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The majority of grant making trusts could fund campaigning, advocacy and influencing activities, but poor guidance makes it difficult for applicants to identify potential sources of support, a new report from DSC and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) has revealed.
The report, Funding for Sustainable Change [pdf document], gives an insight into the extent that funding for campaigning is available. Based on a survey of 2,500 grant making trusts, 79 per cent of the selected sample do fund or may fund activities that make an ‘enduring positive impact through campaigning, advocacy and influencing’.
This is a promising proportion of grant making trusts, and a clear indication that there are a substantial number of funding opportunities for voluntary organisations.
Still, this equates to only around 13% of the 2,500 grant making trusts featured in the survey. Most grant making trusts therefore are not amenable to funding sustainable change and despite having the potential within their objectives to support these activities, most do not state this clearly in their criteria, nor do they fund this type of activity under other categories.
Recognition of the role played by voluntary organisations in campaigning has been highlighted by government but not then matched by clear declarations of funding opportunities from funders.
There are a handful of relatively large funders such as the Tudor Trust which are renowned for funding campaigning activities – but they only represent a fraction of grant making trusts.
For voluntary organisations seeking to engage in campaigning activities, such barriers can lead to wasted time on inappropriate funding applications and missed funding opportunities. Furthermore, without access to funding many organisations find themselves unable to meet increasing demands of formal consultation and evidence based campaigning.
Our research confirms that grant making trusts are well placed to support and inspire campaigning activities. DSC and NCVO’s aim is to acknowledge this by providing clear data on all major grant making trusts in England and Wales funding campaigning activities.
Working with NCVO’s Campaigning Effectiveness team, we want to begin a dialogue with grant making trusts to encourage funders to consider these activities as a specific, conscious and targeted means of achieving their objectives.