Community Action Fareham
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| Funding for Community Organisations for Fareham |
Fareham Community Action is owned by the voluntary organisations in Fareham that wish to work co-operatively. We offer advice about funding to any voluntary organisation, large or small, that works or operates in Fareham. We do not provide assistance to individual people for personal projects but we do for community group projects no matter how large or small.
The sections below and the linked pages may help your organisation to get started.
Getting your Thinking on the Right Track
Organisations are set-up for a purpose-- for community organisations it is usually to improve lives of a specific community. With others we will have thought of ways to achieve the purpose with best effect and most economically. Therefore it is always important to remember that the fundraising is only a means to an end.
So, your approach needs to be that you don't WANT to fundraise, your approach needs to be that you want to undertake an activity that will help achieve the objectives of the organisation and for that you may need to bring in extra resources including money. Does that make sense? - if not contact Fareham Community Action.
The Charities Aid Foundation have produced a guide to fundraising called "Jargon Buster" that will help novice fundraisers get their approach on the right track. CAF Jargon buster
Also BT have produced a very useful guide to applying for funding. click here . This is written with a more practical perspective including the business plan approach and sources of funding.
What about Measuring your Success?
How will you know if your method is working or has achieved it's objective? Funders will always want to know how you will show that the funding has made a difference. This means that in devising the project proposal you will have to consider the best way to prove that funding you project has been effective. It will take time, effort and money to make the records once the project is underway.
Measure what? The most convincing evidence of making a difference is to evidence the impact on people and their community. However this is difficult and often very long term before the results are shown. Therefore we have to settle for some indicators of the improvement linked, where possible, to authoritative opinion that such indicators do show the difference. --- This approach is called an 'OUTCOMES perspective'. This is generally seen as being much more effective than measuring OUTPUTS or the activities of the project in terms of simple statistics ( sometimes they are needed too).
for more information about using 'Outcomes' for Monitoring and Evaluation see www.ces-vol.org.uk
or this American organisation has quite a good description http://national.unitedway.org
What about after the current money is spent?
Funders are usually very interested to know about your plans for after the project. Will the project be self sustaining either by creating it's own income or another means, will it be completed and not be repeated, will you be applying to other sources for money - how sure are those sources?
The Charities Information Bureau produce a really useful series of Information sheets see http://www.fit4funding.org.uk/
Assistance from Fareham Community Action
Hopefully these pages will provide you with a starting point; staff at Fareham Community Action are happy to discuss your plans in more detail; Specifically we can:
Personal coaching from Fareham Community Action contact admin@farehamaction.org.uk or phone 01329 231899
(organisations outside Fareham should contact their local CVS -- Hampshire National )
Donations, Grants, Contracts and Service Agreements -- Do you know the difference?
'Donations' are usually what is given informally for the general purposes of the organisation.
'Grants' normally attract a little more formality including an application process and probably acknowledgment of the source of funding. This is the most usual approach for community funding.
'Contracts' are usually the formal agreement between an organisation that is going to provide a specific service in a specific way for a specific period of time. Hence the agreement usually has a detailed specification saying how the service will be delivered. Organisations would normally only take on a contract if it relates to their specific field of work and if it adds to their current activities. Quite often contracts have a tendering arrangement.
'Service Agreements' can be similar to contracts but are usually based on a 'friendlier' perspective involving shared visions and collaboration between the funder and the provider.
What do you know about Trusts?
| There are 4,500 Charitable trusts in the
UK who exist to give away money..... but only for specific purposes.
The trusts are listed in a few places. The most comprehensive list
is the Charities Aid Foundation publication called "Directory of
Grant Making Trusts". The information is presented in
alphabetically and although there is an index it will take a long, long
time to work through it. Therefore there are electronic indexes to
help with finding the few trusts that are best suited to your project
proposals.
At Fareham Community Action we have the electronic indexes to these Trusts and we can help you get started. A copy of this and other funding guides can be borrowed or it is available in the Fareham (reference) library. A CD is available from the Directory of Social Change for about £120 |
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