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Just finished my first meeting as Trustee of a grant making trust. Here's 9 things I noticed.
1. Every Trust is different. We read every eligible application and each Trustee votes on what they want to support. Any charity with 2+ votes is discussed at the meeting. 64 applications became 17.
2. As a fundraiser, it can take a day to write an application for £5k. As a funder, it took less than 2 hours to give away £100k.
3. For the meeting, applications were reduced to one sentence on an excel doc. The best thing applicants can do is make it really easy for funders to see at a glance what you need money for and why.
4. Relationships matter. Build them.
5. Your budget better add up.
6. Your innovative project for taking your existing work online is the 5th one we've seen today.
7. As four white Trustees, we need to work consciously to fund projects working with BAME communities.
8. Being clear on our funding aims makes it easy to dismiss charities that don't help us achieve them. Contortionists, we see you.
9. Giving away money to fund work you believe in is enormous fun!
