The Moray Funders’ Forum is a way for Moray funders to get to know each other, share news, discuss challenges and coordinate funding efforts.
I sometimes imagine what an alien looking down on Earth would think of our attempts to distribute funding to the right people in an efficient manner. The lack of coordination and myriad application processes would seem strange at best. Given the impracticality of completely transforming the system of public money distribution, it seems obvious to me that regional or sectoral funders should at least gather regularly to connect, share news, discuss challenges and otherwise cooperate as far as possible.
Conversations in recent years have made it clear that others in Moray agree. Nevertheless, it was a global disaster that actually sprang us into action. The pandemic sent shockwaves through the funding landscape, with emergency funding being rapidly distributed and funding practices adapting to circumstances. The need for coordination was suddenly acute.
We launched the Moray Funders’ Forum in July 2020, a three-way collaboration originally between tsiMORAY - a charity distributing occasional funding, but not a grant-making organisation at heart - and two local funders: the Gordon & Ena Baxter Foundation (now replaced by the William Grant Foundation) and the Adam Family Foundation.
Funders are sharing updates and insights, addressing common challenges and generally becoming more knowledgeable about funding activity and needs in Moray.
The power of simply talking more
The Forum is simple: a regular gathering of funders, from the hyper-local to the national, all with some interest in grant-making in Moray. I manage and chair the Forum on behalf of tsiMORAY. For the first year or so, meetings were monthly, with speakers invited every other month to present on local needs around issues like mental health, young people and the environment. Now, with the pandemic relenting, we are moving to quarterly meetings featuring two or three speakers, a general discussion on the theme and space for funders to share challenges, good projects and news.
Our immediate aim is to help funders get to know each other better. A simple ambition, but we are seeing how funders knowing about one another’s work, and better still having a personal connection, has a range of positive consequences. Funders are sharing updates and insights, addressing common challenges and generally becoming more knowledgeable about funding activity and needs in Moray. New relationships have also led to instances of ad-hoc collaborative funding - something we initially hoped would be a formal part of the Forum, before deeming it too complex to manage.
Ultimately we hope to help local grant-makers to get funding to the right places more effectively. But while the Forum has increased funder interest and coordination in Moray, which can only be a good thing for grantees, we aren’t actively monitoring these outcomes.
Rather, the Forum is explicitly funder-centred. Limiting Forum involvement to funders (guest speakers excepted) reinforces this, and ensures the benefits of connecting aren’t diluted. Launching with two local funders meant the Forum has been driven by funders, not imposed on them. It also meant a bigger contact book to kickstart recruitment - a factor in our fast organic growth to around 16 grant-making organisations regularly represented.
Having tsiMORAY hosting and facilitating the Forum has worked well, as individual grant-makers do not have the capacity to take on this role, but it has brought challenges too. We don’t have dedicated resource for my work, which was a little stressful during the pandemonium of the pandemic. However, being held online has made sessions efficient, as well as more accessible to grant-makers who are interested in Moray but located nationally. As the rapid changes in funding associated with the pandemic have calmed, our decision to move from monthly to quarterly meetings will help make the Forum more sustainable for tsiMORAY to host.
I know Moray is not alone in seeking a more joined-up approach to local grant-making. Through the Funders Collaborative Hub, we've heard about various funder forums in other parts of the UK, which either emerged or were reinvigorated during the pandemic. But there is still scope for this model to be much more widely replicated.
When you think about the alternative - lots of individual, disconnected funders giving out grants while knowing little about what each other is doing - why wouldn't we try to build a more connected funding sector, not just in times of crisis, but for the longer term?
Inspired to collaborate?
Explore the Hub to find the collaboration opportunities that relate to your interests as a funder.
