Difference between revisions of "Grants"

Revision as of 08:44, 31 January 2018

This page is mostly my note file, but anyone interested can join in the game of multiplayer notepad. The page is organised in order of likely timeframes.

General

We do need to be careful not to crosslap grants, eg if two grants are ... granted, and both allow provision for roof overhaul, one or both may demand a refund of that part, whereas if one is for roof and the other 'maintenance', we then have money for the roof and say fixing the lift. The lottery in particular seem militant about this aspect! Once one grant has been approved and processed then the Wishlist will be updated and future applications use new source data.

In practice this means we need to be as nonspecific as we can get away with on any given grant application, to allow flexibility on what we spend it on. Especially problematic given that we have no idea when we'll hear back about any of these, and we can't stagger applications by up to three months, using the lottery timeframe as a basis.

Specific Major Items

We should get quotes for the roof, in terms of both free consultancy, and showing that we have done research & retrieved numbers. Some committees will prefer to tick a number next to a problem rather than think about material costs and whether we can do it ourselves.

The lift is a good example of this. It's probably not something we can repair, and getting a number to it would be a good idea, especially as that could be covered by a number of possible grants. However I have absolutely no idea who we'd approach for quotes on that? I'm sure the landlord would be more than happy for us to do/arrange the repairs for him if we could, but would he potentially contribute, as with the ventilation?

The Unspecific Grant

Assuming it needs to take the form of an email with summarised budget headings, I'll tot up the Wishlist into categories. For reasons of overlap mentioned above, and frankly as we don't really know what the exact criteria actually are (if any!) this should be left as vague as we can get away with. If they ask for more information or breakdowns then it's easily provideable, and at least then we'd know what they actually want from us.

Now that the roof is crudely costed and out of bounds, installation of workshop ventillation could be considered instead.

 Workshop Tools and Equipment [this one is what it says on the tin, but what articles specifically is infinitely flexible]
 Main Room Tools and Equipment ? [title unsure. thinking this is electronics T&E but could also cover anything from a 3D printer to a PC]
 Essential Materials [intention is for core stock, but could cover building materials for rafter shelves etc]

 Maintenance and Improvement [Roof too expensive - likely 1k bare minimum] Could flex to just about anything if something else later covers that specifically. Examples are ventilation, carpet, lighting, oven, heck even the lift]
 Overheads. [I have no idea if the grant can help with this? My feeling is not; many seem to want a static shopping list and an easy success metric, not 'threw money at and nothing changed']

After discussion with Steve, initial draft budget structure is as follows. Numbers are educated guesses for guidance and not final. As said we need to be as vague as possible with what this is to be specifically spent on within the named category, otherwise potential overlap is a serious problem. Of course if it's too vague, then they may request itemised specifics and then we have to blacklist all the named items in all other grant applications until further notice...

If someone PR minded could rewrite the summary that would be helpful. Our personal focus this grant is expansion of abilities, the next will probably be half expansion and half replacement of borrowed kit. (This is out of scope here but it might be worth considering some long-term loan policy for equipment, I'm not sure we want to have a situation where we have mediocre shared tools and each member then has their own personal kit of high end stuff. Within reason it's much more efficient to have it communal, as long as it's taken care of and used by trained people.)

Workshop Tools and Equipment: £800

Essential tools to replace outdated or borrowed equipment with our own, and so forth.

Planer thicknesser and lathe forming vast majority (~£550) of total. Remainder vices, safety equipment, measuring tools, and suchlike.

Stretch Workshop T&E: £167.97

Very useful but not critical.

Offer up the cross vice and bobbin sander to the alter of corporate meddling? Lovely kit but we can survive without them for now.

Main Room Tools and Equipment: £640

Critical updates for the aged equipment at our soldering stations.

Current numbers based on £220 per booth * 2 + £200 for a bench PSU. This is not optimal - ideally we should kit out two bays very well, even if that's double the price per bay, then do the other two in another grant. Alternately if Rapid do cough up £220 kit * 4, then use the grant for the remainder of the equipment needed to turn them from 'okay' into 'really bloody good'. One for Steve to weigh.

Stretch Main Room T&E: £83.80

Highly useful

...printer filament, as used for project enclosures and robot parts?

Maintainance and Improvement: £307.66

Wood for building shelves, double glazing for the workshop window.

Currently I'm assuming the perfectly costed Rafter Shelves (£221.74), and window double glazing (£85.92).

Stretch: Essential Materials: £387.24

Misc consumables such as nails, screws, etc

A chunk of the consumables section (shrapnel & components (£79.58), but exactly which of the consumables is irrelevant currently.

Total without stretch: £1747.66 Stretch total: £331.35 Total including stretch: £2,079.01

Can we think of anything better than 'main room' ? 'Main workroom' and 'wood workshop' maybe? Preferably something that sounds industrious.

I'll update the woodworking wishlist soon to give us the required exact figures for this grant, and nudge some into the 'later' bracket. I may also swap the sacrificial cross vice with costed stuff I have and can loan, as frankly one would be really useful.

The Lottery

'Need evidencing'

There is quite a lot of red tape devoted to outlining what 'Need' is being met, then how it manifests as a Problem which the Project then solves, and what metrics/statistics can back this up and demonstrate success. I personally find this sort of exercise very hard to get my head around, so input from others would be very useful here. To me it's self evident that if a roof leaks, it needs fixing; writing an essay on 'the social impact of not being wet' is meaningless. I think once all else is ready we need to have a brainstorming session to hash this out.

