We regularly feature blogs by Emma Beeston of the Emma Beeston Consultancy and Sarah Taragon and Stephen Woollett of Clarity CIC. Emma hasn’t provided a blog for a couple of months (she explains why below) but has produced a companion piece to the GRIN blog we published on Tuesday about grant appraisal processes.
Emma writes:
“Those of you who have been reading GRIN’s bulletins for a while will have (hopefully!) noticed that I have not written a blog for a while. My father died in January and GRIN has kindly supported my taking a break from writing. I hope to be back in May with regular blogs.
“In GRIN’s recent blog on bias in grant assessment they talked about the lack of transparency in grant making. There have been several moves to increase transparency lately:
“223 funders are now publishing their grants data on 360giving.
“GrantAdvisor UK is still running its pilot where fund seekers can review funders.
“The Association of Charitable Foundations‘ (ACF) recent report on progress towards their ‘Stronger Foundation’ good practice has found progress when it comes to transparency:
“Foundations are ensuring their information is accessible in different languages and publishing data on 360giving. Others are giving detailed feedback, being open about decision-making processes, giving clear guidance, and maintaining relationships.”
“And the first results are in from the new Foundation Practice Rating, which assesses foundation practices in relation to accountability, transparency and diversity. You can see the list of Foundations assessed and their scores on its website.
“There is still work to be done to improve transparency. For example, a recent report on Ethics in Philanthropy from the Grant Givers Movement found that only “41% of respondents believed their organisation has transparent Trustee recruitment practices.”
“In my work as a Philanthropy Advisor. my role is often to demystify philanthropy to make it accessible to those wanting to give. In the same spirit, if there is anything you want me to uncover, explain or explore for you in this year’s blogs, then please tell GRIN (email: info@grincoop) and I will do my best to cover areas of interest for you.”
Image: Emma Beeston of the Emma Beeston Consultancy