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Big Lottery Fund ResearchIssue 35
Early indications of sustainabilityat the Big Lottery Fund
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Title Early indications of sustainability at
the Big Lottery Fund
Code ISSN 1744-4756 (Print)
and ISSN 1744-4764 (Online)
Further copies available from:
Email enquiries@biglotteryfund.org.uk
Phone 0845 410 20 30
Textphone 0845 039 02 04
Ourwebsite www.biglotteryfund.org.uk
AccessibilityAlsoavailable upon request in other formats including large print.
Our equality principles
Promoting accessibility; valuing cultural diversity; promoting participation;
promoting equality of opportunity; promoting inclusive communities;
reducing disadvantage and exclusion. Please visit our website for more
information.
We care about the environment
The Big Lottery Fund in Wales is working towards sustainable development
and the use of sutainable resources.
Our mission
We are committed to bringing real improvements to communities and the
lives of people most in need.
Our values
We have identified seven values that underpin our work: fairness;
accessibility; strategic focus; involving people; innovation; enabling;
additional to government.
The Big Lottery Fund is committed to valuing diversity and promoting
equality of opportunity, both as a grantmaker and employer. The Big
Lottery Fund will aim to adopt an inclusive approach to ensure grant
applicants and recipients, stakeholders, job applicants and employees are
treated fairly.
Big Lottery Fund is the joint operating name of the New Opportunities
Fund and the National Lottery Charities Board (which made grants under
the name of Community Fund).
Big Lottery Fund, February 2007
Written by Stacy Sharman
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Executive summary 2
Introduction 4
Factors that influence sustainability 9
Planning 10
Delivery 16
Interacting with the external environment 24
Supporting sustainability 28
Conclusions & recommendations 40
Key success factors for sustainable projects 40
Issues for BIG in supporting sustainability 41
Recommendations 44
Appendix 1: Research approach 45
Contents
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Executive summary
This research aims to help the Big Lottery
Fund understand the early indications of
progress towards sustainability within its
projects and programmes. It investigates
approaches followed by BIG and others topromote sustainability and provides
practical recommendations around
developing an approach to sustainability.
Sustainability was initially defined as the
continuation of the benefits and/or
activities of projects once BIG funding has
ended. Sustainability is not simply about
the continuation of projects or services
post-Lottery funding. It can also be about
lasting improvements in partnershipworking, long-term impacts on beneficiary
behaviour or attitude or increased capacity
for organisations and individuals.
Sustainability is influenced by factors in
planning, delivery and interaction with the
external environment. Early planning for
sustainability is essential, as are
determining end of grant strategies,
including planning for mainstreaming. Indelivery, capturing and using knowledge
generated by projects and programmes,
capacity building and management are
factors that play a role. Achieving a good fit
with national and local strategies and
improving partnership working are key
activities when interacting with the
external environment.
BIG and other funders have taken different
approaches to supporting sustainability.
Planning for sustainability and providing
intensive support to grant holders are both
areas in which BIG, and others, haveexperience. Balancing the risk of investment
in relation to sustainability is a challenge for
funders. Measuring change is an important
issue, both in terms of deciding what to
measure and how to measure it.
To develop its approach to sustainability, it
was recommended that the Big Lottery
Fund should consider
Establishing a broad, common definitionof sustainability This definition
should capture sustainability and other
'legacy' effects in the broadest sense
and be sufficiently flexible to be applied
across the range of BIG programmes.
Improving the information base
Sustainability should be explicitly
included in the remit of every evaluation
that BIG commissions. Further research
to establish which projects and their
outcomes have successfully been
sustained and how this has been
achieved would provide learning and
opportunities for replication elsewhere.
Promoting and supporting sustainability
The development of a framework is
proposed to promote and support
sustainability throughout the funding
cycle. A series of measures issuggested, beginning at the programme
planning stage, moving through
application and delivery stages, ending
at project and programme completion.
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This report presents the findings of a short
study commissioned by Big Lottery Fund
(BIG) into the approaches taken by BIG
(and its predecessors the New
Opportunities Fund and Community Fund)to promote the sustainability of grant
funded activities and benefits. GHK
Consulting were commissioned to carry out
the research and this report is our short
version of the findings. The full report is
available on our website at
www.biglotteryfund.org.uk
Aims of the studyThe aims of the study were to:
G assess how effective BIG's approach to
sustainability to date appears to be in
relation to projects and programmes
G inform decision-making at BIG about the
contribution it can make towards
encouraging sustainable benefits and/or
activities of our projects and
programmes, identifying good practice
and developing new ways of
encouraging sustainability.
More specifically, the requirements were
for the study to:
G identify the approaches followed to
support project sustainability
including the programme and project-
level factors which influence the
likelihood of sustainability, and if
differences in approaches exist by
programme and country
G identify the emerging impacts of these
approaches in terms of any early
indicators of sustainability reported in
existing evaluation reports
G develop an understanding of the keycircumstances and factors associated
with effective project sustainability
including project, programme and
external factors, as well as the
circumstances where sustainability is
less desirable
G explore the steps taken by BIG to
support and enhance the sustainability
of projects funded by it and identifyfurther steps which could be taken
G examine the approaches followed by
other grant-making bodies which have
been found to be effective, to allow
learning from steps taken elsewhere.
The study was designed to examine early
indicators of sustainability rather than to
assess evidence of the achievement of
sustainability. It was intended to inform afuture large-scale study into the impacts of
BIG funding and their sustainability that
would include direct contact with projects.
Introduction
4
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The Big Lottery Fund is a non-departmental
body public body distributing Lottery funds.
It makes short-term grants to specific projects
rather than organisations, although in some
cases organisations are set up purely to deliverthe grant. Short-term funding previously
meant three years but recently BIG has moved
towards providing funding for up to five years. In
many cases, projects receivefunding from a
number of sources, of which BIG is one.
These circumstances have an impact on
sustainability issues because in some cases it
can be difficult to identify exactly the parts
of the project that have been funded by the
BIG grant. Therefore it becomes problematicto attribute the continuation of any activity or
benefit to one particular source of funding.
These difficulties exist even where it is clear
which elements have been funded by whom
because sustainability is not simply about the
continuation of a project but other more
intangible outcomes (see below for
definitions).
BIG's interest in sustainability in all senses lies in
the continuation of project activities and
benefits post-Lottery funding. The notion of
sustainability was one of the New Opportunities
Fund values and is reflected in BIG's values also,
for example in involving people and working
with communities to effect lasting change. BIG
has recently adopted an outcomes funding
approach where the emphasis is on the impact
and difference made through its funding, rather
than the services or activities delivered.
Applicants are expected to identify the outcomes
they want to achieve through their projects and
BIG funding can be seen as one component in
progress towards a longer-term aim.
BackgroundBIG was created in 2004 by the merger of
the New Opportunities Fund and the
Community Fund, and is responsible for
distributing half of all National Lottery goodcause funding across the UK. It has made
more than 6 billion available to initiatives
with national, regional and local partners
from the public, voluntary, charity and
private sectors, with a further 2.3 billion
to be distributed between 2006 and 2009.
BIG has a particular focus on combating
disadvantage and improving the quality of
life in communities, by supporting
appropriate, effective and sustainableresponses to identified need.
