1. Lessons learnt –
designing funding &
finance support for
others
Dave Robinson
Group Development Manager
Nottingham CVS
2012

2. About NCVS
Nottingham Community and Voluntary Service has been at the
centre of Nottingham’s community and voluntary sector since
1875.
We are here to improve the quality of people’s lives in
Nottingham. We do this by strengthening our local voluntary and
community sector and wider third sector. We work with you to
improve:
•The effectiveness of local voluntary sector groups and
organisations
•The quality of volunteering in Nottingham
•The quality of decision making by involving the third sector

3. Our support to groups
Through lottery funded group development support
to:
• Range of Group Development support to diverse
city groups
Through lottery funded funding advice & support
to:
• Smaller county groups (particularly ‘hard to reach’)
• Funding advisors / development workers (county
and city)

4. Where we work

5. How the Beacons programme
helped:

6. What was our approach?
To embed the sustainable funding approach
within existing work and test new ways of
working
Adopt a more proactive approach

7. What was our approach?
• 1:1 support programme – to increase knowledge &
understanding of sustainable funding & support to
develop a realistic and achievable strategy (city groups)
• Programme of themed sustainable funding training &
workshops for groups (city & county)
• Funding advisor / development worker capacity
building by:
◦ Pilot peer mentoring programme
◦ Advisors training programme
• Provision of Resources (groups and advisors) e.g.
dedicated sections on our ‘Focus on Funding’ website

8. What worked?
• Advisor training & mentoring: Improved the skills of
advisors / development workers to support groups
with sustainable funding. Previous funding advice
had concentrated on grants
• Group Training: a greater understanding of the
range of income opportunities. More innovative
sessions came out of this e.g. ‘lions den’ event
with groups making pitches to local businesses
….but difficult to give clear evidence of longer term
impact on groups taking active steps to become more
sustainable

9. What didn’t work so well?
• 1: 1 support packages – difficulties with engagement,
other issues needed more urgent attention, efforts
often went back to applying for grants.
• Resources – difficult to see any big impact. Practical
ones worked well. Toolkits more useful for
development workers rather than groups.

10. Some of the challenges:
• Engagement in a time of change
◦ All reacting to funding uncertainties & change
◦ Survival rather than long term planning
◦ Chasing grants, running on reserves
◦ Maintaining service delivery with less
• Have small groups felt the pinch?
◦ Large & medium sized groups affected disproportionally
◦ Smaller groups being tide over
• Changing the culture
◦ Expectation that LA grant aid will continue
◦ ‘wait and see’ rather than planning for change
◦ Changing the culture

11. Some of the challenges:
• Trustees led v staff led
◦ Engaging trustees proved difficult
◦ Strategic direction delegated to paid staff
◦ Inherent conflict of interest
• It takes time
◦ No quick fix but the message starts to get
through
• Giving a financial value to our support - how we
move from free to paid for support

12. Questions?
Insistence on being trustees / director driven?
Longer term impact – are we investing in
individuals rather than the organisation?
Tools vrs discussion
Does unstructured discussion work best?
What role do major funders have in getting
the sustainable funding message across?
How do we change the culture?