Guide to Bidding (Paperback)

By Alexandra Frean
Social Affairs Correspondent, The Times

BIDDING for charitable funding is becoming an increasingly specialised discipline that can seem beyond the reach of experienced or small voluntary organisations. With so many different sources of funding â€" the Lottery, local authorities, government departments, the European Social Fund and the great 19th-century grant-making foundations, to name but a few â€" it can be difficult to know where to start.

Now a new book has come along to make sense of it all. Guide to Bidding, by Jenny Middleton, provides vital tips for charities wanting to identify and win funding of one kind or another, and exposes some of the myths surrounding bid writing.

Middleton, an experienced and successful bid-writer who has managed regeneration projects for many years, has made it her mission to help bidding organisations reduce their reliance on external consultants, who are known for writing what can often turn out to be “formula” bids for organisations that are then ill-equipped to deliver them.

Contrary to what many believe, good writing on an application is not the most important factor in winning funding. Much more important is to have a well worked out idea for a project that is realistic, innovative and clear.

“Most people who have served on bid-scoring panels have seen bids that are cleverly written with well-researched evidence, but where it is not clear what the project will actually do. Far more convincing is a bid that is more simply written, but where the ideas behind the project shine through and are convincing in their own right,” Middleton says.

The key to a successful funding bid is lies in careful and thorough project planning â€" the stage of the process that bidders are most tempted to skip over. At its simplest, this starts with bidding organisations finding a funder whose criteria fit most closely with their aims and developing a project idea that fits these as well as their own needs.

To do this, organisations need to ask themselves the following questions: What is our main purpose? Who is our main client group? What experience have our staff had in developing and delivering projects in the past? Does our purpose and our experience fit in with the funding round we are interested in? Are there other funding rounds that might be more suitable?

Once an organisation has selected the fund it is going to bid for, it is time to tighten up the idea and turn it into a proper project. “You should be able to give a summary of your project in a short phrase â€" no more than one sentence. This should convey the main point or aim of your project,” Ms Middleton says.

One way to do this is to use the format: “We will…”, as in, “We will prepare refugees for work”, or “We will help new business to start up”, or “we will help young people who are excluded from school”.

As the guide takes readers through the more complicated technical aspects of developing the bid, it retains a refreshing sense of realism. Organisations should not be too concerned, for example, if their aims and objectives change as the project is developed, as this is fairly common.

The excellent section on working out the project schedule (the time it will take to achieve), which incidentally should be required reading for anyone with a bit of project planning to do, is equally frank. Beware of optimists, it warns, some people on your team are bound to underestimate how long tasks are likely to take to complete and this will not impress funders. “If in doubt, ask more than one person for an estimate (of the time it is likely to take) and go with the average,” Middleton advises.

Throughout the book Middleton also stresses the need for organisations to keep in mind the beneficiaries of their project and to work out how they are going to set about recruiting them. It is no good, after all, applying for funding to help teenagers excluded from school, if you have not first figured out how you are going to get those youngsters to take part in your project in the first place and then how to hang onto them once they are there.

Middleton gives warning of the dangers of targeting certain groups of beneficiaries, such as homeless people or refugees, merely because they are known to rate highly with bid scorers. “Many organisations have since found that they do not have the experience to attract people from these groups onto their project. Although it is usually possible to make changes to a project once it has started, change in beneficiary profile can have an overall impact on the funding programme as a whole and may not be allowed. In the worst case, the project may be asked to return money or prevented from making further claims,” she says.
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By the time they have finished reading the book, potential bidders will have a good feel for many of the themes and approaches that funders are looking for and why. They will also be familiar with the jargon of PERT charts and SMART objectives, and will know the difference between hard and soft outcomes.

The guide also contains strategies for answering questions on application forms, as well as detailed examples from a real, successful bid and questions and exercises to help bidders practise what they have learnt along the way.
In addition to these practicalities, the book provides basic details of various sources of funding as well as organisations that give free help to people putting together project bids. Its clear style will be welcomed both by novices to the bidding world and experienced bidders wanting to increase their hit rate.

From the Back Cover
Book Review

Lucy Bardner, External Programmes Manager, Hertfordshire Community Foundation reviews

This compact guide contains a surprising amount of quality information. It focuses on fundraising for regeneration projects, specific & time-limited work generally funded by government & other national or regional agencies. However, as the subtitle suggests, it does contains much information about planning, costing, jargon & sources of help which make it useful reading for any voluntary organisation.

The book’s four chapters cover the types of funding available & the jargon they use, planning a project, a “warts & all” case study of a successful application & finally a variety of post bidding topics such as contract negotiation & developing a long term funding strategy. A number of tasks are provided which should give projects an outline plan from which to develop a bid.

The first chapter and a half remind me of the GCSE & A level revision guides we all relied on at school (though less patronising)! There are brief nuggets of information with key words & definitions highlighted for the skim reader, plus clear unpacking of different tasks & questions provided for readers to work through. Further on the information remains clearly explained but becomes denser. I’d therefore recommend a thorough reading so as not to miss the numerous hints, explanations & warnings derived from the author’s own bid writing experience.

The guide is principally teaching the skills needed to manage some of the more bureaucratic funding application processes, & therefore probably not aimed at smaller grassroots groups. However, much of the general advice offered applies to all application writing & rang true with staff in this small grants office, so it’s a worthwhile read for anyone considering writing a bid, or planning a project.

Project managers will find this a very helpful addition to their armoury. It’s clearly written by someone with obvious experience of bid writing and a realistic & pragmatic approach. As someone embroiled in European funding I particularly liked the simple explanation of money available from Europe, but there were many other places where I found myself nodding in agreement with the author. Applicants will appreciate the sensible advice about tailoring their needs to those of the funder for a win-win situation, whilst funders will be pleased to see applicants follow advice about project planning & realistic goals. I hope it brings you bid writing success!

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