How to win UK Aid Match funds: Tips for small charities

Small U.K.-based organizations oftentimes face tough competition in securing grants from the Department for International Development. But they are seeing a huge opportunity with the agency’s latest funding scheme. That said, small organizations, particularly those with limited networks, find meeting some of the requirements of the U.K. Aid Match program a challenge. Devex spoke with three small organizations that won funding under the pilot version of the program. Some of them acknowledge it’s no easy task and the key is to have a good communication partner. More money, more visibility Piloted in 2011, the U.K. Aid Match aims to match British public donations to appeals made by U.K.-registered not-for-profit organizations, pound for pound. On top of doubling charities’ resources, the program has an added benefit for giving more visibility to grantees. “As well as giving NGOs like World Vision the chance to double some of the money we can spend on lifesaving work, the expected media coverage and publicity around the UK Aid Match appeals will allow us to raise awareness about some of the ongoing and more hidden crises which are affecting millions of children around the world,” said David Coates, head of grants at World Vision U.K. All grants are subject to ministerial approval and cannot exceed 5 million pounds. An organization can have a maximum of three active grants at any one time, but can only submit one application per funding round. A must: 400,000 views The program comes with a set of requirements: Interested parties need to submit a concept note, and wait for a go-ahead from DfID – perhaps with some amount of questions, as was the case with Retrak, a small U.K. charity helping street children in several countries across Africa – before submitting a full application complete with a communication plan. The communication plan outlines how the applicant’s appeal will get a minimum of 400,000 viewing opportunities. While no explicit reason was provided, it appears DfID wants to rally more public support toward the work it does at a time when there’s growing cynicism about foreign aid spending. The communication plan should detail the activities the organization intends to take on to reach the viewing requirements, including information on what the funding aims to achieve and have achieved following the appeal period, which should run no more than three months. DfID requires some form of visual evidence – such as newspaper clippings, photographs and screenshots – as proof of the communication. In the case of Retrak, this transformed into a story every week that provided different aspects of the organization’s work, the plight of street children, and how its efforts have made a difference in the street children’s lives. The task requires advanced planning, noted John Wallace, the organization’s director of international partnerships. In addition, a couple of unforeseen circumstances can occur. DfID requires the use of the U.K. Aid Match logo in all communications activity, and a defined message that goes with its advertising, that the United Kingdom government will match every donated pound. In Retrak’s experience however, a couple of mishaps took place. “Initially, there was some issues about the use of the logo. It didn’t quite go with the papers as planned … Then they offered to get a quote from the minister to support any kind of coverage that we were receiving, but the problem was the quote was from Andrew Mitchell, who at that point had to move from his position [as secretary of state for international development]. So it was kind of a difficult situation because Justine Greening was coming as the new minister, but our quote was still from Andrew Mitchell,” Wallace shared. The importance of a communication partner But if there’s one factor that helped past grantees it would be securing a communication partner. Riders for Health, which helps deliver health care in rural and hard-to-reach areas across sub-Saharan Africa, had very strong connections and partnerships with media within the motorcycling world, and so was able to easily land a partnership with Motorcycling News. Promoting Equality in African Schools or PEAS, which helps develop secondary schools in Uganda and Zambia, was able to secure a partnership with a media group and local site Mumsnet. Retrak, meanwhile, had “good connections” at the Manchester Evening News, a regional paper northwest of England. This can be a key building block for small, young organizations that are just starting to build their networks. “It would have been a challenge two years ago [for PEAS] … but those requirements would be a challenge to organizations with turnovers of less than say 500,000 pounds. Just the networks they are likely to have would be smaller, and getting out to all those people, you really need a major media partners,” John Rendel, CEO and founder of PEAS, argued, although he said one major media partner can easily get the job done. Wallace agrees. “[Our partnership with the Manchester Evening News] was crucial. I think if we hadn’t been able to get a media partner in place, we would have really struggled to be able to apply and be successful in being granted the matched funding from DfID,” he shared. This means, though, that the pressure may now also be on media organizations, which will likely receive a lot of requests now that DfID has opened its first official funding round under the scheme. “If 300 organizations are planning to apply over the next few months, they are going to need 300 different media partners.” Stephen Harvey, Riders for Health fundraising and communications director, though believes it provides an opportunity for organizations to be creative. “It can be difficult if you don’t think creatively,” he said, adding that organizations can also partner with businesses, school networks and even church groups. Especially for small charities In its feedback to DfID, Retrak has suggested that the agency allow small organizations to work in consortia. The department has considered the argument into account under the scheme. Meanwhile, to ensure smaller organizations don’t get left out, DfID has ring-fenced a portion of the total funds for organizations with an annual income of less than 1 million pounds, a spokesperson for the agency told Devex. In addition, DfID will score appeals more highly if the primary fundraising methods employ genuine partnerships, “where the partner plays an active role in supporting and explaining the development goals of the appeal.” “DfID does not wish to give undue advantage to organizations that have larger marketing and advertising budgets,” the spokesperson said. “It is still, however, important that the appeal has the ability to reach significant numbers of people. And so we do want to know what experience the organizations have had communicating with the public.” More benefits For all three organizations, winning funding from the U.K. Aid Match program marked the first time the three charities were able to secure a grant from DfID. And the impact was much more than they had ever imagined. Riders for Health is convinced that the matching scheme was the reason why it was able to raise as much as 317,000 pounds in public donations alone – a figure that when DfID doubled reached 634,000 pounds. “Matching, I think, encourages people to give more. I think it will raise four times of what would you normally raise, because not only does it increase that, but [the agency] doubles that,” Harvey argued. Retrak also got more than it had asked for. It set a target of raising 100,000 pounds, but ended up with a total of 187,000 pounds that is eligible for match funding. “That was more than any appeal Retrak has ever run previously,” Wallace said, although the organization is still contemplating on whether to apply again under the scheme, as that would mean it would have to look for a new media partner. Rendel meanwhile underlined the importance of the kind of funding DfID provides under the scheme – unrestricted funds. “That’s a significant and very sensible change, because otherwise, the tail wags the dog. The biggest historic failure of aid in the wider sense has been that decisions over how to use the money effectively have been driven more by the strategic decisions of the institutional donors, than by the beneficiaries and charities’ understanding of what is actually impactful on the ground,” he argued. “It’s a very, very positive change in the way DfID thinks about funding.” But perhaps, for all three, the biggest benefit for small organizations is that it can boost their reputation before the public as well as DfID. PEAS, for instance, recently won a grant from DfID for the girls education challenge. Rendel said his organization “might not have been able to get that having not getting the support from the U.K. Aid Match program.” Wallace is hoping the same happens to Retrak, which last week submitted a new proposal for the community partnership window of DfID’s global poverty action fund. “We have applied before, but without success – which is very frustrating. So when we applied [under the new scheme], we were fearful that DfID may only want to fund the big organizations. We thought they might think we were too small because we were only likely to raise a few hundred pounds, rather than raising million … but they took us on board, and I think the relathionship has been very positive … We’re hoping now that we got some track record with DfID [our application will be more successful]. For Wallace, the program is a really good way to begin a relationship with DfID, and prove to the agency that small organizations such as Retrak can take on the responsibility, too. Read more development aid news online, and subscribe to The Development Newswire to receive top international development headlines from the world’s leading donors, news sources and opinion leaders — emailed to you FREE every business day.