Register for Gift Aid If you are a Charity, ensure you are registered for Gift Aid and make sure all donations that are eligible are Gift Aided. (www.givingcampaign.org.uk/).  This adds 20p in the pound to every donation made to you.  If you are not a registered Charity – should you be?  If all your aims set out in your governing document are charitable then you may need to register.    www.charity-commission.gov.uk/registration/default.asp

Identify your funding mix -Make a list of all your existing sources of income, e.g. grants, monies from cake stalls, legacies, donations or sales.  How much money are they for, how often do you get the money and who is the money from.  This exercise will show how dependent you are on any single source of funding and also identify areas where perhaps you could increase the amount of income and also look at new areas of funding.  Chose one or two areas and plan how you can increase income in these areas.  Having a range of income sources makes you far less vulnerable should a single income stream fail / be significantly reduced.

Prepare a business plan for the organisation.  This will focus attention on what your organisation is trying to achieve. Include timescales and priorities for action to help you see how progress is being made.  Within the plan include funding, how is money to be raised to enable you to carry out actions.  Forward planning and showing focus for your work will demonstrate to potential funders that you are a capable and serious organisation worth supporting.

Funding Tips

Cut costs - Sustainable funding is not just about raising income, also look at what you are spending, are there areas where you can cut costs? Are you getting the best deals in goods you buy; like stationary?  Consider changing suppliers, as introductory offers are often cheaper than from long standing suppliers.

Full Cost Recovery - Don’t be put off by the term! All this is, is a technique to ensure that costs you identify for a project include ALL the costs of the project so that you do not find yourself subsidising actions from core money.  There is an increasing amount of literature (and now spreadsheet programmes) to help you identify all the costs and how to apportion them to a project’s cost. www.fullcostrecovery.org.uk