Our Strategic Manager Matt has experience in all stages of grant applications. He has managed multiple grant programmes, trained panellists and assessed applications but has also written many successful applications, developed relationships with grant funders and, as part of Made for Impact, provides our grant application review service to help charities to significantly strengthen their applications before they are submitted.
Grants are an essential source of income for most charities, however grant funders are often heavily oversubscribed with limited funding available to distribute. They want to make the biggest impact possible with those funds.
Here’s 9 reasons your grant application is likely to end up being unsuccessful:
1. Lack of Evidence of Impact
Why doesn’t a grant funder just give all their money to the first person that asks? Grant bodies ultimately want to use their funds to create the biggest impact so you must make it clear to panellists how your charity makes a difference.
You may think your organisation is the most incredible but how would a funder know that what you do is more effective than what other applicants are showcasing? If you haven’t focused on impact previously, this is likely to create challenges when you’re now looking for funding.
Most charities are also afraid to consider that something they’re doing (and have perhaps been doing for many years) isn’t actually making a significant difference. If you’re applying for funding about, say, improving wellbeing, a panellist will directly compare your organisation to others with a similar focus. Unless you can show that what you offer is particularly effective and cost-efficient, you shouldn’t expect a panellist to be fighting your case. To be an effective organisation that funders want to support, this also means reviewing your activities and changing or ending projects that aren’t achieving what they were set out to achieve.
2. Lack of Impact Measurement and Targets
Some grant applications make vague claims about making change but don’t give the panellists any indication of what will be measured or any specific targets. From a grant body’s point of view, charities that are vague about what they will achieve create high levels of doubt. Has the charity properly planned the use of these funds? Is the charity wanting to escape accountability by not making any promises of what we should expect if we fund this application? Eliminate this doubt by providing clear and realistic targets such as ‘We aim to provide training to 200 people and for 95% of attendees to report a significant improvement in their confidence’.
Setting targets develops trust with the grant funder by showing that you are willing to be held accountable for effective delivery. If you end up not meeting these targets, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you won’t get additional funding from them in the future. If you’ve developed a strong relationship with a grant funder, they can still be keen to continue supporting your charity if you explain why you didn’t meet your targets and what you have learnt.
3. How Your Charity is Set Up
How your organisation is legally and functionally set up can often be a concern of grant funders. Generally, grant bodies will prefer funding charities (such as CIOs) rather than other legal structures (such as CICs) because there are often higher levels of regulation and accountability, so it’s easier for panellists to trust that their funding will be used appropriately. Some funders will strictly only fund charities, whereas others will be more open to other legal structures so it’s worth checking this before you even start your application.
It is also worth considering your charitable objects and how they may be viewed by a funder. Most grant bodies are unlikely to support charities that are legally set up to give funding to other charities or to award funding for activities that don’t align strongly with what your charity is legally set up to achieve.
Additionally, the people who make up your organisation are likely to be a factor in decision making. There has rightfully been much criticism of charities that do things for a marginalised group without their staff and/or volunteers being part of that community themselves. Those with lived experience of an issue are often going to be best placed to determine what would be most effective in tackling that issue so you should ensure that those with lived experience are fully represented across your organisation, including on your Board of Trustees where appropriate. Some charities have lived experience advisory boards or pathways for someone to go from being a beneficiary to a trustee so it’s worth considering different options if this is an area where your charity could be open to criticism.
Some funders also want confidence that there are people in your organisation who will be able to make a success of your proposed project so they may wish to know about the skills and expertise of your senior staff and trustees. Some charity boards have found it helpful to do a skills audit to identify gaps in their collective expertise.
4. Clarity
I’ve seen many applications get rejected very quickly because the panel doesn’t get what they’re even being asked to fund. Make sure it’s completely clear what you’re applying for within the first few paragraphs of your application (preferably the first line!) or this can be highly frustrating for panellists who struggle to decipher what your application is about. If you’re applying for funding for a project, don’t just mention the project, but highlight the main costs involved – are you looking for funding for a staff member, for equipment, for travel costs? Helping a panellist to quickly understand what you’d like funding for helps them to focus on the rest of your application rather than constantly thinking ‘that’s nice, what do they actually want funding for?’
It can often be helpful to think about a logical narrative to guide the reader e.g. this is the problem, this is what we’ve done, this has been the impact, this is what we want to do next and this is what we hope to achieve.
Difficulty providing clarity is one of the main reasons that it can be really helpful to have someone outside your organisation review your application. Hopefully you have a solid understanding of what you’re looking for funding for and hoping to achieve. However, articulating this to someone with no knowledge of your charity, the issue you’re tackling, or your activities can be really challenging! This is made even more challenging when you often need to explain things succinctly to fit within word limits!