In fulfilling its objectives, BIG must consider
both the need to support innovation (and
the accompanying risk of failure) and the
sustainability of the investments it makes.
Given the range of policy and practical
areas covered by BIG's programmes, a wide
range of potential approaches to supporting
sustainability are possible, including measures
such as the requirement for match funding,
encouragement of partnership working,
provision of networking opportunities and
learning events, and the contracting out of
programme-specific support packages. In
addition, the opportunity exists for previous
practice and experience to influence steps
taken in the new programmes.
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Research approachThe study was based on a review of
programme evaluation and other research
reports commissioned by BIG. This was
enhanced through a series of interviewswith BIG staff and a sample of other grant
funding agencies and others involved in
supporting the charitable sector in the UK
and USA.
A full description of the research approach
is given in Appendix 1.
It is important to recognise some of the
limitations of this method relating to the
document review, not least the reliance onreported findings. Coverage of
sustainability was variable between reports
as a result of the following:
G sustainability was not an explicit focus
of every evaluation or research
document
G final evaluation reports were normally
produced at the end of the funding
period which meant that evidence ofactual sustainability was limited
G evaluations were based on a sample of
projects rather than a comprehensive
programme audit and this meant that
sustainability was discussed at a project
rather than programme level
G the extent to which different aspects of
sustainability were explored was limited
and reports rarely described thebreadth of 'legacy' effects that might
have been expected.
Introduction
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Defining SustainabilityAt the outset, sustainability was defined as
'the continuation of the benefits and/or
activities of projects once BIG funding has
ended'. This broad definition included arange of potential benefits, dependent on
the nature, objectives and context of the
projects in question. These included:
G the continued use of facilities provided
as part of capital investment projects
G new services developed and delivered
as a result of BIG funding
G the use of skills developed among
project beneficiaries and project staff
G the establishment of new or
strengthening of existing partnerships
and other collaborative working
arrangements
G sustained behavioural change among
individuals
G contributing to the body of knowledge
of effective approaches to meeting arange of needs even if this knowledge
was not utilised immediately.
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Introduction
Sustainability through infrastructures,
for example as a result of social
enterprise or the creation of employment
opportunities such as Scottish Land
Fund, CALL ICT and TYS programmes. Sustainability through alignment
with local priorities/national policy
which usually focuses on getting the
service or idea funded by a statutory
body, as with Green Spaces and
Sustainable Communities (GSSC),
Activities for Young People (AYP) and
Out of School Hours Childcare
(OOSHC) programmes.
Sustainability through long-term
impacts on attitude/behaviour, usually
targeted on improving social or health-
related behaviours as with Splash Extra,
AYP, Positive Activities for Young People
(PAYP), Do it 4 Real programmes.
Given the broad range of sustainability
outcomes that are associated with BIG's
funding programmes, it is not surprising
that there is a wide range of potential
'sustainability routes' through which these
outcomes could be reached. The means of
delivering sustainability will not only
depend on the programme in question but
the local environment where it is based.
The report now looks at the findings of the
research, firstly at factors that influence
sustainability and secondly at supporting
sustainability.
While sustainability was most commonly
defined by BIG staff in terms of continuation of
service delivery, it is important to recognise that
this is not the only possible outcome. Early
indications of the achievement of sustainabilitycovered a wide range of outcomes that can
be grouped into the following seven categories:
Sustainability of an approach/concept
trialled through a programme as
opposed to sustainability of the
programme itself, as with Healthy Living
Centres (HLCs) and Do it 4 Real.
Sustainability of partnerships, either
for continued delivery of a service or asan end in itself. Here, the emphasis is on
the development and/or improvement
of multi-agency working in addressing
social issues such as in the Out of
School Hours Learning (OOSHL), CALL
ICT Content and Activities for Young
People (AYP) in Northern Ireland
programmes. This was probably the
most common and in many ways the
most powerful, sustainable outcome.
Sustainability through building capacity
within organisations/community networks,
particularly as an important precursor
to delivering a programme's objectives,
such as with the Scottish Land Fund,
Transforming your Space (TYS) and
Countryside Communities programmes.
Sustainability of a product/service/
programme through further fundingand/or integration into the statutory
sector, which under-pinned the OOSHL
and Reducing the burden of CHD,
Stroke and Cancer programmes.
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Factors that influence sustainability
A number of factors emerged that
appeared to have an influence on the early
indications of the sustainability of activities
and benefits of projects and programmes.
Sustainability is not simply considered interms of continuation of activities post-
Lottery funding but across the range of
outcomes outlined above.
The factors can be grouped into three
categories: planning, delivery and
interacting with the external environment.
Factors that are important in planning are:
G early consideration
G determining end of grant strategies
G planning for mainstreaming.
Factors that are important in delivery are:
G capturing and using knowledge
G capacity building
G management and business planning
G performance management.
Factors that are important in interacting
with the external environment:
G fit with local and national strategies
G improving partnerships.
The factors are presented in turn below.
Throughout the following sections, positive
indicators are discussed together with
potential barriers.
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Planning
Early considerationA key factor influencing sustainability was
the early consideration of and planning for
sustainability. This process would involve
making decisions about what the goals arein relation to sustainability, whether it is the
intention to sustain the project as a whole
or simply elements of it. The outcomes for
sustainability would also need to be
considered, whether these go beyond
continuation of activities to sustainability
through building capacity or long-term
impacts on behaviour for example. The
issue is likely to be complicated where BIG
is a part-funder of a project because of thedifficulties in attributing sustainability
outcomes to any one pot of funding.
Projects that aimed to develop a
sustainable product, service or approach
through further funding or integration into
the statutory sector best demonstrate the
importance of focusing on sustainability
issues from the outset. Early consideration
meant that projects and stakeholders
incorporated sustainability into their
planning and focused on the need to devise
longer-term strategies. For example, Fair
Share is an initiative targeted on the
development of sustainable communities
and the voluntary sector.
The early planning which took place in this
programme was linked both to the
imperative to incorporate sustainability
issues from the outset and to the fact that
the programme was testing an approach tosustaining communities. Putting in place a
monitoring system was a key part of the
planning process, as this would allow the
effectiveness of both the programme and
the approach to be assessed.
The Reducing the burden of Coronary Heart
Disease (CHD), Stroke and Cancer
programme illustrates an approach to
sustainability that was designed to promote
integration of services into the statutorysector, in this case the NHS. The aims of the
programme were to reduce the risk of
chronic heart disease, stroke and cancer
and improve access to high quality services
and facilities. The fact that most projects
have been successfully embedded into
existing health care structures reflects the
extent to which activities developed by
projects and the programme aims were
aligned from the start.
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Reducing the burden of CHD,Stroke and Cancer
Successful approaches to sustainability
can already be picked up from the
earliest of project activities, where
potentially sustainable working
practices and/or infrastructures were
already emerging. The focus across the
three countries (Scotland, Northern
Ireland and Wales) where the
programme operates has been on:
Increasing service capacity through
early moves to improve co-ordination, standardising referral
processes and the involvement of
the voluntary sector.
Improving and maintaining quality
standards by ensuring equal access
to 'user friendly' information,
agreeing the use of specified clinical
guidelines, and introducing training
initiatives.
Developing and nurturing
partnership arrangements between
service providers, between users
and providers and between
community groups.
