Community Funding / Public Tendering

I have just been through another gruelling round of funding applications. A message to me from Pip, Cornwall Sustainable Landscapes, I have been giving this some thought and decided to share some.In a lot ways there are similarities between community funding and public tendering (councils, quangos etc).In both areas there are those who seem very successful in their bids, and those who cannot seem to get anything. Pip's comments got me thinking there are probably similarities as to why those who succeed and those who don't.Community Funding:Money is being thrown at community groups, from small grants up to £5000 to some very large sums, £250,000+. Some of it is common knowledge, like the big lottery, but a lot you need to look around for. Many community groups miss out on potential funding purely because they see themselves in isolation to everyone else. Because they are not networking, or getting involved locally outside their own organisations they miss many leads.It takes time to fill in application forms, A major issue for funders is that organisations will apply to them for funding knowing that they do not meet criteria, but hoping they will be funded anyway. It really is a waste of time. Most funds are over subscribed, if you cannot meet the criteria you are wasting your time.This leads to another issue that many community groups fail to recognise. Funders rarely give money away because they are 'nice'. They invariably have their own aims and seek to maximise achieving their aims by providing funding for others to do it for them, rather than doing it themselves. It is more cost effective and reaches more communities and people than if they tried to do it themselves.A common complaint I hear is that organisations are having to design their services to meet the funding requirements, rather than getting funding for the project they want to do. There really should not be a need to drasticly change their plans, if they are applying for the right funds. Many funders are not looking for fixed formulas for their funding, they are looking for projects that meet their aims but also the needs of local people. Often this will mean different approaches in different communities.Another is the monitoring requirements and reporting. If someone gives you money to do something, they have the right to know that you are delivering, or on large sums you are able to monitor the progress of the project and have an action plan if things go wrong.Another common problem is the lack of an exit plan. How will the work continue after the funding has stopped? While some funders are happy to fund a project over a longer period of time very few will do so for ever. Groups can become very dependant upon a single source of funding with little thought of what would happen if that funding dried up, or the funder decides not to cover them for a year. So much so that they feel that the funder has an obligation to fund them. I have been at meetings where groups have failed to get expected funding and have belittled others who were successful out of frustration - not the best move in front of those who will decide the following year if they will get any money then.But even of some one off funding, having an exit plan is essential. No one is going to fund the building of a new community hall if after the funders have withdrawn it is not seen to be sustainable.Understanding government strategies goes a long way to understanding the criteria for many funders. Tenant participation, community empowerment, participatory budgetting, capacity building, health, education, worklessness, homelesness, social and digital deprivation, youth issues, community cohesion, disability are all government concerns and most funding will come under one or more of these titles. Funders will have their own focus within these areas, understanding who the funder is, their aims and what they are trying to achieve can go a long way to a successful application.Public TenderingI am going to start this section where I ended on community funding. Understanding government strategy can help a great deal.Public bodies are often tied by government edicts. So at one point they were obliged to take the lowest tender. Councils in particular hated this, and legal departments had to spend a lot of time going over tenders to find reasons to reject tenders that they knew could not meet the job.One example is that at one point education was removed from Southwark Council and put into the hands of a private company. When I became a parent governor financial control had been removed from the governing body because it had run above its budget. By the time the private company publicly recognised it could not cope and handed back the responsibility to Southwark the school's deficit had significantly increased. Unsurprisingly the governing body refused to take back control of the budget until we had in writing that we were not responsible for the addititional deficit.The criteria at the moment is for best value, this is a much a broader criteria. It means that public bodies can look to get the job done, plus a bit more. Where as a contractor you may decide to add a little extra value to your customers public bodies often expect this as part of the tender.Pip's message to me was a good example. In her example the forestry commission was making accessibility to the area a criteria in the tender, particularly for disadvantaged and minority communities and many landscapers were struggling with this. After all landscapers can deal with accessibility in terms of things like wheel chairs and disabilities. But they cannot be expected to be responsible for how disadvantaged communities would be able to get to the project they are working on.So how does a landscaper deal with the issue of this type of accessibility?For many I suspect it will be taking a deep breath, going back and looking at the government strategies listed above and being prepared to do things in a completely different way.Accessibility in this sense is not how easy is it to get to the project, or be able to use the facilities you create, it is about how you make your creations attractive to these people so they want to access them. There really is only one way.You have to engage the target communities and get them involved in the project. It is about giving them a sense of ownership and pride in their area. On larger projects this could mean you will play more a facilitator role than you are used to.It is about creating an army of volunteers to work alongside your regular people - and being prepared if they don't turn up. Some ideas may be obvious to you, helping to clear an area, children helping with the planting. But it can go much further. This includes your designers to work alongside the community in designing part or all of the area. It could even include working with other organisations, if you have some carpentry to do and there is a local organisation training people to be carpenters would they be interested in helping you on part of the project?I would even dare you to go a stage further if you end up with a large project. Why not put part of the money aside for the community, or part of the community to decide exactly what they want. With the forestry commission a good example would be to look at who is using the area at the moment. It could be there are cyclists who enjoy the challenge that a forest may offer, but which can be dangerous for other users. Why not put aside part of the area and money for them to decide what they want to do with it? This is called participation budgetting.What is the client after? Well in this example they are looking to increase the number of people using the area. You will be introducing new people, giving the wider community a sense of possession and pride in the area. You will also be creating photo and news opportunities that the client would find hard to pay for. The client is going to accept a higher bid. Nor does it necessarily stop when the project stops.In March I will be doing a walk around with executives and chief officers from Southwark Council for a press opportunity on the major works which took place last year. We were chosen because of the extra lengths the contractor went to within our community, and in working with us. This included pre work inspections including accessing scaffolding, post inspections and a range of community activities.Because the scaffolding went up early, and there were unforseen problems and strict clauses in the contract the scaffolding wiped out their profit for the work done on the estate. But because they went the extra distance the amount of publicity they have recieved has been higher than normal. Important when you consider the council is now looking for a single partner for all their major works rather than tendering individual projects.Both of the groups, community groups or landscapers, need to look closer at the criteria and what organisations are wanting to achieve with their money, and take a much a broader view.

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Comments

Sustainable Land Management March 3, 2009 at 6:39pm

Great Stuff and many thanks for your previous assistance. Following on from which I discovered work by Prof J. Burgess, relating to the need for open access for all.

As I hinted to in previous communication there is a widening black hole between the academics, government on all levels, the public, (including minority groups), against Landscapers, foresters and the like. Such issues should be addressed by the LI, FC etc.,. but also BALI and the APL should be doing at least something as so much of this money is now an essential part of the industry.

By the way, I am actually male, but am often confused by others due to my parents choice in name.