5. Transparency
Grant funding is partly about building trust between the grant body and your charity. If you aren’t open and honest about your situation, this is likely to generate suspicion and concerns for panellists about funding your organisation. A common area where organisations can tend to try to avoid being transparent is regarding their finances. Information such as your organisation’s current bank balance (and sometimes how much staff are paid) can often be asked so grant panels can best understand which organisations are in most need of funding and which could fund the costs themselves. Similarly, questions focusing on areas such as inclusivity, sustainability, ethics, policies and processes can sometimes receive answers that appear to avoid answering the question. By not being transparent, it’s likely to be assumed that your charity has something to hide, such as having a large amount of reserves that isn’t being used.
6. Organisation Finances
Funders want to maximise the impact they can achieve by using their funding most effectively. If your charity has enough funds freely available that you could still go ahead with what you’re looking for funding for, a panellist may feel they are not actually going to make a difference by funding your application as the activity would still go ahead anyway. It’s going to be far more appealing to fund a charity where the funding would make a real difference than a charity that appears to be ‘sitting on’ funds and not putting them to good use.
On the other hand, organisations with very limited available funds may meet concerns from a funder over whether the charity is likely to close soon. They don’t want to fund an organisation that is likely to fold and is therefore not likely to deliver the activities being proposed.
A growing area of concern for many grant funders is financial sustainability. Some charities have become overly reliant on grant funding to the extent that many of their activities would cease if they didn’t continue to receive grant funding in the future. Your application is likely to be seen far more positively if you can explain how you have, and are developing, other sources of income such as public donations, sponsorship, fundraising events or charging for services. If your charity has a wide range of income sources, you’re far more likely to have the stability to last in the long-term.
7. Budget
Effective budgeting is essential for grant applications. If you haven’t considered all the costs that will be involved a panellist may express concerns. Those additional costs could include staff time, tax, equipment, venue hire, travel, insurance, digital systems and lots more. A grant funder will feel much more confident about your application if it’s clear that you’ve properly considered all the costs that are likely to be involved.
Similarly, the amounts in a budget can also cause concern. If possible, it can be helpful to do your research and get quotes so that your estimated figures are as accurate as possible, providing clear breakdowns on larger costs if you’re given space to do so. Some applicants can have a tendency to round up their figures to try to maximise the amount they are awarded but this can be counterproductive. If you show that you respect the grant body, and that they have a limited amount of funding available, by only asking for what you need, this is likely to be received far more positively.
8. What You’re Applying For
For some grant panels I’ve been involved in, just simply knowing what someone is applying for has usually been enough to know if an application is likely to be funded or not. Most grant panels have clear criteria regarding what they are looking to fund. Whilst it can be frustrating to come across funding opportunities that otherwise seem like they would be a good fit, if your project doesn’t meet the criteria, you should expect to be unsuccessful. Some funders clearly state that they don’t fund core costs, or salaries, or travel, or one-off events. Additionally, support services, where there is a direct impact on beneficiaries, are more appealing to most funders than activities such as campaigning and awareness raising where the impact is often more indirect. Any applications that apply for something that’s not fundable will often receive an immediate rejection and you’ll have frustrated the grant panel for not properly reading their criteria.
In most cases, the strongest applications are for one-off sustainable investments, new projects and initiatives where a grant funder can provide the funding needed initially but where there’s a clear plan in place to cover future costs through other means. Most grant funders don’t want to set a charity up to fail but they also aren’t in a position to fund your organisation every year for the foreseeable future and so they may avoid funding your charity if they have concerns that you’re overly reliant on grant funding to continue what you’re applying for. I’ve most enjoyed funding applications that would save organisations money in the long-run – as a panellist, it feels like a no-brainer to fund applications with such a clear and lasting impact.
9. A Highly Competitive Process
Even if you do everything right, grant funding is usually highly competitive with success rates often ranging from 2% to 20%. In addition, the impact of the cost of living crisis has not just affected the charity sector, it has affected funders and their income sources too. Grant bodies often have to make tough decisions on what they will fund as they simply don’t have the budget to support all the applications they would like to. It’s therefore always helpful to think about developing other funding options such as sponsorship, selling services or fundraising events, as grant funding can never be guaranteed.
Strengthen Your Application and Secure More Funding
With so many charities competing for limited grant funding, avoiding these common pitfalls can significantly improve your chances of success. If you want expert guidance to refine your application, our Grant Application Review Service can help. Led by our Strategic Manager Matt, we provide tailored feedback to ensure your application is clear, compelling, and aligned with funder expectations.
