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Category: Fundraising Research
Taking education for granted
Education organisations are winning more than 100 times as much funding from grant-making trusts than animal welfare organisations. Average grants to education are almost three times bigger than those to animal welfare.
Why are there these differences between sectors? How are other sectors faring?
To find out more we analysed the data in Factary Phi.
Factary Phi reports on £2.5 billion in donations by 6,400 grant-making trusts, and names the source, recipient and amount for up to 40% of ALL grants made in some non-profit sectors – so it gives a useful picture of what is going on in grant-making.
Arts and Culture organisations are doing well from grant-making trusts at the low mid-range – from £10,000-£49,999. Here the sector is reporting more grants than any other. At the top of the range, education and health sectors are reporting more grants than anyone else at the £100,000-£499,999 range.
Download Factary’s Taken for Granted report here.
For more information on Factary Phi contact us.
Or watch our 4-minute podcast Introduction to Factary Phi.
Fifty percent of the population -five percent of the money
The US Foundation Center and Mama Cash, the Netherlands-based women’s fund have published a report on European foundation giving for women and girls (Untapped Potential: European Foundation Funding for Women and Girls, EFC and Mama Cash, Brussels 2011, available at http://www.mamacash.org/page.php?id=2788).
Methods
145 foundations from 19 countries took part in the survey (136 responded to the questionnaire), controlling an estimated €9.2 billion in assets. The research team describe the study as ‘exploratory’, citing the lack of overall market data on which to base sector-wide conclusions. The team used a mixture of questionnaire, grants sampling and analysis and interviews to gather their data.
Women and Girls
The report starts with the assertion that investing in women and girls is now the mainstream mode for NGOs and other development funders. It cites The Economist, 26 April 2006: Forget China, India and the Internet: economic growth is driven by women. And then it poses the question:
are European foundations providing funding for women and girls?
The answer is a depressing ‘no’. The median percentage of total foundation grant monies allocated for women and girls is only 4.8%. Fifty percent of the population get 5% of the money.
By contrast 90% of the foundations surveyed said that they were interested in at least one aspect of grant-making for women and girls. But that is a big gap between aspiration and reality, with most foundations allocating less than 10% of their grants to women and girls. The survey reports similar findings in analyses of foundation grant-making in the USA – a surprising result given the substantial number of women-led foundations in the US.
Issues
Violence against women, poverty among women and girls, and women’s and girls’ access to education emerged as the top three issues of interest to European foundations. While other issues were of less interest (lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights, and women’s and girls’ access to media, for example) the differences between the most popular and least popular topics was relatively small. In other words, foundations that support women and girls cover a wide range of interests. The authors then go on to measure the degree to which these interests are intentional, forming part of the DNA of the foundation. They found that 19% of foundations mentioned women and girls in their mission statement, and that these foundations had a tendency to support human rights and social justice initiatives.
The foundations that have been successful in supporting women and girls have taken a proactive stance on the subject, recruiting leadership who understand the importance of giving to women and girls, organising training programmes for staff, offering a flexible approach to grant-making and a focus on data and impacts.
The Wider Picture
The survey, one of very few broad surveys of European foundations, is useful also for the wider picture it paints of the sector. This type of overview data is vital in helping philanthropists and foundations to build strategies for partnership. The survey points out, for example, that the giving of 34% of foundations is internationally focused, and describes the link between geographic location and the grant-making patterns of foundations, with Northern European foundations less likely to support work with women and girls than those in Southern Europe. This seems counter-intuitive, but the authors reason that it may be the result of the stronger social policies favouring women and girls in Nordic countries, leaving foundations with less to do.
Grant-Making Patterns
The research team have done a good job of analysing grant-making patterns by geography, by target group and by foundation size. They show, for example, that the most favoured target group for foundations in Europe is children and youth, followed by the poor, people with disabilities and the elderly. Women and girls come 5th in the list of priorities.
