Reports Reloaded: Shifts in the Possible

Responding to ‘everyday emergencies’

The Possible Not the Perfect, published in 2018, challenged funders to bring greater urgency, more open and trusting relationships and a lighter touch to our day-to-day work following funder responses to three different emergencies during the summer of 2017 (the Manchester Arena bomb on 22 May, the attacks in London Bridge and Borough Market on 3 June, and the Grenfell Tower fire on 14 June). Could the way funders responded to these dreadful events help us to work more positively and supportively with groups finding their way through the ‘everyday emergencies’ communities are dealing with?  

At Tudor we were keen to build on our experience of facilitating quick grant making to groups supporting the community in the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire. We wanted to experiment with ‘conversational’, light-touch grant making in a different setting so in 2019 we spent time in Hartlepool, building local relationships before meeting 20 local groups in a single afternoon. A trustee and a member of staff listened to each group, and during a half-hour conversation developed a funding request with them. Later that day trustees and staff came together, reflected on the conversations, and agreed grants of up to £5,000 for each group.

The experience was really positive – both for Tudor – “we were talking beyond theory and beyond bullet points. Instead we were talking in stories” and for groups – “we really believe in our project and can get that across during a conversation rather than over two pages of a form”. We were keen to try it again and were working towards a second round in North Kent in May 2020 when Covid hit. The sense of what was ‘possible’ started to look very different.

Pandemic possibilities

Like many funders we immediately signed up to London Funders’ We Stand With the Sector pledge, committing to reduce pressure, offer flexibility and listen better to the groups we were funding. As we talked to our grant holders, and continued to develop new core funding applications, ideas, learning and ways of working from The Possible Not the Perfect began to flow more strongly into our grant making in the following ways:

• Keeping up our ‘normal’ grant making while carving out the space to provide more intensive support to grant holders meant we had to make some changes. Lighter touch due diligence; less paperwork but with more focus on narrative; more frequent meetings; more exploratory and open discussions at grants meetings and quicker decisions.
   
• Zoom conversations with applicants moved to the heart of developing applications at second stage. We worked hard to get better at building rapport and listening, and rarely asked applicants for anything more in writing.
   
• A foundation of established and trusting relationships allowed us to ‘flex’ some existing grants, supplementing or extending them on the basis of a conversation with a grants manager, rather than a new written application. This was a tailored response which also allowed for quick decision making - on average it took 14 days for a flex grant to be developed and approved.
   
• As we talked to our grant holders it was clear that many of them were stepping up to meet urgent and unmet needs in their communities. Trustees delegated authority to grants managers to agree rapid ‘immediate support’ grants of £2,000, through a quick conversation, to help with the basics of food, tech and data. No written application was needed so these grants were approved very quickly – within four days on average.
   
• All these conversations meant that we had a strong sense of the pressures under which the groups we support were operating. Few organisations had the headspace, or the resources, to prioritise team wellbeing so in December 2020 we decided to offer small grants of £2,000, targeted at wellbeing, to our grant holders. Grants were offered proactively, and the process was kept extremely light – just an email accepting the grant, and a recent bank statement. It was left to groups to decide what wellbeing meant for them: many used the funds to offer opportunities to reconnect via outings, meals and away days but the grant was also used to pay for things like relaxation sessions, one-to-one counselling, coaching or supervision and improvements to the working environment.  The response was very positive with many groups noting that the sense of being recognised, valued and thanked was as important as the relatively small sum of money.

Making the path by walking it

The pandemic has pushed us to pick up the pace and just give things a go. Seeing the pressure groups on the ground were working under, and wanting to make things easier for them, led us to make some quick changes to the way we do things. What we came up with drew on previous experience, and definitely isn’t perfect, but we’ve started to make the path by walking it.