Funding Providers: Feedback from the Frontline | Janene Rox, Cronulla Preschool

Foreign. Hi, I'm Jessie Ballantyne and I love grants. I sold my house to fund the launch of the Grants Hub because I truly wanted to make grants easier to find. In the very early days, I ended up running the Grants Hub from the ICU ward of a children's hospital. Let's just say I'm committed to the cause of helping you find grants. If you're looking to get real with grants to learn what works and what doesn't, to hear from grant experts from across the country and have some fun while we do it, then Grants Uncovered is the podcast for you. When I spoke with Janine Rocks from Cronulla Preschool the other day, I realised there were two key parts to her interview. Now, the first part was on winning and managing grant funding for early learning providers. So preschools, kindergartens, and I've made a separate episode specifically for that. The other part to what she talked about was really particularly aimed at how organisations can work better with funding providers, but also what funding providers can do to improve the process for grant applicants. There was some gold content in here that I was very keen to share with you. As funding providers, you're already doing so much across the community and the environment across Australia, so full recognition to you for what you're all already doing. I get grant applicants all the time raving about you as funders, being truly thankful for what you do, the way that you work with them and all of the opportunities that you continue to provide. Particularly last year during a Covid year and beyond that, the flexibility that you showed during COVID in funding variations and extensions program changes was truly appreciated across the whole not for profit sector, from my experience at least. Anyway, from what I heard, however, there is always room for improvement and I think that's where we can have, you know, continue the conversation around how can we do things better as funding providers. So I've included a bunch of tips here from Janine of just her personal experience. Now, this is not a complex survey that's been conducted across multiple sectors and experiences. This is one person's experience. But I do know through my work at the Grants Hub and all the people that I've worked with over the last, you know, say, 18 years in grants, that Janine's experience is fairly common. There are some key messages in here that she has shared that I think would make a big difference for grant applicants across the board. And this is particularly related to the smaller to medium sized grant programs at the community service level. One of the most common things I hear from grant applicants is the they wish they received more and better feedback from funding providers. Now, Janine mentions in this interview that there are still more funding providers who don't provide feedback after a grant application process than those who do. Now, full credit to you for those who are doing it. People really appreciate it and it makes a big difference to the way that they can continue improving in grants, winning grants from either yourselves in another round or from somebody else. They truly appreciate the effort that you go into. For those of you who are not yet providing feedback, I understand that there are a whole range of reasons that you're not able to do this every time. And many of you receive hundreds if not thousands of applications per grant round. It's a very difficult thing to do. I think there are some ways that potentially we could reduce the number of applications in a positive way so that at the end of the day you're getting a fewer number, but essentially a better quality of grant applications coming across your desk. Now, one way that people really love this, and I encourage grant applicants to do this myself, is to get in touch with a funding provider before they submit the grant application. Now, some of you allow this and some of you don't. Yet adding on a phone number or an email address to a grant guidelines document or onto your website is a truly helpful way for grant applicants to be able to run their initial questions by you. Now, I also think that this is a way that can help you improve the quality and reduce the number of applications that you're receiving. If you can invest into that early stage, the pre application stage, and there would be a cost attached to this, you would probably need to add in additional admin hours for this. If you can invest in this pre application stage, you are going to save yourselves a lot of time afterwards. There are some common questions that grant applicants have that a simple conversation or an email would help them realise that they're not either eligible for your grant round because of their organisation status, something as simple as DGR status. There are still a lot of grant applicants who don't understand what that means. It may also be that they don't fully understand that while their organisation is eligible, their actual project is not eligible for that particular round. So having something as simple as a phone call or an email that they can run that question by you would save you answering and assessing that whole application once it's already hit your desk. Now, you know that that is a lot of work. For every ineligible application you receive, there is still a lot of work attached to that. So how about we bring that process forward, invest a little bit of time beforehand so that it's ultimately saving your time afterwards. I also recognize that there is a grant readiness issue here a lot of the time. So for many organizations, they're coming to you before they're actually grant ready. So next week I'm dedicating a whole episode to that and I'm bringing in a grants consultant to talk about how can organisations be grant ready to improve their actual application and make sure they're eligible in the first place before they even start applying. The other thing that can be really helpful to grant applicants is receiving some form of feedback afterwards. Now, you are all going to have different capacities to be able to do this. Regardless, any form of feedback to an unsuccessful applicant, and actually also successful applicants is very helpful for them. They want to learn, they want to get their services and their projects funded, they're passionate about what they're doing. So if there is any feedback you can give them, they will love that. And sometimes it genuinely is. There were just so many applications this round. The board, the committee, whoever it was, chose to fund these applicants this time. That is the most common response where you see if a funding provider provides feedback. But I do think that there's always a reason, or usually always a reason why they still won't have received the grant. So, no doubt the number, the sheer volume of applications is one of those. There's normally also other reasons why. It could be that someone else had a stronger M and E framework, you know, the monitoring and evaluation framework that they submitted. It could be that someone else had a better reach, that their impact was going to be deeper. There are a whole range of reasons why, you know, as grant assessors, you know, why that some, you know, grants don't get up and others do. Sometimes it is just luck of the draw and, you know, that happens. But in the cases where we can provide any feedback, it's truly appreciated by the grant applicants at the other end. Again, I just want to reiterate, I do know that there is a lot of work attached to this, but I also think there are some small, little improvements and tweaks we can make, and maybe over time you can plan to get to a point where you're able to provide feedback to every grant application that comes across your desk. One little thing that Janine mentioned in this interview, and I hadn't, to be honest, thought about the importance of this for a little while, it's that her local government actually rings the successful grant applicants, and for her, that was a really personal touch. That she missed from some other funding providers. So those personal phone calls, the personal touches, the personal emails, whatever it is, it really does mean a lot to the grant applicant at the other end. So, so let's remember that as funding providers that sometimes it's those simple touches that happen throughout the process that can really make a big difference for the grant applicant sitting at the other end. So let's jump in and hear what Janine's got to say again. This is Janine Rocks, director of the Cronulla Preschool in New South Wales. Do you find certain types of funding providers easier to work with than others?