In their analysis of the grants, the researchers have had to rely on relatively few grants � 396 grants for women and girls are analysed, with 306 of these made by foundations in Western Europe, principally, we suspect, grant-making trusts in the UK. So the findings have to be viewed with care. 45% of these grants go to human service projects, and 21% to human rights. 8% of grants went to health, and to arts and culture. Education got just 4% of the grants to women and girls (despite education being a priority for 73% of the foundations in the study.) An analysis of grants by value is not given.
Profiles
Five foundations are studied in detail including the Sigrid Rausing Trust in the UK, the Oak Foundation in Switzerland and the King Baudouin Foundation in Belgium, along with one network of foundations, the Learning Bridges Initiative. The review looks at the decision making processes of the foundation in detail, and we can see the results of the interviews in these detailed descriptions.
Conclusions
The authors conclude on a positive note, looking at opportunities to expand and deepen foundation support for women. Frankly, with the median percentage of foundation funding for women and girls at 4.8%, it is hard to argue for anything but growth.
We are concerned with a couple of omissions. First, the research is focused on grants – which leaves us wondering about other forms of finance for women and girls. Microfinance is not analysed, and yet we know that many microcredit programmes are aimed at women. This is a gap that could be covered by future research.
Second, the geographic distribution of the foundations selected for the study means that foundations from all across Europe were surveyed. But there is a caveat – 36 of the 136 respondents were from the UK whereas only two each were from France or Spain, so the overall views expressed will be a bit more Anglo-Saxon than might be desired.
But these are minor criticisms of a well-constructed study relevant to the whole foundation sector in Europe. Weisblatt & associates have done a good job of the research, and we should be thankful to Mama Cash and the Foundation Center for taking the initiative.
What are the practical applications of this study? For philanthropists, it’s a call to action – to link their interest in funding programmes for women and girls to their grant programmes, and to put more money into these programmes. For foundations, it’s a thoughtful picture of where we are, a report that should encourage some reflection. For fundraising organisations it’s a useful guide to the current foundation market, its interests, its current practices and its potential.
Thanks for £1
When does your organisation say ‘thank-you’, publicly?
Factary has just analysed the data in Factary Phi, our online database of donors and supporters, to answer this question.
It turns out that there are wide variations between different nonprofit sectors. The education sector seems to be more ready to thank than the international development sector. For the donor, the ‘thank you effect’ varies widely.
To read the briefing paper, click here
For more on Factary Phi, watch our four-minute webcast here.
Or contact us for a live online demo.
Data, re-valued
LevelBusiness is a new website that contains copies of the accounts of the 2.4 million companies registered with Companies House. It is free to access and includes simple, clear, easy-to-use search and tracking tools.
It contains, in other words, the same data that we would normally pay Companies House to see. More tellingly, it contains the same data that Bureau van Dijk and ICC offer, at purchase prices ranging from a few pounds to thousands of pounds per annum.
LevelBusiness form part of the shift from data itself as a business asset to data manipulation, data sharing, and leadership in data discovery as the assets.
A few nonprofits are moving in this direction too, using their knowledge of a humanitarian emergency or an environmental disaster to create stories that supporters can follow (for example, MSF). Or to provide useful summary information on a specific situation or condition (for example Drugs for Neglected Diseases)
But there is a long tail of organisations in Europe who could develop valuable data tools building on what they know from their work on the street or in the field. LevelBusiness is showing us why; it is data manipulation, data sharing and leadership in data that counts.
The seriously philanthropic
Our latest analysis of Factary Phi, our online database of donors and supporters of UK nonprofits, shows more than £12 billion (£12,895 million) in donations of £1m or more. In total we’ve identified 658 gifts at this level.
Education and international development are leading recipients of £1m+ gifts. We’ve identified more than £3.1 billion in gifts of £1m+ to education, and more than £2.4 billion to international development charities in the UK. Children’s causes (£1.4 billion) and health (£1.1 billion) are other main recipients of £1m+ gifts.
For more information, get in touch with us.
The Venture Philanthropists
The UK’s venture philanthropy industry, now nine years old, is worth more than £1.5 billion and provides more than £50 million in support for nonprofits, according to a report issued today by Factary.
