Have you received fantastic funder feedback?

by Ben Wittenberg, Director of Policy and Research, Directory of Social Change

Many of you will have submitted applications for funding that have seemingly disappeared into black holes, never to be seen again. Many of you will have poured your heart and soul into an application to receive no more than a letter stating “we’re sorry but your application has been unsuccessful” a few months later. 

Some of you will have received feedback pointing out where you haven’t met the funder’s criteria, and a few of you will have received detailed feedback highlighting where your application fell down, and what you can do to improve your chances of success next time.

Clearly when a funding application has been unsuccessful there is a value to knowing why, in order to inform what you do next. Was it the project, the budget, the quality of the proposal, or even your organisation that didn’t make the grade? If so then there could be clear lessons for next time.

Was it simply that the funder was oversubscribed? Did they receive similar proposals from other organisations? If so then it may be worth reapplying at the next opportunity. Was it outside of their funding priorities, or did it fail to meet criteria other than those made available to you? Then you need to look for another source of support, and probably you should have read their guidelines more carefully in the first place.

It's not knowing that creates a problem - about where and how to invest your precious time most effectively.  

But what is the best way for funders to say no to an application for funding?

The extremes as far as the applicant goes are easy. Not hearing anything at all and being left wondering forever whether the application was even received it is not helpful. Receiving detailed feedback that enables the applicant to make a better application with a greater chance of success is.

But for the funder it’s not that simple. Giving no feedback at all is easy, and it’s cheap. It’s why many statutory funders (or the companies they’ve outsourced their grant-making to) give no feedback at all. It’s why many of the smallest grant-making trusts give no feedback either – being run solely by trustees meeting quarterly means there is little capacity for doing more.

Many funders however, have a choice. It’s not an easy one, as the more time and energy they invest in supporting the beginning of the funding process (i.e. the initial applicant), the less is available for supporting those they do fund. If resources are limited, should the funder provide detailed feedback to people they turned down, even if it means not funding a few more projects?  

We recently asked our www.trustfunding.org.uk subscribers about their experiences of getting feedback from funders, and the results were mixed to say the least. Of those that had received feedback, verbal and detailed responses were generally considered to be the most useful, but what stood out most were the differing perspectives on the same kind of feedback.

If the range of feedback we received shows anything it is that expectations vary, and that the same degree of feedback may be met with different responses depending on who is receiving it.

How far to go when giving feedback is an important decision for funders to make, but it does need to be a decision. It should be a considered approach and applicants should be made explicitly aware at the outset what sort of feedback they will receive.

Listed below are some extracts of comments made by respondents. 

Funders that were perceived as giving really useful feedback included:

•    Rothschild Foundation

“The e-mail expressed appreciation for the importance of the work that we do and made it clear that the only reason why we did not succeed was because they receive more requests than they can possibly meet.”

•    The Foyle Foundation

“They were prepared to discuss their priorities and the actual application when I phoned.”

•    The Goldmark Trust

“It explained that we hadn't been successful as we didn't quite fit in to their criteria. Although this information cannot help you improve your application at least it gives some indication as to why you weren't successful.”

•    City Parochial

“It was advice in response to new work and helpful”

Funders that provided feedback that was not perceived as helpful included;

•    Nationwide

“They provided generic feedback and so it wasn't entirely possible to see how it related to the project we'd submitted. I still didn't understand why we weren't selected.”

•    Young People’s Fund (Lottery)

“The reason that was given in turning down the application was information that was included at earlier stage of the application process and accepted.”

•    Eveson charitable Trust

“Not at all. We received a two-line letter simply stating that our application was unsuccessful, and the standard 'we have more applications than we can fund'. It was an onerous and archaic application process (handwritten form!) that took a lot of time and to receive such terse feedback was annoying. I can understand the standard refusal from small trusts, but surely for the big ones it would be worth their while to respond with more detailed feedback so that their time is not wasted in future with applications they don't want?”

•    Heritage Lottery Fund

“Final feedback showed up a string of contradictions within the organisation such that I am unlikely to ever approach again, unless at Board level”