Conversely, a failure to plan represents a
significant threat and it was evident from
programme evaluations that sustainability
was not always addressed from the outset.
This may be explained by a number offactors including a lack of awareness or
understanding of the issues and time
pressures. In the Out of School Hours
Learning (OOSHL) programme, a number of
projects found that sustainability was more
of an issue from the mid-point of their
grants and in some cases, it was never
considered. According to the evaluators,
many grant holders did not have an
appropriate understanding of planning andhow it would fit with future survival.
Time pressures in the initial set-up of
projects and programmes can have a
negative impact, denying sufficient time
for planning and compromising delivery.
In CALL: Digital for example, complex and
ambitious outcomes were expected within
a very tight timescale. The planning of
activities in a relatively unrealistic
timeframe had, perhaps, already doomed
the outcomes before delivery had started.
A lack of time may not only damage
planning and prospects. Too much time in
the lead-in phase prior to delivery meant
that some Out of School Hours Childcare
(OOSHC) projects were set up under
different circumstances than those under
which they had been planned. This had a
knock-on effect in terms of the demand
not matching what was expected and the
loss of supportive parents. Ultimately, this
meant that levels of take-up of services
were not as high as predicted.
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Determining end of grant
strategies
End of grant strategies are plans that detail
a project's options for the future after
funding ends. In the past, BIG has used the
terms 'exit strategy' and 'sustainability plan'
to mean the post-Lottery future of projects.
Exit strategy referred to project closure and
sustainability plan to continuation. In practice,
the two terms could be used interchangeably.
BIG would expect both exit strategies and
sustainability plans to be written during the
delivery of the project, normally one or two
years before funding ended. Having
strategies or plans in place supports
sustainability as it can influence project
development and highlight key factors in
achieving the project's desired objectives,
whether these are around continuation or
closure. Without an appropriate strategy or
plan designed to leave something in place
when the project or programme ends, there
is the risk that knowledge and good
practice will be lost.In some situations, exit strategies did inform
the vision that guided project development.
In the Living with Cancer programme,
schemes working with black and ethnic
minority groups varied considerably: some
were of a very limited duration and
designed to produce a specific output, such
as a single piece of information; others
were funded for three years and then
closed and others were mainstreamed.
But most projects had succeeded in their
aim of reaching groups that had previously
been excluded or marginalised by standard
cancer services. Even projects where the
intention had never been that they shouldsurvive post-Lottery funding left a legacy
in terms of products and partnership
working. Translated materials, cancer
directories of local services and improved
partnerships between sectors and
professionals are examples of the
sustainability outcomes that were achieved
in this programme.
However, there were indications that
projects may well lack an understanding ofwhat an 'exit strategy' is. In some
programmes, for example Fair Share and
Transforming Waste (TW), the absence of
exit strategies was recorded. The lack of
exit strategies meant that early
consideration was not given to what
needed to be measured and monitored
throughout the life of a project to provide
evidence to support continuation or to
assess the impact of a project. It also
meant that project activity and
development were not directed by a clear
picture of where the project wanted to be
at the end of their funding, thereby
undermining the potential for sustainability.
Planning
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Requiring grant holders to produce exit
strategies or sustainability plans does not
always solve this problem, as was the case
in TW. Projects that saw their services as
finite provision and did not intend to beself-sustaining produced plans that were
not felt to be realistic or feasible because
they were not felt to reflect what would
really happen. While not every project will
be sustained, there was no evidence of how
these projects planned to measure their
key success factors. Even where projects
do not intend to continue, collecting
evidence of success or otherwise is still
important as it enables projects to assesstheir impact. The confusion and uncertainty
around sustainability plans and planning in
general undermines the chances of success,
whether for continuation or assessing impact.
In some cases projects, rather than
programmes, found it easier to talk in terms
of 'exit routes' rather than sustainability. For
example where OOSHL provision involved
coaching in a particular sport, the projects
would be informing participants about how
they could develop their skills further through
joining local sports clubs that ran youth sections.
The same was also true for music, dance and
drama activities. Some projects that had used
non-school sites, such as environmental
centres, thoughtthat the initial exposure of
young people to these locations would
encourage them to make use of the facility
as individuals in the future. This meant that
on OOSHL, as elsewhere, while the
intentions were clear, the ways in which
these would be measured were not.
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It should be recognised that not every
project will want to pursue the
mainstreaming option. Many voluntary and
community sector organisations value their
independence and feel that their ability tomeet the needs of their users would be
compromised by such a move. For projects
that consider mainstreaming to be a
desirable option, understanding and
communicating good practice to mainstream
providers is the first step in developing a
mainstreaming approach. But before being
able to communicate evidence of what works,
projects must first understand what it is
that works and how it can be transferred orreplicated. Where full-scale sustainability is
unlikely, this process can help to identify
the parts of the projects that work and
which are worth mainstreaming.
Many different approaches to mainstreaming
emerged, even within the same programme.
On the OOSHL programme, the intention in
Blaenau Gwent was for summer schemes to
be included in the LEA's School Improvement
Plan alongside moves towards obtaining
accreditation through the National Youth
Agency. In other cases school budgets were
seen as a route into mainstream activities,
while elsewhere this was perceived as
making a scheme potentially vulnerable if
there were unforeseen demands from the
main school curriculum. There were also
differences between projects in their
mainstreaming objectives. For example in
Transforming Your Space (TYS), these
varied from who might maintain
playground equipment to maintaining
community participation in the long-term.
Planning
Planning for mainstreamingThe most common 'exit route' was
mainstreaming. Mainstreaming is the term
generally used to describe the process of
transferring policy, good practice oractivity into the core of mainstream service
provision. The term 'mainstreaming' has
been used by BIG to mean obtaining
statutory funding following the end of the
Lottery grant. However, one of the
principles of Lottery funding is that it
should be additional to statutory provision.
The expectation that projects that were
deemed to be additional at the outset
should seek to obtain mainstream, statutoryfunding at the end of the grant clearly creates
tensions. Often projects can demonstrate
that they are meeting previously unmet
needs and in doing so are providing services
that are highly valued by beneficiaries. Over
time, these services become essential and
are considered important enough to
warrant mainstream funding.
While there is value in ensuring that funding
programmes are aligned with statutory
provision, as seen above in the Reducing
the burden of CHD, Stroke and Cancer
programme, this is unlikely to be sufficient
to enable the transfer. Activities such as
networking, disseminating progress and
achievements to influencers including
statutory agencies and engaging with
national and local government priorities
(see below) can help the transition into
mainstream funding.
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There was also evidence of national
variations, as in the Activities for Young
People (AYP) initiative. This programme
was targeted at young people to support
life transitions and to help them re-engagewith education, careers and guidance
systems. Activities and practices in
Northern Ireland and Wales were found to
be more likely to be mainstreamed than
those in England. Although this was mainly
due to services being more flexible and
tailored to local needs in these countries,
the fact that England already had an
established local infrastructure and
services in place through another agency(Connexions) was no doubt significant.
And neither was mainstreaming always a
linear process. In Northern Ireland
Barnardo's had been working with 11
schools in Belfast on OOSHL projects. Both
Barnardo's and school staff made the
suggestion that the provision should be
'mainstreamed' in some way, so that it
would become an entitlement for all young
people. Senior scheme staff lobbied the
Department of Education in Northern
Ireland to adopt the scheme and the
Minister of Education seemed to recognise
the potential when he agreed to sustain the
provision until longer-term funding was
found. The scheme was re-launched in
September 2002 under its new name
'Learning Together'. At that time,
Barnardo's applied to the Children's Fund
for three years of funding, but when they
were unsuccessful they continued to look
for other sources.
