Why Yapp Charitable Trust ask for feedback from successful and unsuccessful grantees
One year following the re-launch of GrantAdvisor UK, we spoke to Yapp Charitable Trust to hear more about their experience gathering anonymous feedback from grantseekers. Programme Lead Ellen Smyth speaks to Joanne Anderson, Trust Secretary at Yapp Charitable Trust to hear why it is important to ask for feedback from a diverse range of grantseekers — including those who have been unsuccessful. Joanne reflects on how important honest grantee feedback is to ensure funders meet their objectives, the joys and challenges of gathering this anonymous feedback — and advice to help funders get started.
“We haven’t had any negative feedback so far. The Trustees are delighted with the responses. The feedback has been very very supportive, we are thrilled.” Joanne Anderson, Trust Secretary at Yapp Charitable Trust
Do you want to create better feedback loops between grantmakers and grantseekers? Read on to see how anonymous feedback makes a difference.
Ellen Smyth (CAST): Welcome Joanne! Tell us a bit about your experience on GrantAdvisor UK?
Joanne Anderson (Yapp Charitable Trust): When the service re-launched, we sent an email out to all of our current grant holders, giving them a bit of background on GrantAdvisor UK and asked them to share their feedback with us. That’s where we’ve gotten the majority of our reviews from and we had a really good response to that. Since that initial flurry, I think we’ve been a bit disappointed with the number of reviews we’ve received. The number of grantees sharing their feedback has gone down and we don’t know what the reason for that is.
I’m assuming other funders are in a similar position thinking about how to increase the feedback from grantseekers?
Ellen Smyth (CAST): Thanks for sharing that. The approach to gathering feedback from grantseekers seems to vary for each funder. Some small funders are using GrantAdvisor UK as their sole source of grantee feedback. Other larger funders already gather grantee feedback in a range of different ways — so the anonymous reviews they receive on GrantAdvisor UK complement their existing feedback loops. One thing we do know is that the most successful way for funders to increase their reviews is to ask for feedback directly from grantseekers — so it is great to hear that has been your approach.
And you’re right! Lots of funders are thinking about how to gather more feedback from grantseekers. That’s why I’m doing some research and speaking to funders about their experience. I’m curious about the approach funders are taking to gathering and responding to feedback from grantseekers. By understanding what is going well and some of the barriers, we at CAST can provide more support. For example, Steve Morgan Foundation also shared that they feel they made a good start to gathering feedback, but would like to gather more data — they have started including an invitation for anonymous feedback in grant agreements, which is interesting. It has also been insightful to hear how City Bridge Foundation have grown their reviews and how they have used this insight to make changes to their learning visits programme.
Everyone’s approach will be different. We hope to make it as easy as possible for grantseekers to share their experiences, and for grantmakers to understand what they are doing well, and where they can improve. Yapp Charitable Trust is currently one of the funders with the highest number of reviews on GrantAdvisor UK.
Can you share more about your approach to gathering feedback?
Joanne Anderson (Yapp Charitable Trust): Yes the link to write us a review on GrantAdvisor UK is at every touchpoint — it can’t be missed. Our message is simple, we say:
“Please leave us a review. Leaving a review on GrantAdvisorUK takes just a few minutes — but the impact can be long-lasting!
Answering a few simple questions about your grant seeking experience will help UK funders like us make their practices more accessible, open & user-friendly.”
We always include a link to the site so they don’t have to search for it. We would of course love that to receive feedback from 100% of grantseekers.
The gold dust: We’re inviting feedback all the time from successful grantees and from those who have been unsuccessful.
We fund some of the tiniest organisations, they have a spend of less than £40,000 a year. We are determined not to create additional work for them — we know they don’t have bid writing managers to complete the application forms and provide us with in-depth feedback. The form grantseekers fill in when they share their experience with us is quite straightforward on GrantAdvisor UK, but maybe the fact that they need to jump to another page to provide their feedback is a barrier? The response rate does seem to have picked up again recently — in our November grantmaking round we awarded 13 grants and we’ve received 9 anonymous reviews. So that’s a 69% response rate. We’ll obviously keep an eye on numbers as we’d like to increase that.
You mentioned you are asking for feedback from unsuccessful grantseekers. I’d love to hear more about that.
I think it’s important to ask for feedback from unsuccessful grantseekers. We’ll say — look, we know we didn’t get you a grant, but we still want to hear about your experience.
That sounds like a great approach. When a funder registers on the service, there is sometimes nervousness around the risk to their organisation if grantseekers share negative feedback. What has your experience been?
We haven’t had any negative feedback so far. The Trustees are delighted with the responses. The feedback has been very very supportive, we are thrilled.
What excites you about collecting anonymous feedback from grantseekers?
It provides reassurance that we’re doing what we set out to do as a funder. We fund small organisations within our priority areas that are really in need. So I think reassurance is key for us, so that we know we are meeting our objectives well.
What advice would you give to a funder who is considering signing up to GrantAdvisor UK?
Give it a go! What is there to lose? I’d also say think about how you are already gathering feedback. Does your current system do what you need? What are you hoping to achieve? Speak to others who are already on GrantAdvisor UK and find out what their experience has been.
Join the conversation:
- Share your anonymous feedback with funders: Are you a grantseeker interested in sharing your experience working with UK grantmakers? Funders are listening. It takes 5 minutes to share your anonymous feedback. You can also browse almost 500 anonymous grantseeker reviews — this is the kind of peer-peer insight that can help you with your funding applications.
- Register for free on GrantAdvisor UK: Are you a funder interested in hearing what grantseekers have to say? Want to gather in-depth insight — for free — on what you are doing well and how you can improve? Register here.
- Questions? We’d love to hear from grantseekers and grantmakers. Share your reflections, questions and ideas so we can create more impact together. If you are a funder — what support do you need to start gathering feedback from grantees? If you are a grantseeker — how do you feel about the changes funders have made, so far, in response to grantseeker feedback? How can we make it easier for you to share your experiences? Contact us at grantadvisor@wearecast.org.uk
Do you want to help more charities access vital funding? The peer-to-peer advice shared by grantseekers in their anonymous reviews contains useful advice for grantseekers, as well as funders. Read more reflections from Joanne Anderson, Trust Secretary at Yapp Charitable Trust on how these practical tips shared by successful grantees helps others write strong funding applications.
