Photo: North West Regional Support Centre
What is this about?
Making sure that your gay organisation or group has sustainable funding for its activities.
Remember LAGER? The Lesbian and gay employment rights campaign was a high profile gay organisation in the UK which was regularly consulted on equality at work issues and helped gay workers through their problems. Then all of a sudden they disappeared. They had forgotten to apply for their usual annual funding grant, were too late to be considered, and had to close, which left a huge hole in the UK’s gay infrastructure.
Then there are the community events which are launched in a blaze of glory only to be cancelled a few weeks later because of insufficient interest, finance or lack of commitments from potential attractions.
And the path to Gay Activist is littered with failed web sites, newspapers and magazines aimed at the gay community which failed to sustain themselves.
Gay groups and organisations all over the world are struggling to obtain sufficient money to run their organisations, services and complete their projects. The global recession has reduced the availability of money through the usual channels, and because of higher unemployment and social unrest, as well as political change, governments have different political priorities. Large funding programmes are now likely to be rare due to the large cuts to most departmental budgets, reports The Consortium (see other resources at the end of this page). Just yesterday further cuts of 5% across the board were announced in the UK Government’s annual spending review.
Gay Activist hopes this page will help people running gay groups to benchmark themselves, gain insight and ideas into how they can improve the chances of their group or organisation surviving.
If you can assist with further ideas and information we will be delighted to hear from you.
The usual method of funding gay organisations has been by providing a social service a community needed, and being paid for it by that community, usually by a grant from a local council, a county council or from central government funds.
The secondary method of funding gay groups has been through membership fees, and from profit making events. Some groups have also earned fees by providing training courses or by making trainers available.
Increasingly gay groups and organisations are undertaking social enterprises as a further way of generating income and enhancing their sustainability. A social enterprise is a business activity which is designed by the gay group to generate income and achieve its goals. Four advantages of going down the social enterprise route have been identified:
- they remain independent and autonomous organisations;
- they generate financial resources;
- they further social objectives;
- they create income-generating opportunities for marginalized constituents.
From time to time organisations like the National Lottery make funds available to gay organisations for social projects or research but these are usually for one-off projects they have bid for, rather than their day to day running costs.
Cultural, political and philanthropic bodies also make funding available to gay groups for specific objectives where a case has been made and accepted.
So gay organisations need to undertake three priority tasks in order to ensure they receive adequate funding to meet their objectives.
1. Know their costs and ensure their operation can keep within budget.
2. Review and focus their objectives to ensure they are relevant and required.
3. Innovate, finding new ways to add income.
There are a number of questions you should ask yourself, if you are leading a gay group or organisation, which will help you to identify things you can do to improve the sustainability of your group.
A skills survey of the management team will reveal whether you have adequate skills and experience. Do you need to bring in more expertise?
What training do new volunteers or staff get? Do you have a recruitment plan? How do you deal with staff turnover? Staff development?
Is your membership stagnant or dynamic? Do you need to reconnect with your supporters and re-energise levels of support for your organisation? How well motivated are your team and supporters? Does your group have patrons, friends?
Is any of your activity or expenditure wasted? Is all of it relevant, legal, ethical and proper? Are there any opportunities to make your funding go further? Do you set even small surpluses aside into a deposit account to have money available for a rainy day? (A traditional recommendation is that you should have a minimum of three month’s income saved aside to cover emergencies etc.) How well are your resources managed? Arer your accounts up to date and would they comply with local regulations and accounting standards?
Do any local companies have experienced staff who are willing to volunteer to add their expertise and ideas to your management board, filling in some of the missing skills and aptitudes?
What opportunities are there in your locality for networking within the services and groups sector? Is there an umbrella organisation for GLBTI groups and organisations in your country? Do you know of and make full use of networking facilities? Do you have supportive friends in other organisations?
Are there any opportunities for you to be mentored? Is there another gay group in the area who you could co-operate and co-mentor with?
Do you survey your service users to find out what you do well and what you do badly so you can improve their experience (and make it more likely that your group will survive)?
Can you provide information packs or training services which you can sell for further revenue?
How well do you plan? Do you have an overview plan each year on which key dates and events, like the dates applications have to be received, for each of your funding applications, are clearly marked?
How well are you organised? Is all the information your organisation needs easily accessed, or do you always have to hunt around for it? Is your filing organised, or chaotic?
How are your relationships with the wider community monitored, measured, improved? Also the local press, radio, TV, internet media?
Some funding comes from organisations (and individuals!) who may also have ecological or other objectives of their own, such as social responsibility. How does your organisation appeal to such benefactors?
A good funding bid will answer the following four questions:
- What is the purpose of your group?
- What do you want funding for?
- How do you know there is a need for this project/activity?
- How will you measure the impact of your work?
As you can see from those key questions, they imply that there will be work involved in drafting objectives, a plan of how much money will be needed and what it will be spent on (know your costs), research (know your users needs) and measurement.
The social entrepreneur Lee McQueen sums up the secret of success: “Building relationships is key to being successful, as is having a strategy and a goal. If you work as a team, as a unit, you will win the task.”
More information will be added to this page as it becomes available.
Other resources
The Consortium of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered voluntary and community organisations
Related pages:
Page updated and links checked 17 May 2012
SP
