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The material on this page is for beginners. If you have three or more years’ experience of trust fundraising, you may find more useful the pages in the menus associated with this page: https://goodgrantfundraising.org.uk/emotional-power-in-trust-fundraising/.
People give because they care about the situation is it is, almost always for people (or maybe animals) who matter to them. There’s an issue in their actual lives (not a gap in services, an issue in people’s lives) that they want to do something about and they think that their money will make a positive difference. As such, you need to paint in words two pictures of beneficiaries’ lives:
1. The “before the money” picture (the “need)
You need to quantify this, at least to some extent (some trusts will be fine if the only actual stat or evidence in the application is the number of people in the potential service user group (e.g., the number of older people for an older people’s project, number of people diagnosed each year with encephalitis for a medical research proposal). Other trusts will be more demanding.
2. The “after the money has led to change” picture
This also needs quantifying. Trusts talk a lot about impact and the more you can show you know the number (and it’s a big one) the more trusts will be impressed. (For various reasons, it’s inadvisable to over-claim the number of people you’ll help.)
You’re doing two things to make these pictures seem important:
Firstly, you’re describing important things in the life of each individual, important problems, important improvements. There are probably two changes: in the immediate term, the service user gets something – like, a new skill, information or transported to a day centre where they do stimulating activity. That’s important, but what especially makes people put their hands in their pockets is the long term change: due to their new skills, they can get a job or live independently, due to the information they can get benefits and be lifted out of extreme poverty, due to visiting the day centre they are able overcome isolation and stay safely and independently in the community.
Secondly, you quantify them, because few things create more of a sense of importance and value for money than significant numbers.
You’re doing two things here: writing in a way that makes people care, but also, in a hard headed way, showing real value for money.
A challenge is sometimes being able to paint these pictures, because Service Managers haven’t given you the details. Two tips:
Keep asking “Why is that important to the person?” until the answer will make sense to a lay person with a Daily Telegraph viewpoint (i.e., the Trustees)
If the Service Manager refuses to say – usually because they won’t make the time or think it’s unprofessional to say, put the ball in their court by guessing the answer. There are lots of good research reports into different needs online that can help you do this.
Then, you need to show how the Trust’s money gets people from Point A to point B. You might have very warm relationships with some of your donors. However, the while point of what they’re doing is rarely about your charity, at all. It’s about helping people/animals who need that help. Fundamentally, you’re just a vehicle to get by which the trust’s money gets people from need to benefits.
A few points to make:
You need to describe the work they’re funding, as well as the need and benefits. That’s partly because it’s what they’re funding, so it’s the natural thing to do. Also, it shows how their money gets beneficiaries from A to B. With bigger trusts/bigger grants, there’s more focus on the work funded, itself.
Sometimes the trust is only making a small contribution – e.g., you’re presenting the work of the organisation as a whole and they’re making a limited contribution. However, you still write in the same general way: you still need their help in getting people from A to B.
The issue of whether the trust’s money really will get people from A to B is a relevant issue, that bigger trusts especially will look at. Typically, they’ll be looking for genuinely significant risks that, with their money, people still won’t get from A to B. So, for example: if the capacity of the service looks very small to achieve the result, or if a lot more money will be needed and you don’t seem to know where from, or if it all seems confused and unclear, the the trust might be asking themselves whether their grant really will make the difference that you’re claiming it will.