When it comes to fostering agency and self-determination, not least in poorer communities, there are passionate advocates of enterprise grants and equally passionate advocates of unrestricted grants. But is it either/or? Do funders have to choose between the two? Not all all, explains Anna de Pulford, philanthropy advisor, former Director of the Dulverton Trust and outgoing Chair of the Enterprise Grants Taskforce, in this interview with Steve Wyler, advisor to the Enterprise Grants Taskforce. The good news is that enterprise grants can be – and often have been - unrestricted, and so funders can achieve the benefits of both at the same time.
Steve: What first attracted you to this field of enterprise grant-making?
Anna: The equity argument really landed with me, and that’s the main reason I’m drawn to enterprise grant making. It bothered me that some organisations can attract large amounts of money and others can’t, irrespective of the value of the work they are doing.
Steve: Why do you think that is the case?
Anna: I think the business model of charities – understandably - is often determined by who and what they know, not what they do. In an affluent area, a charity is so much more likely to have well-connected people as Trustees, perhaps with a City background, and they will know other people like them on the Boards of trusts and foundations, and they will probably know high-net worth individuals, and be able to reach out to them. But in a less affluent area the world of trusts and foundations is more remote and community groups are far less likely to know about the availability of the funding, let alone have the lexicon and familiarity to confidently jump through the hoops to secure it.
Steve: So, can enterprise grant-making help to change this?
Anna: Yes, I believe it can make a difference. Enterprise grants won’t necessarily produce more funding overall. But they can help on both ends of the spectrum. If non-profits in more affluent areas are supported to develop enterprise, that should facilitate more equitable distribution of the available grant funding. For community groups in less affluent areas, enterprise grants can increase the potential to generate their own funds on their own terms, enhancing their agency and independence, and so reduce the reliance on who they know or don’t know in the philanthropic funding world.
Steve: I can see that. But enterprise grant-making isn’t the only way to encourage self-determination, is it? What about unrestricted grants? Surely, they too can build agency and independence.
Anna: Yes, absolutely, unrestricted grant funding has seen a resurgence and that’s a really good thing.
Steve: So why not go down that route instead?
Anna: There’s a basic misunderstanding here. The two things are not in opposition. There is no reason why enterprise grants can’t themselves be unrestricted, and as it happens to date many have been. And because of that they provide a double benefit: the unrestricted element allows people to do more of what they themselves judge to be best, and the enterprise element incentivises an uplift in trading, so that more earned income can be generated. And of course, in most cases, that earned income is unrestricted as well.
The two things are not in opposition. There is no reason why enterprise grants can’t themselves be unrestricted, and as it happens to date many have been. And because of that they provide a double benefit.
Steve: Yes, I get that. Funders don’t need to choose between the two, they can have both. That’s a very important point. And that means that the funders who are attracted by unrestricted grant-making – and all power to them! – could also be looking at enterprise grant-making as one of the options open to them.
Anna: Definitely! I hope more of them will do so.
Steve: But what about power and control? Isn’t that a bit problematic with enterprise grant-making – the assumption that funders know best, that enterprise is ‘good for you’?
Anna: I think we need to be honest with ourselves, that power is in play with all forms of grant-making. For example, in setting application criteria, in awarding funding to some and not to others. And there are always grant conditions of various kinds. These are the rules that are set by the funders. I believe that as funders we need to recognise our privilege and power and be as thoughtful and careful as possible in how it shows up.
Steve: In the Better Way network which I helped to set up there has been a lot of discussion about how to translate ‘power over’, which is often oppressive, into ‘power to’ and ‘power with’ – in other words, to find ways for power to stimulate agency and collective action. Does that apply here at all?
Anna: Yes, I think it does. One of the principles of enterprise grant-making is that it should be by mutual agreement, desired by both parties, not imposed. And I would never claim that enterprise is a magic bullet for all organisations. Their type of work, the environment within which they operate, their motivation, their skillset – all of these need to be taken into account. Funders need to consider carefully to distinguish between those situations where an enterprise approach is useful and has a good prospect of success, and those where it is simply not the right way forward.
Steve: But are funders capable of making this distinction?
Anna: In many ways. For example, I think many funders have honed an ability to identify an entrepreneurial mindset and skillset. However, no two charities are the same and so the skill of a good grant-maker is being able to listen well and draw in specialist knowledge to inform a judgement. That’s true of charities working in any specific field, and it’s true of enterprising charities.
Steve: Any final thoughts?
Anna: In the end, it will be about the practice. Any type of funding can produce good or bad effects – funders always need to act thoughtfully and carefully. I don’t think that enterprise grant-making will eliminate all risk. But I do think that, if delivered well, and not least when it is made available on an unrestricted basis, it has potential to introduce more opportunity, especially for less affluent and more marginalised communities. And that, it seems to me, is a very worthwhile endeavour.
Anna de Pulford is a philanthropy advisor. She has a background in foundation leadership, most recently as Director of the Dulverton Trust. Prior to that, she founded a corporate foundation for the digital identity company Yoti. Motivated by the belief that by working together, funders can be more than the sum of their parts, Anna has founded/supported a number of sector initiatives. She was a co-founding Trustee of 360Giving; she developed a free-of-charge salesforce application which is used by over 50 foundations to manage their grantmaking; and she was a founding strategy board member of the Funders Collaborative Hub. Anna chaired the Enterprise Grants Taskforce from 2022-2024.