An alternative approach was to
complement mainstream delivery and
assist mainstream services to meet their
targets. This was achieved by projects that
created a niche for themselves by acquiringspecialist knowledge about specific client
groups or techniques. In some cases, there
will be high levels of service integration
between projects and mainstream
providers, including joint planning and
management arrangements and even
pooling of resources to meet joint aims. As
a result, there is the potential to drive a
demand for which projects have the
specialist skills to respond. In the PalliativeCare programme, the integration of
mainstream and specialist services proved
to be key to encouraging sustainability. BIG
funding had prompted a considerable
diversification of services, with new
services reaching new client groups using
fresh approaches to delivery. This meant
that projects were able to tailor services to
local conditions, meeting hitherto unmet or
under-served categories of need.
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Capturing and using knowledgeDelivering any grant scheme generates
knowledge and learning and the effective
use of this knowledge was found to
support sustainability. Ensuring thedistribution of ideas, good practice and
acquired knowledge throughout the funded
organisation was essential. When this did
not happen, there was the risk of losing
knowledge. This was the case in the Better
Off programme where much of the
knowledge resided with individual staff
members, resulting in a great deal of re-
learning when new staff were appointed.
There were very few examples whereprojects made conscious decisions to
counter this.
Knowledge distribution is not only
important within individual organisations.
The CALL ICT Content evaluation
recommended that a network be
developed to support projects and enable
the effective transfer of expertise and
experience not only between organisations
but also across programmes and sectors.
However, this did not happen in the CALL
ICT Learning Centres programme. This
programme offered grant holders the
opportunity to test more flexible learning
and community engagement opportunities
in order to demonstrate their potential for
mainstreaming. At the end of the funding
period however, many projects were still
unable to fund flexible, proactive learning,
just as they had been at the start of the
programme.
Taking a broader perspective, it is
important to recognise that however good
a service might be, it is unlikely to be
sustained if it is not visible. Regular
dissemination of materials andpresentations to partners and other
agencies helps to raise and maintain
awareness of a successful project,
approach, programme and/or outcome.
And the earlier a project comes to the
attention of national and local policy
audiences, the more time there is to lobby
for support.
Working with leaders from across the
community and building support of broadconstituencies can also contribute to the
future survival of projects. Fair Share, for
example, was well publicised through the
local press and television covering visits
from the local MP and others. Similarly the
importance of local champions of childcare
for OOSHC projects located in areas of
disadvantage was particularly significant.
These clubs were very unlikely to reach a
position of sustainability on fees alone and
required the support of a local champion
who had the skills, including the ability to
identify and write bids, to pursue different
funding streams.
Strategic partnerships can also raise the
profile of projects and help with
mainstreaming, as where local authority
staff were able to convince elected
members that OOSHL activities werecontributing to the achievement of local
authority objectives.
Delivery
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In addition to projects' dissemination of
progress and awareness-raising, the
presence of some form of additional
validation further supported claims for
continuation. While this could be providedby evaluation, it was also linked to
increased motivation to achieve and
become exemplars of good practice. For
example, where OOSHL projects received
Quality in Study Support (QiSS) status, it
proved that they were carrying out their
functions efficiently and effectively. The
fact that they could also play a role in
nationally recognised bodies such as the
Extended Schools Forum and ContinYoustrengthened this view. Although Ofsted
inspections found that the quality of
provision for out-of-hours activities was
good in four out of five schools, it pointed
to ways in which it could be strengthened.
In recommending that schemes could
improve their activities, it sent the
message that the activities were worth
sustaining, albeit in a more robust form.
Capacity buildingCapacity building refers to a range of
processes that help a project, organisation
or a community to work more effectively
and confidently to reach its goals. At aproject level this might involve training for
staff, volunteers or beneficiaries and at an
organisational level for example, it could
mean helping a group to develop new
systems of fundraising or management.
The issue of capacity building is critical to
continuation both in terms of whether
capacity has been built during the project
but also whether it is used and maintained
afterwards. Capacity building is importantin all projects but particularly for innovative
projects and where community
organisations are central to the delivery of
services. Having a critical mass of staff
and/or volunteers to develop supportive
relationships and contribute diverse skills
and new knowledge was fundamental to
sustainability, as found in the Community
Fund's evaluation of Grants to Large and
Medium sized projects.
In Do it 4 Real, capacity building across
organisations was one approach to
ensuring that projects continued from year
to year. Youth Hostel Association (YHA)
staff reported that their involvement with
Do it 4 Real had a positive impact on the
organisation and on themselves.
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It helped the YHA to raise their profile,
particularly with young people who would
not normally have considered becoming
involved with the organisation. Staff
reported that they had developed skills andtechniques in dealing with difficulties such
as inappropriate behaviour, challenging
attitudes and prejudices. They also felt that
they had gained personally from taking part
in the programme, particularly in building
the confidence required to provide high
quality pastoral care and guidance,
sometimes in difficult circumstances.
But it is also worth considering the
challenges involved in attempting to buildthe capacity of organisations. For example,
the Fair Share programme was focused on
opening up access to Lottery funding for
disadvantaged communities and improving
their capacity to take advantage of the
money available. But it was found that
grants were sometimes too large for some
groups that did not want to employ
individuals or take on responsibility for a
major project. In the Countryside
Communities initiative, stakeholders
welcomed the focus on capacity building
within the voluntary sector but they did not
believe that sufficient additional resources
had been made available for this to be done
effectively.
Acquiring capital assets is another way of
promoting capacity building and
community development. The ScottishLand Fund (SLF) is one of the clearest
examples of how sustainability was linked
to capital investment, as described below.
Delivery
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The Scottish Land Fund
The Scottish Land Fund's aim was to contribute to sustainable development in rural
Scotland by assisting communities to acquire, develop and manage local land or land
assets. The fund, administered by Highlands and Islands Enterprise in partnership with
Scottish Enterprise could be used to support three types of projects:
Planning and preparation of bids to acquire or manage land and land assets.
Acquisition of land that could involve large areas of land on which communities
intend to undertake a range of management and development projects. It could also
involve smaller plots of land for environmental or recreational uses.
Land development projects that could include initiatives to develop land,
investment in management of natural resources, infrastructure developments to
meet local servicing needs, and the provision of facilities with clear economic andsocial benefits.
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Management and businessplanningThe evaluation of the OOSHC programme
refers to Gatenby's (1998) finding that
management ability is a significant factor indetermining sustainability. This is
supported by the evaluation's findings that
OOSHC clubs with a business plan were
more likely to make a profit. The evaluation
concluded that a business orientation
impacted on sustainability, as did a realistic
approach to fee structures and collection.
The need for ongoing assistance with
business planning and management was
also highlighted in OOSHC, and severalother programmes. One childcare
partnership commissioned a health check
of all its OOSHC provision which showed
that the majority of clubs did not
understand what needed to be in place.
