Critical Conditions Summary Findings

Jay Kennedy, Policy Officer, Directory of Social Change

Central government grant programmes and larger trusts and foundations are most likely to have terms and conditions that cover their grant funding:

• 100% of central government respondents said that they had terms and conditions for their grant programmes
• 86% of the trusts and foundations that responded had terms and conditions
• Responses from companies suggested that they are least likely to have terms and conditions.

Terms and conditions from trusts and foundations are more transparent than those for central government:

• 54% of central government respondents said their terms were fully available compared with 72% of trust and foundation respondents
• Only 23% of central government respondents claimed they made terms and conditions available online for anyone to access, while the figure for trusts and foundation respondents was 53%
• Responses from companies suggested that they are least likely to make terms and conditions available.

Government departments receive most requests from applicants to negotiate terms and conditions yet they are the most resistant to negotiating them. Trusts and foundations seemed more flexible but a large percentage still preferred not to negotiate:

• 61% of central government respondents stated that they were not open to negotiating any terms and conditions with applicants despite a majority of them having had requests to do so by some applicants
• 45% of trust and foundation respondents were not open to negotiating terms, with 20% of them receiving requests to negotiate
• None of the companies included in the study said their terms and conditions were non-negotiable, yet they had the lowest percentage of requests to negotiate.

The full report contains more analysis and recommendations for both funders and applicants.  Download a full copy of Critical Conditions here.