Do small grants still matter

Presenters: Chris Manion, British Science Association; Charlotte Lester, The Royal Society for Chemistry; Vicky Mason, Discovery Planet; Imogen Thompson, Institute of Physics; Andy Thompson, STFC. Chaired by: Adam Boal, The Ogden Trust. 

Theme: Planning for the long term 

Reporter: David Owen 

One sentence summary: Small grants play a crucial role in public engagement by providing entry points for new initiatives and opportunities to test ideas, but challenges around administrative burden, terminology and sustainability require consideration to maximise their impact. 

Description 

The session explored the value of small grants in public engagement in offering entry points for new initiatives, credibility for early-stage projects, and opportunities to test and scale ideas. They support diverse settings and engagement with new audiences. The panel noted that our understanding of what a small grant is can vary substantially based on the context, the organisation and the funder. Funders on the panel considered ‘small’ to range from hundreds to tens of thousands of pounds.  

The panel discussed the challenges of small grants around administrative burden and sustainability. When each funder has its strategy and focus, the application and reporting phases can be very different, and this requires organisations to re-purpose applications, reports and evaluations to meet the criteria of various funders. Grantees expressed a desire for more standardised approaches across funders. The panel also touched on the importance of building relationships with grantees and choosing the appropriate level of risk management.  

Small grants offer an opportunity to take risks and pilot new approaches for funders and the organisations they fund. For example, The Ideas Fund developed an approach whereby applicants were shortlisted following a light touch expression of interest phase, and then awarded a small grant to develop their ideas and cover the costs of submitting a full proposal. This shortlisting phase took account of the amount of budget available, to try to reduce the amount of financial competition and create more opportunities to focus on collaboration and learning. The audience reflected that a small grant could play a significant role at the beginning of a project or an organisation. Still, as projects mature, larger grants are important to sustain and expand the work. Ultimately, small grants still matter, but their implementation must be strategic. 

Key messages

  • How much money is distributed can matter as much as the amount of funding provided.
  • Ensuring a good relationship is built with grantees so that lessons are learned between funders, organisations and the people who are taking part in the work can lead to stronger outcomes. 
  • Funders are increasingly recognising the need to address systemic barriers, alongside supporting individual or ‘one-off’ projects, as a way of facilitating longer term change. 
  • Small grants are part of an ecosystem of funding. 
  • There have been shifts in the funding culture over time. We are seeing funders approaches maturing with a greater focus on evaluation and engagement with priority audiences. (e.g. these are targets, but funders are also more realistic about what to expect).
  • As a funder small grants enable you to take managed risks.
  • The benefits of streamlining application processes and evaluation become even more pertinent when working with small grants.
  • Different organisations have different capacities to put inapply for grants; funders can should consider these different capacities when creating their schemes. It is not just about getting the call out to different groups of people but he approach to managing the fund (e.g. from shortlisting through to award, etc.)  
  • Feedback from funders can help build capability amongst less experienced applicant organisations.
  • It is important to think about language. The term ‘small grant’ is potentially unclear, given the different perspectives on the scale of a small grant. Some funders have moved away from describing their grants by size. It mustn’t be just the fund’s value that defines how it is known.
  • Funders deliver their objectives by funding in a variety of ways, including (j) Supporting individual development (ii) Supporting of projects; (iii) Supporting longer term capacity and capability. 
  • Some of the most innovative ideas and impactful projects can come from outside the system and from completely different ways of thinking. Small funds are a great way of harvesting these.  

Resources

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