Charities seeking emergency funding can strengthen their case by evidencing impact

Like most charities right now, you are probably facing an ever-growing need for your services against diminishing resources. Your immediate concerns are likely to be how to get through the coming weeks, how to survive as an organisation and, of course, how to meet the emergency needs of your beneficiaries on top of their usual needs.

To fulfil some of this extraordinary demand, funders are quickly producing streams of funding support for which, needless to say, there is stiff competition. The latest focus may be the Chancellor’s recently announced package of £750 million for charities delivering locally based front line services. You’ll probably have read our ‘grant fundraising in a crisis’ article that mentioned the importance of you having maximum impact for your stakeholders. Articulating expected impact to funders can really make your application stand out from the crowd.

Create maximum social value for stakeholders most in need

The secret lies in describing the changes your emergency work will bring about. In your funding bid, go beyond explaining what you intend to do and include the changes and effects your work will have on the members of the community you are targeting. Think outputs and resulting outcomes! Ensure that the outcomes you claim are backed up with some evidence.

For those of you just embarking on measuring your social value wondering how to provide at least some evidence of impact for funders, you could describe how you would apply the seven principles of impact measurement to an evaluation of your proposal. You could also supply a prediction of the social value your work will create.

Your considerations right now though need to be tempered by the fact that time is short, the need is immediate and you have to react quickly if you run services aimed at bringing help to those finding themselves in the worst circumstances.

Predicting social value from new actions

At Moore Kingston Smith, we know from our conversations with charities evaluating their next steps that funding for the crisis of the next months is paramount. How are key beneficiaries and other stakeholders coping in a crisis? Is impact of services still a core consideration? For those of you taking the evaluation of your impact as a serious step in formulating strategic direction, it is as important as ever.

Here are a few immediate things that you can do to help predict social value that is likely to result from new actions when you are describing the impact your actions will create for a funder:

1. Check the resilience of assumptions that the outcomes you aim to create will result from the actions you propose.

Work with your colleagues to sense-check that you are confident that there is high likelihood that the change you anticipate will result from your intervention. Draw it out in graphic from so that all colleagues involved understand it. A strong logic chain will inform your actions and lead more quickly to the achievement of the goal, saving time, and financial and human resources.

2. Demonstrate you provide support to a range of stakeholders.

Often the impact you design for a specific beneficiary actually also provides benefit to wider stakeholders, for example, the loved ones of those you are setting out to support. In times when families are more likely to be self-isolating together, impact can be maximised if the needs of a wider group can be considered from the outset. Make sure you describe the wider impact possibilities for the funder.

3. Make your case to funders using direct stakeholder evidence from previous experience and/or pull in other evidence where available.

One of the weaknesses of some impact reporting is a lack of evidence for the social value claimed. Your credibility is enhanced with some evidence, which is often easily available through conversations with stakeholders themselves.

If not, check if there is any research available that is based on similar interventions for people with similar characteristics to your beneficiary group. A quick internet search may reveal something you can use.

Avoid empty claims around impact by being more sure-footed in demonstrating supporting evidence. Make the case that change really will be achieved as a result of the funders’ investment in you.

Here today and here tomorrow

Don’t sweat the lack of monitoring systems or the kind of data you happen to hold right now that may not be impact-related. The development of a framework to gather impact data systematically is likely for another time.

Right now just think about the outcomes you want to achieve. Articulate clearly the social value being created and for whom! It’s not all about the money; the sweet spot likely lies in your services that can attract income but also have maximum possible short-term impact.