Page 47 - NAS Members Guide to Funding

for those who had limited hand dexterity for carrying watering cans from the communal taps to their trug beds to water. To address this, we appointed an equality and inclusion lead as part of our committee who works one-to-one with the trug plot holders
blow your own trumpet at the same time.
Funders usually want you to report in a specific way and will explain how and when at the time of your award or in theirT&Cs. A useful example of what your association might be expected to provided is explained
to ensure that they have special arrangements in
place to allow them to maintain their plots without byThe National Lottery Community Fund. Even if your
xt few slides in the deck.
restrictions. funder does not require a report, it is good practice
• Making sure the trug plots remained for those who really needed them, as it was tempting to rent them out to those on our plot waiting list, but the trug plots had been developed and funded to meet
a specific need and we didn’t want to take these facilities away from the people who genuinely needed them.”
By sticking to their initial goal of making the trug plots available to those who needed them, knowing that committee members are always busy and ring fencing that time, ensured the association’s idea blossomed and succeeded.
Spending the money
Ensure you only spend the money on your association’s idea exactly as you have described it to the funder. If you want to change anything consult the funder. Keep meticulous records and every receipt, as you would for any other form of accounts for your association. Some funders audit all, or a percentage, of their awards. Your association may be asked to send everything in at a future date. Do not be tempted to cut corners and stash money away for something else, this is fraud.
Combined reporting & publicity
After the funding has been awarded, funders frequently expect recipients of grant funding to do the following: Provide evidence of your achieved outcomes; send in
a report; participate in the funder’s publicity. If you are savvy about how you go about these, you can gather evidence which meets all of these requirements and
and polite to send in a short letter or report showing off what you did with their help to sayThankYou. Add this information to your case for support document for future use (see Part 8). The information you are gathering is also part of your allotment site’s (new) history so do take care to store these well.
Your association can blow your own trumpet as much or as little as you want, it is your success and after
the funding journey it is good to celebrate and share achievements.
Many funders will expect your association to participate in their own publicity. Publicising your funding success (through the funder’s well-oiled publicity machine and via your own methods) can help your association in other ways too. That being said, check this carefully as some funders, (especially individual philanthropists) ask for no publicity at all. Usually, this does not mean you cannot publicise your success. You can do your own publicity and say “an anonymous donor”.
A pleasant side effect of publicising your success is
that your association’s profile will be raised positively
in the wider community. Elected officials (including MPs, ceremonial mayors and councillors) and council officers often sit up and notice allotments far more than previously when a site has received grant funding. You can also use publicity from this grant to prove to future funders that you now have achieved a proven track record in managing and delivering on grant funding.
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