Grant Fundraising
At some stage, grant-making trusts may become an important source of funds for Whisper. Some small charities such as the London-based mental health charity Stuart Low Trust are almost entirely funded by grant-making trusts.
Sources of information
Section titled “Sources of information”Funding Central is a new website that looks useful.
The Institute of Fundraising’s online library http://www.institute-of-fundraising.org.uk/library/?type=1 provides helpful material on grant fundraising.
There are searchable grant funding websites http://www.dsc.org.uk/FundingWebsites and although they are somewhat pricey, local CVS groups (a bit like Citizens Advice Bureaus for charities) can often provide free access to those sites. CVS groups often even have free bid-writing services where you can go for a chat about what you want funded and they will point you in the right direction. You can find your local CVS group by postcode search on this page: http://data.navca.org.uk/members/directory .
There’s some basic information on grant fundraising here and a free online proposal writing course here.
Grantway is a free directory of grants for which information is publicly available online; it may sometimes be useful.
Some funders
Section titled “Some funders”The financial firm ICAP has an annual charity day which Whisper should apply for. Applications now close on 31 March each year.
Brevio.org (waiting on password reset)
The Hilden Fund http://www.hildencharitablefund.org.uk seems to have a max income restriction of £50k per year for overseas projects, which would exclude Whisper.
The Waterloo Foundation http://waterloofoundation.org.uk/WorldDevelopmentAboutTheProgramme.html doesn’t currently make grants for general healthcare, only contraception.
The Funding Network
Section titled “The Funding Network”The Funding Network, a club for people who give to charity, might respond well to a presentation on some interesting aspect of Whisper’s work, potentially raising between 5 and 7 thousand pounds, or around 20 thousand from their Strategic Funding Group once they know and like you. They don’t like particularly like funding business as usual, unless you can make it sound interesting, so a new (but tested) venture of some kind would be best. There is an example application form example_tfn_project_description.pdf.
END Fund
Section titled “END Fund”The Dubai-based END Fund which specialises in neglected tropical diseases might be worth approaching at some stage for Whisper’s jigger work, although not before Whisper has a credible plan for scaling up. They are not currently active in Uganda.
Current Grant Applications
Section titled “Current Grant Applications”Past Grant Applications
Section titled “Past Grant Applications”An application for hospital inpatient sponsorship to OneKindAct: grant_application.docx in July 2016. This raised a £5000 one-off donation.
An unsuccessful application for an x-ray unit to Comic Relief: comic_relief_proposal.docx in July 2016. Their grant management system can be found at https://aims.comicrelief.com.
Presentation to the Canning Trust for a medical equipment grant in May 2016 canning.pptx The presentation also included some video material. This raised £3000 for a gel electrophoresis machine to diagnose sickle cell disease.