Yeah, I think so on some level. I think you've mentioned there about relationships and because I work in a relationship based community connection type of industry and that's how we work day to day. So those funding providers that also work that way, we're on the same page already. So those funding providers that have pre grant sessions or have somebody's name that you can ring and have a conversation.

With or.

Even if it's a pre recorded session time to find out about the grant that you can tune in with, those grant providers, I suppose just sit well with what I do day to day anyway, they're more face to face and for me it just feels a lot more authentic and it feels like they really want to know about me just as much as I want to know about where that money is coming from. But then at other times you think I've just got this huge big project I need to put a new room on. It is about the dollars and cents and it can just be a numbers game about can you give me this $15,000? Because I've already saved up $10,000 to do this one room extension and it's very clear cut as to what the benefits are going to be. I'll be able to enrol more children, support more families in my community. So sometimes if that process is simple from the bigger providers, it's good to work with them as well. And I think that example I gave earlier about those smaller grants for those little program ideas for art programs or music programs, that's that type of grant where it's only, you know, it's a small grant, it's a very easy application. You know, you can knock it over in an afternoon if you've already got the quote from the person that's going to be doing your class. So it's good to work with those providers that have their systems down path that from their end they know exactly what they want, when they want it how they want to do it, it's done. Sometimes those one off grants from an organisation that haven't done grants before can be a little bit of a, not a minefield but just a bit more of a tiptoe to find out exactly what they want because you know, they haven't been through the process as a provider before, but some of those regular providers, year in, year out, really easy to work with, I find.

Yeah. So you find those more sort of the well known funders I guess are probably easier to work with purely because they've got more experience in the space. I mean there's the relationship side that you mentioned as well.

Yeah. And that's a good summary. And then at other times the smaller grants, some people think it's not even worth it, it's only 500 or $750, but they're the ones that you can make the, the relationship connection with, particularly if it's in your local area and then you can maintain that. So next time they have another 750 they actually approach you and say, look, we've got this really tiny grant, wondered if you had anything you wanted to do it with. And then it's not going out to this super massive audience and you know you're only one of five to apply as opposed to one of 500 or 5,000.

Yeah, that's great. Is there something you would like to see funding providers do differently then when it comes to grants and applications processes?

I think one of the most helpful things that I've found along the way and this was, I suppose in my early days when I was jumping in and applying for everything under the sun and I got like. And back in the day there was no email so it was all letters. Got these letters back in the post saying no, declined, declined, declined. And then I got this one letter that was declined, but it had like this tick box list underneath which actually outlined why I was declined. So that reason as to why I was declined was very clear, it was very concise and it was a bit of a light bulb moment that made me sort of think, oh, when an application is declined, I actually want to find out why. And then so those providers that are able to provide that information to me, it's going to help me either to apply for them again at that same funding organisation or for another funding organization. So I think funding organisations need to get a bit better at giving a bit of feedback because it's going to save them time in the long run anyway because as I said back in the day, I was applying for things that I wasn't even eligible for. So I'm wasting their time, my time. And I just thought, quantity of numbers, surely one of these is going to work. But really if I'd been worked smarter, not harder, which is what I try to do now, do a bit of research beforehand and make sure I'm eligible and things like that. And even when I am successful, I try to approach that funding provider for feedback as well. So what was it about my application that you really liked? Because normally they just say, congratulations, you met all our criteria. You know, here's your check, give us your details, here's your money in your bank. So I'd like to know exactly why. So again, if I'm applying to that organisation again, I can hit their tick boxes again or I can use that in a similar application or something in another application, think, oh, well, actually I haven't used that before with anyone else. It worked for these people. I'll use it for this other one as well.

