grantee, and the assumptions that shape, and sometimes distort, grantmaking practice.
Julia Unwin went on to become Chief Executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (2007–2016) and chaired the independent inquiry into the future of civil society, published in 2018. She was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2020 New Year Honours for services to civil society.
Twenty years on, The Grantmaking Tango retains its value as a starting point for any foundation or trust that wants to think more clearly about how and why it funds. It is particularly relevant for charity leaders preparing for funding conversations: understanding which mode a funder is operating in — giving, shopping, or investing — can be as important as the strength of the application itself.
Download free from the Baring Foundation
- Civil society inquiry calls for urgent reform to meet future challenges (19 November 2018)
- Baring Foundation opens strengthening the voluntary sector grants (11 April 2008)
- Dame Julia Unwin appointed to Chair of the Charity Commission, and other appointments in December 2025 (22 December 2025)
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.