Project management and business planning
require review and adjustment. This means
that projects have to be able to adapt to
changing circumstances and flexibility was
found to be an important way of strengthening
impact and ensuring continuation. This was
demonstrated in Better Off projects, where
almost a quarter had to change their
services in the first year to meet client needs.
Flexibility was also key at the programme
level, as identified in Fair Share, in relation
to making relationships at the local level.
The evaluation made it clear that it was not
enough to identify one type of local institution
and expect it to work in the same way in
each place. While local bodies, such as Local
Strategic Partnerships, local councils andvoluntary groups will always need to be
contacted, their engagement and contribution
will vary, which will impact on the shape of
projects and the decisions they take.
In addition to flexibility in approach,
another important factor in management
was the ability to attract additional funding.
Sometimes the very fact that a Lottery
grant had been received attracted in
further funding, as was the case in thePositive Activities for Young People (PAYP)
and New Opportunities for Physical
Education and Sport (NOPES) programmes.
But this approach did not work for some
Healthy Living Centres (HLCs). Despite the
grant mobilising additional resources at the
outset, including funding, premises and
seconded staff from partner agencies, this
did not continue at a level necessary to
secure their future.
Delivery
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When some OOSHL schemes encountered
similar problems, it was suggested that
they should establish a new organisation
separate from the school in an effort to
become more distinct and thereforeattractive to other funders. In other
circumstances, sustainability was
synonymous with grant funding and
fund-raising, especially in more deprived
areas. According to the OOSHC evaluation
(round three), 60 per cent of clubs based in
disadvantaged neighbourhoods were
submitting further grant funding
applications compared with 38 per cent of
those with 'average catchments'.Despite the contribution to immediate
security, additional funding was rarely the
only factor that influenced survival of
projects. One recurring challenge was the
recruitment and retention of staff.
Recruitment issues were common in the
initial stages of a programme where a large
number of posts were created in a very
short period of time. For example, in the
Palliative Care programme, 260 new
paediatric posts were created at the start
of the funding programme. It can also be
difficult to recruit staff with the
appropriate experience on short-term
contracts, particularly in the voluntary
sector. HLCs found themselves competing
for a limited pool of workers where the
alternatives offered better rates of pay and
more secure employment.
Similarly, retention of staff was a challenge,
particularly where the grant period was
three years. In these circumstances, the
typical project took at least a year to set up,
including staff recruitment, before startingto deliver services. The second year was
focused on delivery but the third year was
taken up with continuation issues and at
this point, staff were likely to leave.
This not only reduces the impact of the
project but undermines the chances of
successfully sustaining activities. BIG has
now moved to making grants available for
up to five years in an attempt to alleviate
these problems. Retention issues did notonly affect paid staff but volunteers too. An
over dependence on volunteers can also be
a risk to sustainability as was the case in
OOSHC. The originating committee
members of one club were going to resign
because their children were about to move
to secondary schools. This meant that
without replacements the club would close,
despite having a waiting list.
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Performance managementCollecting evidence of effectiveness is not
only important for performance
management but also for providing
evidence in support of the case forcontinuation. Grant holders were required
to provide information to BIG about their
performance on an annual basis. This
enabled BIG to monitor grantees' progress
and helped fulfil its public accountability
responsibilities. For projects, the ability to
demonstrate the impact of services and
evidence achievements was essential to
make the case for continuation to
influencers and potential funders.
The failure to collect evidence of
effectiveness, including establishing key
indicators of success, was a barrier to
sustainability. This was the case for HLCs.
While HLCs could demonstrate the
contribution they were making to their local
communities, including improvements to
capacity building and social capital, these
were not the kind of hard outcomes sought
by those holding health budgets. HLCs
further suffered from a general lack of
agreement as to how the effectiveness of
HLCs could and should be measured. This
left them unable to demonstrate what they
were achieving according to objective
criteria, which meant they were unlikely to
be funded by statutory commissioners.
Strong beliefs held by staff in what they do
and its impact, as found in a number of
other evaluations, are unlikely to be
sufficient to convince potential funders.
However, establishing indicators and collecting
evidence is not always an easy task. The
management team of PAYP was faced with
a difficult problem in developing an
effective exit strategy. Sustainability wouldhave to be assessed in terms of influencing
young people's attitudes and thereby
affecting their lives in the long-term. This
would mean judging success against soft
outcomes. Soft outcomes are results that
projects achieve but which cannot be
measured by traditionally recognised
indicators, such as transitions into
employment or education. Any exit
strategy would have to be based on theneeds of the individual engaged with the
projects and would depend on evidence of
distance travelled, which programmes,
such as PAYP, found difficult to accumulate.
A similar problem was encountered in the Do
it 4 Real programme where the adoption of
broad aims created difficulties in monitoring
effectiveness and measuring impacts. Many
of the outcomes were related to perception,
and as such, were difficult to measure. In the
end monitoring was confined to the targets set
for providers: the total number of participants
and ensuring that 20 per cent of participants
came from low income groups. Across all BIG
programmes, there were few successful
attempts to prove effectiveness across
programmes and an over-reliance on soft
evidence rather than more robust, systematic
data. This may be partly due to the fact that
evaluators were usually appointed once the
programme had started which meant that
the evaluation process was often laid on top
of, rather than integrated into, planning.
Delivery
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Interacting with the external environment
Fit with local and nationalgovernment prioritiesThe researchers found that there was a
relationship between the extent to which
programmes fitted with national and localpolicies and the support, although not
guarantee, this afforded towards sustainability.
A good example was the AYP programme in
Northern Ireland (NI) and the fit with the
priorities of the NI Alternative Education
Service and the Careers Service, as well as
other key policies which put planning for
individual children at the centre. This
allowed the AYP schemes to gain a much
higher profile as well as access to strategicplanning and delivery partnerships across NI.
But policy also shifts, evolves and is
moderated over time. A policy change or
re-alignment can have significant
consequences for the survival of projects.
The OOSHC programme was influenced by
policy developments such as Sure Start and
Extended Schools. While positive in the
sense of offering projects the opportunity
to engage with the new structures, it could
also be negative as the new or revised
services had the potential to compete with
BIG-funded projects.
Even where projects are making important
contributions to certain objectives, they can
still be sidelined by policy objectives that
emphasise different priorities. This was the
case with HLCs where key policy documents
have failed to mention HLCs. The evaluationsuggested that the approach taken by HLCs
was too broad to fit within one policy area
and that there was the risk of them falling
between different policy agendas.
Furthermore, positive changes in policy,
such as the introduction of Working
Families Tax Credit, do not always have the
expected positive impact. In the case of
OOSHC, parental reluctance to access thefinancial opportunities offered, together
with concerns over making payments in
advance, meant the potential influence on
possible fee incomes was reduced.
In some cases, there have been conflicting
priorities of national and local government,
with programmes and projects being
caught in the cross-fire and suffering as a
result. In Do it 4 Real for example,
government policy direction at one pointwas to provide residential courses for a
wide range of young people, based on the
assumption that these were beneficial. In
response, BIG expanded the Do it 4 Real
programme and devised a range of
outcomes that should result from young
people's participation in the programme.
However, the nature of the policy direction
and the short timescale for implementation
meant that the rationale for the link between
the activities delivered and the desired
outcomes had not been well developed.
As well as conflicting priorities between
national and local government, there are
also differences in policy that shape the
context differently at the national level. In
Northern Ireland, the lack of an assembly
and clear policy positions and/or directions
limited the potential for projects toinfluence or be influenced.