But who are the people behind this new wave in philanthropy?
Factary’s report, ‘The Venture Philanthropists – A Review of Venture Philanthropy funds in the UK and the people behind them,’ focuses on the 135 trustees, donors, patrons and board members in the UK VP sector, including brief biographies on each. Over half of the trustees come from the financial sector – with 29% coming from the private equity industry, a key target audience for many nonprofits. Many are wealthy – we identify more than £5.2 billion in personal wealth in the report.
Factary’s team has analysed the UK venture philanthropy sector, identifying the eleven key funds, reviewing their areas of interest, their finances and the people involved. We review the spectacular growth in investment income in the sector and look in detail at the £51.8m in charitable grants, loans and investments made by the sector.
The report – 70 pages of newly researched information – includes a detailed index of corporate and trust connections. The report details the trends in the sector, as well as giving background on venture philanthropy – history, definition and key features. Download a contents list here.
How to Order
To order a report email research@factary.com with your contact details. The report is available at £125 per copy.
The report is featured in UK Fundraising and there is an interview with Chris Carnie at Helen Brown Group. We’re also featured at Philanthropy UK.
Charities analysed
We’ve been continuing to extract useful information from our Factary Phi database. Here, in a brief 2 page report, is the latest data from a survey we carried out in Factary Phi on donations to charities
We have found some interesting patterns by comparing reported gifts from trusts with reported gifts from individuals. For example mental health charities are reporting substantially more gifts from trusts than from individual donors, while education and training organisations show the reverse picture.
We hope that this information helps organisations in the nonprofit sector to begin to establish benchmarks in their work with strategic donors (philanthropists, companies and trusts.)
Do contact us (research@factary.com, or 0117 916 6740) if you would like to know more, or to set up an online demonstration of Factary Phi.
Universities in Factary Phi
Factary Phi, our database of donors and supporters to UK nonprofits, is beginning to reveal an interesting picture of philanthropy in the UK. The database only covers donations that are recorded in the public domain, so it is emphatically not a sample of all philanthropy.
But working within that limitation, the Factary team has been analysing donations to Universities and education, and we’ve come up with some surprising, and some reassuring, results.
Reassuring, for example, is the fact that over 95% of publicly acknowledged donations come from individual people – that means a good wide base of philanthropic support for UK universities. Surprising was the fact that we have found trusts and foundations to be particularly keen to list their donation value on University websites.
We have also demonstrated, we think for the first time in the UK, that academics are an important group of donors to UK Universities – representing around 12% of donors and 17% by value of publicly recorded donations.
We have written a brief report on these statistics as an aid to development teams in universities and the education sector. You can download the report here.
There is more about Factary Phi at here. If you would like to talk to a human being about Factary Phi, call us in Bristol on 0117 916 6740, or email at research@factary.com.
Thanks from the Arts
More than 36,500 supporters are acknowledged publicly by arts organisations in the UK, according to new research by Factary. And most of the donated income is from people (not from companies or trusts, as you might have expected.)
A summary research note is available for download here.
The research is based on data from Factary Phi, the database of donations and donors reported in the public domain. Factary Phi currently contains more than 160,000 records of donors and supporters to UK nonprofits who have been publicly thanked or reported.
Factary’s research shows that while only one in three publicly-acknowledged donors is an individual, almost three-quarters of publicly-acknowledged donated £s are from people as donors.
Our research seems to show that grant-making trusts and foundations are shy of public acknowledgement – with few arts organisations listing the donation value of their trust supporters. By contrast, companies seem more willing to allow their arts organisation partners to report donation values on arts websites.
To build Factary Phi, Factary researched donors by name from public domain sources, and Factary Phi shows the organisation they donated to with that organisation’s location and the web address of the source we used to find this data. Almost half of the records show either the amount of the donation or a gift band, and we are currently reporting on more than £13 billion in known donations to UK nonprofits, from 161,896 donors and supporters.
For further information contact David Hughes, Editor of Factary Phi.