Dear Aunt Agony

We're a small self-help group and have been offered a large sum of money by a statutory agency to carry out a project for them. Some of our members are worried this will divert us from our original aims. Others say we can't afford to refuse it, even though this project will take us down a different path. Help!

Bamboozled of Boulton

Dear Bamboozled,

At CVS we see a lot of groups who have been seduced…by funding!

Sometimes a potential source of funds is dangled before a group and they lose all sense of direction as they chase after it.

Remember - your group was set up with specific aims and objectives. If the funding requires you to do something totally different, should you really be taking the money? Will it distort your priorities, or split the group down the middle?

We've seen it happen. A group was offered a large chunk of funding by a statutory agency because it just so happened the group represented an easy way for the agency to achieve some of its targets. The group was at a very early stage of development and the lure of the funds proved irresistible. Trying to run before they could walk led to untold problems and splits within the group, which took over a year to sort out.

Similarly if you're applying for funding to one of the grant-giving bodies, study their criteria carefully. If they're so restrictive you'd have to say you were going to do something totally different from your normal activities to get the money, beware. Either you'll take the group off at a tangent in trying to fulfil the terms of the grant or you risk having to give the money back if you spend it in a different way from what your application said.

Chasing after funds is hard work and you can also find that in order to get money from a wide range of sources you end up trying to do too many incompatible projects. This inevitably causes problems and can lead to staff or volunteer burn-out, as members try to fulfil all the competing grant terms. Try to go for larger, strategic sources of funding rather than a cocktail of small funds, each with competing requirements.

When it comes to funding, no matter how much you are tempted, learn to say "NO" occasionally and remember to always look a gift horse in the mouth - or it may turn round and bite you!

(from Network News, July/August 2003)

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