MAKING THE APPLICATION  

TOP TEN HINTS

HINT 1.  Be absolutely sure that your area of work will be supported by the trust/organisation you are approaching before you start. Read the small print. If what you are doing is even slightly ‘off target’, don’t bother with it. Don’t bend your project to fit the funder.

HINT 2.   Think through your project in detail, run through it in your head to check it will work.  Check for hidden costs to your organisation (administration, phone calls) and include everything, but don’t be greedy.

HINT 3.  It’ll do no harm to build in ‘sustainability’. Even funders for short term one-off projects will be be happier to hand over money if they can see that there will be some long term benefit (E.G. re-use of a piece of equipment to the benefit of others)

 HINT 4.  If you want to sustain fund raising for your project, you will need to develop a strategy. Obviously you want to make the best use of your chances. Match the amount you are applying for to the upper limit of what you know the trust may give, but be honest and not greedy.

 HINT 5.  Keep your application simple. No paragraphs more than 5 sentences long and use ‘bullet points’ where ever you can - this also does wonders for helping you to organise your application!

 HINT 6.  If  you’re  filling in a form, you’ll often find there’s quite a bit of overlap in the questions they will ask. It’s best to type the questions out first with your answers so you don’t repeat yourself. Treat it like an exam. Go over it again and again and ‘make every  word count’. Try and set up your computer so it will print directly onto the form. This looks really impressive if you can manage it.

HINT  7.   If you’re sending in figures, don’t forget those hidden costs, and do all the sums for them, in fact do ALL the work for them. Remember they have hundreds of applications to wade through, and won't take the trouble to sort something out if you haven't – they'll just throw it out.

HINT 8.  Get to know the buzzwords of the moment. Last years was ‘social inclusion’. You can’t go wrong with ‘partnership’ ‘sustainability’ ‘generalisable skills’ ‘user led’ ‘positive media images’ ‘counteracting stigmatisation’ - but you must have the means to deliver on these!

HINT  9.   Don’t write out an application half-heartedly. Give it your absolutely best shot. You might invest a day or a week in an application, but the money you raise will last  much longer than that, so it’s worth getting it right.  

HINT 10.    If you find all this a bit daunting, ask around. If someone will let you have an example of a past successful application this can be really helpful. If your idea is sound and well thought through and it’s a good cause, it’d be easy for someone more experienced to dress it up with the right words. If you’ve got just a bit of spare cash, it might even be worth considering hiring a professional fundraiser. A few hundred pounds investment can be repaid many times over.