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The forthcoming restructuring as a result of
the review of public administration will add
to the uncertainty as it is likely to result in a
major shake-up in every statutory
organisation. A further challenge lies in themake-up of the voluntary and community
sector in Northern Ireland. This is a complex
and highly fragmented sector that
combines organisations with UK-wide
responsibilities with smaller organisations.
Finally, many projects in Northern Ireland
are dependant upon grant funding for their
continued existence. This fact could restrict
projects' perceptions of sustainability to
simply identifying partner sources of grantfunding for continuation.
A similar grant dependency culture is also in
evidence in Wales. Large parts of Wales are
among the poorest in Europe and qualify
for appropriate European Commission
funding. The money is expected to decline
significantly, and as many voluntary
organisations in Wales rely on European
funding, this is seen as a significant threat to
sustainability. Different issues are found in
Scotland. A key challenge in Scotland relates
to the delays in setting budgets for local
authorities experienced by the Scottish
Executive because of the need to wait for
the annual Comprehensive Spending Review.
Improving partnershipsThe researchers found some clear evidence
of how robust partnerships contributed to
sustainability, principally in terms of making
lasting improvements to the ways in whichpartners worked together. Therefore the
extent to which projects were able to
establish good working partnerships was an
important factor in supporting
sustainability. Partnerships were used in
two different ways: those developed as an
essential part of service delivery and those
that were developed as a specific objective
of the programme.
Partnerships developed to assist service
delivery were a feature of the HLC
programme. The programme was designed
to improve health and reduce health
inequalities through local community
action. Based both in health and in local
communities, HLCs were well positioned to
contribute to discussions about the shape
of future services and to the establishment
of a role within them. The evaluation
identified the key role that HLCs played
both in bringing partners together and then
allowing partners to clarify future
boundaries and roles.
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Partnerships and networks are often
considered a cornerstone of successful
community development and are generally
viewed by rural stakeholders as an
effective means of implementingcommunity projects and achieving shared
goals. The important contribution that local
communities can make to sustainable
activities and infrastructures was
emphasised by the TYS programme, but
also applied to other environment-focused
programmes. The Countryside
Communities initiative also highlighted
partnership working as the determining
factor required to establish and maintainsustainable communities in rural areas.
Although partnerships were critical in rural
areas, there were challenges associated
with location. Despite the fact that Better
Off projects were successful in attracting
clients in rural areas and the biggest
increases in new clients entering treatment
were within more rural areas, it was still
disproportionately difficult to get these
projects integrated into strategic and
delivery partnerships. A rural location was a
significant threat to some projects, bringing
challenges such as higher transport costs
and difficulties in attracting sufficient
numbers of users. Similarly, projects
located in disadvantaged areas also faced
difficulties, as in OOSHC where
unemployed parents did not need the
consistent childcare on offer.
Interacting with the external environment
The Better Off programme in Scotland was
an example of how improved multi-agency
working was seen to be key to achieving
sustainable and holistic services to people
affected by substance misuse. Theprogramme was developed and delivered in
partnership with Scotland's Drugs Action
Team network that then helped to facilitate
future work. The evaluators concluded that
in many cases the legacy was likely to be a
more integrated approach to project
development, with some stakeholders
believing that mainstreaming the ethos of
Better Off was more important than the
survival of individual projects.Time is needed to build partnerships and
the CALL programmes produced some of
the most successful partnerships because
they were allowed to develop through
negotiation before the partnership
structure was finalised. Partnerships
created in haste can be vulnerable, as
shown by those developed in the AYP
programme in England and the newly
created Connexions service. Where new
services are still negotiating their
relationships with partners or where groups
feel pressurised into working with
organisations not of their own choosing,
with different objectives and cultures,
there is the potential threat to sustainability
from a real or perceived lack of ownership.
A related issue is the incompatibility of
funding cycles, where differences in the
length of funding between partners makes
it difficult to achieve shared buy-in to
sustainability.
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Although clubs provided part-time care,
they relied on a majority of parents paying
full fees or they would need another source
of income. In deprived locations, as in rural
areas, there was a high dependency ongrants and time-limited public funding,
which meant that sustainability was
defined almost solely in terms of the ability
to attract continuation funding.
Location was not the only challenge to
developing partnership working. One of the
biggest threats was the almost continuous
re-structuring and re-alignment of
services in some sectors. This impacted on
a personal level, where individuals wereuncertain about their agencies' future, but
also on the willingness and ability of
agencies to commit to and sustain
partnerships. Programmes within the
health sector particularly, such as HLCs and
Living with Cancer, experienced and were
affected by these issues.
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Supporting sustainability
As well as identifying the factors that
appear to influence early indicators of
sustainability, the research also explored
the contribution that BIG could make, as a
funder, to support sustainability. To answerthis question, the researchers drew on the
approaches taken by BIG to date and also
the experience of other funders.
It is important to recognise that many of
the challenges and barriers to sustainability
are beyond the direct influence of BIG (and
other funders), including project capacity
and capabilities and the sector of
recipients. In addition, the range of
programmes and grant holders supportedby BIG makes generalisation across
approaches difficult. However some
common themes emerged from the
analysis of approaches that BIG has taken
to date:
Projects were considered to be aware of
the importance of the requirement to
be sustainable, although there could be
a lack of clarity in terms of their rolesand responsibilities.
There was not one consistent approach
followed by BIG and there were
differences between programmes and
countries.
BIG's approach to sustainability
sometimes lacked clarity but developed
over time. In most cases, approaches
were developed in response to need orwhere resources permitted.
Although sustainability is rarely, if ever, in
the gift of any one agency1, there are clear
opportunities for BIG to influence the
potential for sustainability to be achieved.
A range of approaches (not exhaustive)that BIG has taken to date is discussed
below, alongside examples from other
funders. They are presented in six broad
categories of supporting sustainability:
G a focused approach to planning
G support to grantees
G time for sustainability
G balanced approach to riskG rigorous approach to measuring change
G choosing the right indicators.
1Leat, D and Kumar, S (2006) Investing in our programmes -maximising the impact of grant making. London: Big Lottery Fund
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A focused approach to planningPlanning is an important factor in terms of
influencing sustainability and BIG has
supported this by adopting a planning
approach in three phases: initial awarenessraising, encouragement of project planning
and continued reinforcement of the
importance of sustainability.
Initial awareness raising was undertaken at
the outset of programmes, to
communicate sustainability requirements.
This process took several forms, starting
with reference to sustainability in
programme materials, for example
application forms and guidance notes, and
in workshops to potential applicants. In
some programmes, it also formed part of
the application process, where potential
sustainability routes or initial sustainability
plans were required. In the CALL
programmes, for example, applicants were
required to describe their potential future
funding options, and the training needed to
support continued delivery.
Whilst raising awareness of sustainability at
the outset, for example at the application
stage, was important, it was also
recognised that too much 'crystal ball
gazing' at such an early stage can annoyprojects. Where sustainability issues had
been raised early on, it was felt that
following up on these issues during project
delivery and reinforcing key messages
about considering sustainability was
essential. Sustainability plans are a common
way of achieving this and most
programmes required the production of
such plans. Sustainability plans were varied
in content and coverage and the examplebelow from the AYP programme in
Northern Ireland illustrates the breadth of
sustainable benefits that could be
considered.
