Funding a charity is no easy task. Before we start to do our work in the community, many things need to be accounted for. Salaries, office space, electricity, training and many other things go into being able to operate. It costs money. And our main source of income is from grants and contracts.
Tonia Redvers is Director of PARAGON, Young Lives and Counselling and spends a great deal of time writing bids. It’s a stressful part of the job, but absolutely necessary if we want to help others. In today’s blog, Tonia explains the process.
Funding streams
At The YOU Trust we have a number of funding streams. One of those is through donations from the public and private businesses. But our main source of funding comes from grants and contracts. The Charity has a small but dedicated team of people who write our funding applications. I thought it may be interesting to explain what they do.
Firstly, we get notifications of new opportunities via a tender portal. These notifications include updates from across our area which we monitor daily. It means we need to keep an eye on when our current contracts and grants end. They usually go out to tender about 5/6 months prior to their end date.
Tender/bid writing is a very competitive business. Many organisations recruit specialist business writers and managers to write their tenders. We don’t do that here. Our Directors have worked frontline and have in-depth knowledge of our teams, our work and lead on best practice and quality audits. They know the work the charity does inside out, which helps when writing a tender or bid.
Putting a tender together is a huge piece of work that requires input from many skilled people. These include the Tenders and Operations Officer and the Community Services and Business Development Manager. It also requires input from Finance and HR. A tender is designed to ensure that the people in our communities get the best team for the job.
For example, there is a large technical section where you need to include, among other things, information on:
- our track record
- employment processes
- safeguarding
- health and safety issues
- organised crime
It’s the funders doing their due diligence and reassuring themselves that the company/charity they choose has an excellent track record. It also asks for references, usually from three different contracts that you already hold, with a full explanation of those contracts.
TUPE stands for Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment)
Another element is staffing (TUPE). We have to sign a confidentiality agreement to gain access to this information, which our HR team reviews. This information covers staff currently in job roles, salaries and other terms and conditions. You need this information to set budgets, staffing structures and to understand who is already in post.
TUPE is a legal process that is aimed at supporting people who may be affected by the transfer of the contract from one organisation to another. We are lucky to have a national TUPE expert on our team who guides all the work we do. They also make sure there is fair treatment for all staff.
Our finance team will complete a number of financial schedules. This will include projecting costs for up to the length of the contract. This can be tricky as they need to take into account wages, cost of living increases and other financial changes ahead of time. They complete a financial modelling question, which explains our costs, how we are using the funds and what saving could we potentially make.
Funding means questions, lots of them!
Funding a charity means we have to answer lots and lots of questions! The largest section by far is the quality questions. This section can have as many as 15 questions, ranging from 300 – 1500 words per question. We write in excess of 10-15,000 words per tender. That’s the same as writing a thesis on a regular basis! It takes time, research, and quality writing to reflect the excellence of the work our teams do. Questions often cover:
- staffing structure
- service model
- safeguarding
- partnership working
- clinical governance
- customer service
- accessibility
- performance management/tracking
All sections require examples to demonstrate our processes, how they work and outcomes. We’re also required to demonstrate how we react to safeguarding, our intake and referral process. Some questions ask about the client journey and what we do and when.
Whilst writing our answers, we need to ensure that we meet the areas of the specification that the question refers to. This is very important, you can wax lyrical about anything, but if your answer does not meet the criteria, or match the specification, then you will not score any points. Our answers probably go through 2-3 variations, and are read/reviewed by at least two people, before we are happy with the final one.
Adapting to a new process
Tendering process can change. And recently social value has become very important. Charities now need to demonstrate how they add social value of the area through the work we do, through their organisation and through the people they work with. There is a national measurement that we complete which puts a ££ cost against an activity. Such as:
- recruiting local people
- education
- training
- working in the community
- volunteering
- placements etc
It’s a scored outcome and for some tenders this social value becomes a major key performance indicator. For example, if we said that we would recruit 10 volunteers in 10 months, that will be reviewed and reported on at contract meetings. We are always transparent and honest with our social value aspirations, and we don’t ‘over egg the pudding’.
Once a tender has been completed, it’s uploaded to the portal and the funders scrutinise all applications against a set of criteria. They mark from 1-5. With one being unacceptable and rising to outstanding. This numerical system is then set against a weighting percentage, and once all the scoring is completed, and the financial modelling is scored, these are added up.
