Not Just Another Grant
Read the PDF of the IVAR report here
We are excited to share the results of some research that we contributed to about citizen-led pooled funds.
“Not just another grant” is an article, linked here, published by the Institute for Voluntary Action Research (IVAR) that describes and analyses lessons from our organisation and two other similar funds. The other two funds are The Clackmannanshire Transformation Space and The Independent Human Rights Fund for Scotland, and in the words of IVAR, whilst each group is unique, “they share… a commitment to ensuring that people whose lives are affected by funding decisions are involved in shaping them.”
Members of our resident panel, who led the grant-making process, at our gathering in May. Photo by Lewis Houghton.
Without spoiling the entire article for you, the report finds that funds like ours must develop methods that are “materially different” from standard funding methods— upending typical modes of governing organisations, assessing risk, and distributing power requires concrete change. In order to do so, IVAR identified 6 themes that were essential to the Regenerative Futures Fund and the other two groups:
Installing collaborative leadership
Defining a clear purpose
Taking advantage of pre-existing synergies
Adopting a funding attitude of stewardship rather than ownership
Committing to Citizen-led grant-making
Embedding accountability in governance
Anybody who’s helped us in the last few years will tell you that implementing those themes is far harder than simply identifying them, but they provide a useful snapshot of the principles that have guided us throughout the entire process. IVAR also found that all three funds invested significant time, resources, and thought into the development phase, which they call “collective due diligence.” Without taking significant care to ensure those themes in the core of the work, it would have opened the funds and the groups they support up to conflict and stagnation.
The residents group didn’t work for us, they worked with us— as colleagues. The programme would not have been possible without them and their hard work— to learn more about the residents’ panel, how we worked with them, and how the other funds welcomed citizens into the grant-making process, read IVAR’s report (linked above). Photo by Lewis Houghton.
We were thrilled to help contribute to this research, and hope you enjoy reading the article! Next week, Leah and Andy are going to be speaking on a panel at an IVAR event about Pooled Funds and this research. Happy reading, and we look forward to hearing your thoughts!