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Sustainability Plans AYP in Northern Ireland
In the AYP programme in Northern Ireland, a term was included in the grant conditions
that required the submission of a detailed sustainability plan halfway through the
funding period (i.e. 18 months into the three years of funding). The sustainability plans
were based around addressing the following questions:
What are the projects' plans/strategies for sustainability? with a detailed
description being requested. If projects had no plan in place, they were asked to
explain why, and what the barriers were to developing one.
What local, regional and national strategic plans have projects been incorporated into?
What links have projects established between other agencies? which provided
some surprising answers, in terms of the number of projects where no such links had
been made.
To what extent has the local community been involved in project design and
delivery? and if this involvement had promoted ownership and support.
What are the projects' evaluation plans? to provide evidence to support the
projects' cases for sustainability.
What training have project staff, volunteers or beneficiaries received? to identify
what would be retained following the funding period, and how these skills could be
used in the future.
If projects are unsuccessful in their efforts to sustain themselves, what are their
plans (if any) for wind-down/exit strategies?
What lessons have been learnt by the projects? from programme-focused lessons
to wider learning to inform the 'body of knowledge' on effective interventions for
young people.
Although follow-up work to assess the extent to which sustainability is achieved under
BIG has been limited, the AYP programme in Northern Ireland used programme under-
spend to undertake research beyond the funding period. Although still in draft form, theemerging study findings suggest that projects had achieved/made good progress
towards achieving sustainability, either by securing funding for continuation, by
absorption into statutory sector activities or more general mainstreaming effects.
Supporting sustainability
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The timing of the requirement for
sustainability plans varied from the
application stage to the last year of
funding. However, staff considered that the
best approach was to request an outline ofpotential sustainability routes at the
application stage, followed by a more
detailed plan in the penultimate year of
funding. It was also recognised that
support was often needed to produce the
plans and report on progress. Skills such as
business planning, financial analysis,
evaluation and communication alongside
the ability to engage with potential funders
and influencers were considered to beessential and there was variation between
projects' skill bases. A further consideration
was the sector of the recipient, with the
statutory sector described as being less
used to identifying, competing for and
reporting on funding an area in which the
voluntary sector excels.
In terms of continuing to reinforce the
messages around sustainability throughout
the life of projects, two activities in
particular were seen as key. Both
programme monitoring and networkinghave a crucial role to play. The inclusion of
sustainability in monitoring processes such
as annual reports and visits both reinforced
its importance and allowed projects to
report on progress. The CALL programmes
took this approach further by providing a
series of seminars for projects, which
included how to report on sustainability,
and the importance of celebrating success
to support mainstreaming efforts. Inaddition, programme underspend was used
to fund capacity development activities for
grant holders, which also influenced their
ability to find effective ways of continuing
their work.
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Supporting sustainability
Staging networking events for projects,
which allowed the exchange of experience
and practice within programme areas, was
also important in reinforcing sustainability.
Although not employed by all programmes,these events were considered to be helpful
in identifying areas of difficulty and
providing appropriate support, as well as
exchanging good practice and effective
engagement practices. In some cases,
these events would include representatives
of the programme sector, to keep them
informed of projects' progress as well as
facilitating potentially useful links. In
Northern Ireland, for example, programmemanagers and policy advisers also attended
'funders' forums', as an opportunity to
inform and influence the influencers as
well as inform them of the findings from
project and programme evaluations.
Other organisations also recognise the
importance of planning, among them the
National Council of Voluntary Organisations
(NCVO). NCVO believes that planning is the
key to sustainability and as a result has
developed planning and development tools
to support this. The organisation has
already received three year funding from
BIG to develop the infrastructure of
voluntary organisations. During the period
of the grant NCVO ran many workshops
around the UK. Should future funding
become available, the intention is to
concentrate more on providing training for
umbrella bodies and extend work on the
development and implementation of
outcome monitoring.
Support to granteesClear opportunities exist to provide
grantees with additional support beyond
that of the grant award. For BIG this has
taken many forms including financialsupport, as in the implementation of full
cost recovery, which means securing
funding for or 'recovering' all an
organisation's costs, including the direct
costs of projects and all overheads relating
to those projects. A more common
approach has been to focus on capacity and
skill development, as noted in the above
example from the CALL programmes,
where capacity development was providedto grant holders. But the most intensive
support was provided through the
Development and Support Contract for
HLCs. Funded through programme
contingency monies, the contract was
designed to respond to the complexities of
promoting the continuation of HLC projects.
Around 75 per cent of HLCs received
support through the contract, the main
elements of which are summarised on thenext page.
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Healthy Living Centre Development and Support ContractThe contract had a number of stages and started with a scoping exercise to analyse
the characteristics of the programme and its sustainability requirements. Following this
four main 'sustainability options' were developed, namely:
Closure with an exit strategy to manage project close-down.
Becoming fully fledged social enterprises i.e. generating continuation
funding themselves.
Contracting with the statutory sector i.e. continuing delivery as providers to the sector.
Being fully mainstreamed into the statutory sector.
Projects then selected the option that was most appropriate for their particular
circumstances, with the sector of the grant holder being an influence but flexibility
encouraged. Although these were the four main options, other possibilities were alsoconsidered including hybrids and combinations of the options. It should also be noted
that the options could apply to projects as whole or elements of them.
Following the selection of options a series of initial workshops were held, featuring
regional networks of HLCs and facilitated by regional staff and health professionals. The
workshops aimed to get projects to consider possible sustainability options, and
featured projects undertaking SWOT analyses, using tools to map themselves against
the four options, and identifying any service gaps. Following the initial events, a series
of more specific workshops were held on each of the potential options, with each being
explored in detail.
The support programme also featured a Pathfinder element, where 15 HLCs received
around 20 days consultancy support to develop their approaches to sustainability.
The findings from the Pathfinders' experiences were shared across the programme, as
well as providing learning points for BIG itself. The programme also featured an 'early
finishers' exercise, to provide support to projects who completed early.
A number of additional steps to promote sustainability were also delivered, including a
newsletter, a website providing information and links to other sites and a search
function to identify projects.
The support programme was considered to be effective, based on the fact that it was
well received by projects and helped to build capacity within them. However, it remains
too early to assess the actual impact in terms of sustainability achieved.
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Supporting sustainability
It should be noted that this type of contract
would not be appropriate for all programme
areas and can be particularly resource-
intensive in terms of consultancy costs, BIG
staff time and project involvement.Other organisations have adopted similar
approaches by providing support to grantees.
The Children's Board of Hillsborough County
in the USA is one example. Funded via a
property tax, the Board currently funds
150 projects undertaking preventative
work with families and children from pre-
natal through to eight year olds. The Board
supports its grantees in moving to a
position of ownership of their projects,helping them operate more effectively and
guiding them in evaluation and choosing
appropriate tools to measure hard and soft
outcomes. Training for grantees is provided
through the Sustainability Training Institute
and is based on individual needs and
priorities. It includes role-play, facilitating
mock sustainability planning processes and
help with developing and implementing
long-term sustainability plans.