There are also requirements for community involvement, so demonstrating this is also essential, and for smaller projects they seem to accept variations on 'we spoke to our members'. Being what we are this is a paperwork exercise only, we should be able to demonstrate this easily enough. It seems a lot of the guidance doesn't differentiate between large and small projects, which is unhelpful to say the least, and we also have a limited word count to fit basically everything into.

https://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/funding/funding-guidance/applying-for-funding/identifying-need

About the process

Most of the really good lottery grants are Scotland specific, but Awards for All is UK wide and a viable option. Base success rate is 65% for applications under £5k, but considering their application volume and that our application is entirely within their stated goals, I have high hopes of success, so the issue becomes demonstrating that to their satisfaction in a small volume of words.

Apparently they use a point system internally. This page, while energy specific, shines light on their process near the end of the document; https://www.cse.org.uk/thesource/download/advice-on-making-an-application-for-a-community-based-energy-project-to-awards-for-all-340

More on what they look for: http://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/er_eval_explaining_the_difference.pdf

https://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/funding/programmes/national-lottery-awards-for-all-england#section-3

Useful reading on the process: https://knowhownonprofit.org/how-to/how-to--guide <-- very handy

https://bigblogscotland.org.uk/2017/11/28/success-rates-autumn-2017/ (Scotland seem a lot more open about their info)

https://bigblogscotland.org.uk/2017/10/23/applying-for-funding-the-ultimate-guide/ (Scotland again, but same principles apply)

https://www.theguardian.com/voluntary-sector-network/2011/mar/21/perfect-funding-bids

Core tangible requirements for lottery funding: https://bigblogscotland.org.uk/2015/07/15/getting-your-group-ready-to-apply/

Intangibles are the problem. Mostly need to demonstrate need, emphasise the problems solved, community planning and involvement, and such.

If needed we can also demonstrate 'match funding' by using volunteer time, which we have in spades, and provision / procurement of articles.

We can also phone or email them for advice pre-application, since they're the experts, free advice! Email turnaround is 'up to ten days'. Phone might be better...

The initial funding application has 10 budget sections, which we should utilise as best we can. Exact figures show thought and calculation, so we want to avoid round numbers - this is one of their criteria; planning, not guesswork!

They seem to want a clearly delineated 'project' with clear, clean objectives, start and end dates, and metrics we/they can use to indicate success. I'm currently thinking 'Makerspace Revitalisation Project'. 'Fiscal kick up the arse' was a close second option. It's possible the Makerspace itself could be considered the project, which is something to aim for, as that would make all of our overheads incurred costs and then potentially payable.

Initial thoughts for categories:

Workshop Equipment
Tools and PPE
Electronics Equipment
Main Room Essentials (carpet, lighting)
Workshop Roof Materials (membrane, wood, insulation. could make this an umbrella and cover ventilation too?)
Other Construction Materials (ply, wood. initial thoughts are for rafter shelves, but leaving it ambiguous is preferable)

Less certain:

Dust Filtration (maybe air filtration?) There's a £3/400 unit on the wishlist that would work wonders.
Supplies and Consumables (whatever we can justify as 'house kit'. Core essential supplies seem well within their remit - eg 'stationery' is fine. We do not want to provide or house endless stockpiles, but core consumables are currently running directly from Steve's supply, which isn't ideal for anybody named Steve. The flexibility and negotiability of this is also a useful accountancy and commitee-wrangling feature)
Kitchen Equipment
Lift Repair (low hanging fruit , but too expensive for any sub 10K grant considering overheads)

In the future, the lottery Communities grants seem to be under applied for; look at the Scotland statistics on that, 100% success rate as a result! Our version of that is currently offline until April but it looks like we again meet core criteria. This one is £10K plus however, so probably not too useful until we need to annex naughty sheep. https://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/funding/programmes/reaching-communities-england - we should keep an eye on it, especially if we've been previously accepted for A4A as that would give us a major points boost.

Misc Notes

1. Focus on how you’ll spend this grant (not just on your group’s history, or your current work) It’s useful to give a short summary of what your group does at the start of your application. However, most of the form should be used to discuss what you will actually spend this specific grant on! We get a lot of applications that don’t do this. Instead they give us extensive information on the organisation’s history and general activities. But we mostly need to know what you will spend the grant on, why you want to do this, and what impact this will have. 2. Tell us how you know the community wants this We also get a lot of applications for projects that sound great, but where it’s not clear if they are a priority for the local community or the people involved. The best applications provide a range evidence that the local community or users of the project have had their say, and evidence of how this has been used to develop the idea to meet their needs. Some groups tell us about focus groups they’ve run, community consultation events or surveys. But sometimes its as simple as telling us that you’ve had a chat about the project with the people who are likely to be involved or affected, and used their view and suggestions to develop your plans.

CAS etc

https://www.communityactionsuffolk.org.uk/support/your-organisation/funding/ We should see what this can offer (our area officer is Jayne). If someone chases this let me know, I'll get to it when I can otherwise. Update: I've emailed a general query. Awaiting response.

Suffolk CF

http://suffolkcf.org.uk/apply/grants/

Insert shortlist here.

http://suffolkcf.org.uk/grant-making-guidelines/ http://suffolkcf.org.uk/grants/fonnereau-road-health-foundation-fund/ http://suffolkcf.org.uk/grants/working-together-awards/ <-- this one pays retrospectively. Not overly useful unless we can get agreement in principle.

Others

https://www.fundingcentral.org.uk/default.aspx

Irrelevant

Menshed

Company formation date is more than 18 months ago, so we are inelegible. This is perhaps not actually a bad thing, I wasn't looking forwards to an endless obligation to Walmart's PR efforts.