As the second round of the Wellbeing Fund opens this week, our Partnership and Enterprise Officer, Kaja Czuchnicka, shares her experiences of being an assessor of the first wave of applications. Read on to find out what makes a successful application and what were the most common pitfalls in the last round.
The current funding landscape is as competitive as ever.
As a Partnership and Enterprise Officer for ACVO, I support organisations with income generation — I provide training on different types of fundraising, help write engaging cases for support and review draft applications. I understand how disappointing it can be to fail to secure funds for a vital project.
Every day I see the difference community groups, charities and social enterprises are making to lives of people in Aberdeen. Therefore, I was delighted to be asked to act as an assessor for the first round of The Scottish Government’s Wellbeing Fund and contribute the local perspective to the process. Our role is to provide local intelligence and asses applications according to the fund criteria. After our initial assessment applications move on to the national funding partners and then are presented to the Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Local Government for decision.
Today, I want to share with you some insights from the first round of applications.
At the moment, we don’t know whether the second round of applications will have exactly the same criteria so please bear this in mind. What we do know is that once the guidance has been released, we will support you to be as successful as you can — read on for more details.
In the meantime, we thought it would be helpful to highlight some of the main reasons for being unsuccessful in the first round:
The amount requested fell outside the funding range or was over 20% of organisation’s annual turnover
Wellbeing Fund can only support projects which fit with its funding range (5k-100k) and any applications that fell below or above were automatically rejected. Similarly, the amount applied for should not exceed 20% of the organisations annual turnover and a number of applications were also unsuccessful due to that reason. There are simple criteria but have prevented a number of otherwise worthwhile projects from securing funds. If you are thinking of applying to the next round of the Wellbeing Fund please do check — and double check! — the guidance on this.
Funding being asked for exceeds three months
This fund is really about what you are doing right now to support at risk groups. Therefore, it only funds activity that spans over two to three months. Some of the applications included costs for six months and more — and we were unable to recommend those. Not adhering to the timelines suggested by the funder would mean that your application would be questioned and could potentially be unsuccessful.
Costs are unclear
This fund can cover a wide range of costs including staff salaries, volunteer and staff expenses, equipment, running costs etc. However, these costs need to be proportionate to the project and realistic. It is important to break your budget down telling us about the main items you need support with. This is particularly crucial if you are applying for an amount at the higher end of the range.
This funding stream has also received a number of great applications which were successful and have since been awarded money (or will be in a couple of days as the process isn’t fully completed).
So, what has made the applications successful?
Painting a clear picture of the beneficiary need
The best applications made it clear why there was a need for the project and what would happen if it was unsupported. They gave concrete examples of the challenges their clients are facing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic or the implementation of the social distancing measures. Some of the organisations that applied are deeply embedded within local communities (whether geographic or of interest) and acutely aware of their specific needs.
Giving a clear idea of the scope of the project
As a TSI we are aware of what is happening in the city but will not always know the finer details of your project. For example, it’s likely we will know the size of your organisation but might not know how many staff you will have working on a particular initiative or how many clients it will support. The clearer you make it for us, the easier it will be for us (and the national funding partners) to establish whether your ask is realistic and proportionate.
Providing a realistic budget
Any funder or assessor will have experience and knowledge of the sector. We have seen lots of applications and can make an informed guess on whether a cost is realistic or not. But we can only do so if given enough information. The best applications provided budgets detailed enough for us to know what the money will be actually spend on and what the scope of the project will be. For example: ‘staff costs’ is low on detail, please tell us how many staff, is it one person or ten?
Highlighting collaborative and partnership working
Last but not least, the successful projects highlighted live partnerships that they have with other bodies. If you have links with other charities, NHS, Health and Social Care Partnership, schools or any other organisations show them off!
We truly want to help organisations to be as successful in applying for this fund as we can. Therefore, we will be providing further guidance on the application process once the second round of the Wellbeing Fund opens. We are planning on holding a Q&A session for potential applicants via zoom — details will be announced soon on our social media, bulletins and website so please keep an eye out. I am also open to having one-to-one conversations with potential applicants on whether your project is eligible and fits with the criteria of the fund.
Any questions please do get in touch at kaja.czuchnicka@acvo.org.uk.