The Impetus Trust set up by venture capitalists
is based on the idea of venture philanthropy
in the UK. It seeks to use the investment
principles and management tools of venture
capital, including high levels of engagement
between the funder and the funded over an
extended period, to support voluntary
organisations through a step change. The
Trust offers an integrated package ofinfrastructure finance, ongoing support to
management, and targeted capacity
building to support the organisations
through change and on to sustainability.
This means that it only invests in a charity
after an intensive analysis of all aspects of
the organisation, including strategic and
business planning, the calibre of senior
management, operating systems andmarket strength. The relationship lasts for
three to five years and involves regular
review of agreed milestones, ongoing
support to the CEO and a leveraging of the
Trust's resources and contacts.
Another approach to providing support to
grantees was examined through the work of
the Sustainable Funding Project, operated by
the NCVO. The project has been established
to encourage and enable voluntary andcommunity organisations explore and
exploit a full range of funding options, as
well as to develop a sustainable funding
mix. The emphasis is on supporting the
move away from grant dependency,
towards becoming more business like,
capable of earning income, developing an
asset base and considering loan finance.
NCVO accepts that the message about
charging for services and/or operating as a
business can be difficult for organisations
used to operating in the not-for-profit
sector. In this respect NCVO has
sometimes found trustees to be the
stumbling block, both in terms of being
risk-averse and in adopting a cautious
attitude to their roles and responsibilities.
But where trustees have brought skills and
attitudes from business NCVO has often
found that they have been the catalyst for
action, although NCVO recognises that it is
hard for smaller voluntary organisations to
attract trustees with this experience.
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Time for sustainabilityThe venture capitalist approach discussed
above recognises the role that time can
play in supporting sustainability as it is
based, amongst other things, on engagementbetween the funder and funded organisation
over an extended period of time. An
independent fundraiser also felt that time
was a critical factor for small community
development projects. She argued that the
primary concern for these projects is the
need to obtain further funding and that as
they are usually located in areas that face a
range of existing challenges, it is likely to
take up to 10 years for projects to sustainthemselves, much longer than the typical
three years' worth of start-up funding.
Achieving an independent income is a
challenge for many projects, especially for
those located in deprived or rural locations
(see above). The tendency is to rely on
time-limited grant funding and this can
create problems, given that many funders
want to fund new and innovative projects
and do not want to fund the continuation ofexisting services or activities.
An organisation that has developed these
ideas is the Carnegie UK Trust. The Trust
has operated in the UK and Eire for around
90 years and provides grant funding of
1 million per year. About five years ago,
there were a number of concerns about the
applications the Trust were receiving,
including the numbers of requests from
projects that had previously had short-
term funding and the increasing numbers
relating to policy areas that would have
been statutory responsibilities, such as
health and education.
As a result, the Trust adopted a radically
different approach. The Carnegie Commission
was set up and one of its key findings was
the importance of linking in with local
planning mechanisms to ensure fit withlocal priorities, strategies and agreements.
There was also concern about the damage
caused by short-term funding that often
meant, in the Trust's view, that little was
achieved from the investment made:
You can encourage a thousand flowers to
bloom by scattering a little bit of money
everywhere. However once you move on
to your next batch of activities those
flowers have nothing left. And there is littleor no evidence of impact.
The Carnegie UK Trust now concentrates its
rural programme on commissioning work
designed to influence public policy and
deliver long-term sustainable change. The
Trust will not support an initiative for less
than 10 years and will usually fund for 15.
These changes have been accompanied by
a shift to a 'creative philanthropy' modelwith closer engagement between funder
and grantee. Once a project is approved, it
is regarded as the start of a relationship
with that organisation, one where they can
expect to receive a great deal of support
and advice.
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Supporting sustainability
Balanced approach to riskFunders use different approaches to
manage the risk of investment in relation to
sustainability. The Heritage Lottery Fund
(HLF) for example, follows an approachbased on the sector and size of the
recipient. HLF was set up to give grants to a
wide range of projects involving the local,
regional and national heritage of the UK. It
distributes a share of the money raised by
the National Lottery for Good Causes and
has awarded 3 billion to more than
15,000 projects since 1994.
Grants made by the HLF can be divided into
three groups with different challenges and
risks in relation to sustainability. Grants
made to local authorities were seen to carry
the least risk, partly due to the conditions
imposed by HLF. For example, when funding
public parks, HLF required local authorities to
provide enhanced maintenance contributions
for a ten-year period after the grant ended,
thus ensuring the investment had in-built
sustainability. Although the risk remained that
the commitment could lapse, the lever of
future applications to HLF remained (local
authorities wanting to apply again will not
want to be seen to be defaulting on a pledge)
and HLF also established a monitoring
system to check on compliance after one,
five and 10 years.
When making capital grants to charities and
trusts, HLF will usually also invest in an
associated business proposition, such as a
shop or other facility. Although this should
enhance sustainability, HLF recognised thatsustainability could be more of a challenge
for smaller bodies than for large charities.
The third group of grants were those to
small groups and these were seen as the
riskiest in relation to sustainability, especially
as they were often given for a one-off
activity or event. Here the funding decision
had to be based on a judgement that there
were benefits to others beyond the
immediate recipients. Only in cases whereactivities potentially had an element of
sustainability did HLF expect the issue to be
addressed. For example, a local history project
had to explain where its findings would be
lodged and if they had agreed an appropriate
format to ensure their future use.
The Baring Foundation adopts a proportionality
approach in terms of sustainability based
on the size of its grants. The Foundation
was established in 1969 and gives around
3 million per annum in capacity building
grants. For small grants of 10,000, a
limited emphasis is placed on exit strategies
but for larger amounts, (of 50,000 to
250,000) that form the majority of grants,
more attention is paid to sustainability. In
general, however, considerable emphasis
appears to be placed on capitalising on the
knowledge gained from individual grant
investments, for example by hosting seminars
where grant recipients provide feedback to
a wider audience.
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The Scottish Community Foundation (SCF)
adopts a similar proportionality approach
but focuses on the organisation that will
receive funding rather than the project
itself. In its small grants programmeproviding grants of up to 5,000, the SCF
aims to ensure that the recipient organisation
will be stable for the period of funding and
able to deliver the agreed output. When
asked to contribute towards something more
durable such as renovation or consultancy
costs, it seeks to establish whether the
recipient has a sustainable future.
One organisation that uses an approach of
risk taking in order to innovate, push atboundaries and agitate for change is the
Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF). JRF
targets its funds to build evidence needed to
initiate change, and has a strong reputation
for conducting research that is
disseminated widely, targeting influencers
in a position to bring about change. The
Foundation also has an operational arm, the
Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust, allowing
research and practice to be combined in an
attempt to demonstrate new approaches in
housing and social care. The research it
funds is regarded as a tool to influence
policy and practice, and support sustainable
change. Sometimes the JRF identifies an
ongoing issue and commissions research to
explore and understand it further. At other
times it takes a question or challenge and
works backwards. For example, it has
currently identified what it will take to end
child poverty.
Rigorous approach to measuringchangeThe ability to measure change to evidence
effectiveness was identified above as a
factor that can influence sustainability.Some organisations have developed their
approaches to sustainability around this
issue. One of the more rigorous approaches
is followed by the Juvenile Welfare Board
(JWB) in the USA. The Board has a budget
of $50 million raised from a property tax
and supports 100 agencies engaged in
prevention and early intervention work
with children and young people. It has clear