When you get a letter or an email now saying you're unsuccessful, how many funding providers would proactively say, these are the reasons why, oh, is it more? Is it more, don't say it than do. And then you try and see, do you try and then go back and see the feedback?

Yeah, I will always seek the feedback. So most of them are very polite and say thank you for your application. You know, unfortunately this time you're unsuccessful. We had a high standard or a large number of applications. Please feel free to apply again. So. Or they might say, please, please look here to see the successful active cleanser and what their projects were. So you can sometimes do a little bit of groundwork yourself and go, okay, oh, they applied for these types of things. Mine was totally not on the right mark there. But if it's something about actually you didn't give enough detail in your budget or actually we were looking for somebody that put in a bit more funds or had a bit more of a long term goal. You, you don't know those sorts of things unless you ask really. Occasionally they will tell you if it's something simple like you didn't provide enough detail in your budget, but if it's more around the goals of your project or the criteria for community connection and just how that other company or that other business was slightly more detailed or in depth or wider reaching than yours. That's what I want to know.

Yeah, and that, I mean that means you can take action on that. Either you then know that you're eligible and you should reapply or not, you know, go to someone else. But I think that, you know, that feedback could save grant applicants a lot of time in the process.

Absolutely, absolutely.

Janine, do you have, now you don't have to answer this question, but do you have a favourite funding provider? Feel free to name them if you want, but you know, you might want to keep them a secret as well. If they give you a lot of money, you might want to keep that relationship going with them. But do you sort of have your all time favourite funding provider?

I think for us, because we work in children's services, we're a not for profit community organization. Our biggest go to is our local council. So, you know, we're part of their community, they're part of our community. We've got families obviously that live here, pay rates here, pay rent here, use all their facilities. So we really connect with that. And if I can say this, we use that to our advantage. You know, we sort of know that they want to support us because we're right on their doorstep and we have connections with families in a different way to what they do. So it's a two way win. And they are also very personable. So, you know, the local member or the mayor or somebody will come and visit us and they'll go, now we've had this application from you. We just want to do a walk around and see where you wanted to put this vegetable garden or where you wanted to install these blinds for the children to make a quieter space or whatever it is that we're doing. So they take, I suppose, a more relationship based approach, even though it's a bigger council because again, we're on their doorstep and I don't know if they do that for everybody, if they do that for every application they get, but they certainly do do it for us. And when we win those applications, they give us a personal phone call as well as the email. But first comes the phone call to say, just wanted to let you know we've had the meeting today and congratulations and it's so lovely to get that personal verbal, you know, acknowledgement recognition pat on the back. And then they say the official email will be coming, there's a form for your bank details, Rah, rah. But it's just that those little things that they do that make me keep applying again and again for them.

That's fantastic and great work on that local council because every council across Australia is different. So usually I say local government is the best place to start for grants actually, because they have such a variety of grant funding available and there's also usually grants to fund a lot of different needs for just your local area. You're not competing against the whole of Australia then for that grant funding, but to hear that yours is also going above and beyond, and some do this, but not all they're going to that next level. They're giving you a phone call, they're really invested in what you're doing. Full credit to your local government for doing that. We see some fantastic local governments across Australia. There's room for improvement everywhere. But there's some great tips in here too for people who are managing that grant funding. From a council's perspective, those individual phone calls make a big difference to what you're doing.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that was one of the first things that made me realise that, you know, they've got something to benefit as well. You know, some of the grants that we've applied for through our local council, they'll have like an official afternoon tea to give you a little certificate to say you're a successful, you know, grant recipient and then it goes on their, you know, their webpage or in their newsletter or what have you. And again, that's again, marketing for them, but it's also marketing for us. So, you know, I turn up in my uniform and, you know, attend that morning or afternoon tea. Lovely. But, you know, it's a two way win.

Yeah, that's fantastic. I'd like to thank Janine again for taking the time to provide this feedback and also for being, you know, brave enough within this space to do this. She absolutely loves funding providers, loves working with you, is truly appreciative of everything that you do. This is certainly not criticism, but I think it's really helpful feedback. I asked her the question, what do you think funding providers could do better? And she's provided some really fantastic, tangible takeaways for you as funding providers to be able to do that. So I really do want to thank Janine again for taking the time to sit down and do this interview, to be able to continue conversations in the grant space about how, firstly, how grant applicants can win more grants and manage them and manage them properly and acquit them properly. You'll be happy to hear, but also for you as funding providers, how there's a few little pointers and a few little things that you could do to make a big difference to the applicant sitting at the other end. Thanks for joining me on Grants Uncovered. If you'd like, show notes, head over to grants uncovered.com See you next time.