ICT Management > Managing ICT Projects

Project Management - Funding applications

By Lasa Information Systems Team

The documentation you have created in planning your project can also be very useful when it comes to applying for funding.

The typical pattern of project development in voluntary organisations goes something like this: an idea for a new project emerges and a funding bid is made. There is then a long pause, and if funding is approved the project goes ahead.

How does the process of making a funding application fit in with effective project initiation? In most cases the funding application doesn’t so much fit in as take over.

The process of writing a successful funding application is time consuming, absorbing so much effort that it can easily become a substitute for explicit Project Definition.

Doing a funding application isn’t the same as defining the project. Being successful with an application involves pressing the funders’ buttons: meeting their priorities, a hard enough process in its own right, and not the same as defining a project in its own terms. The application form will emphasise the elements of the project that meet the funder’s priorities: completing it involves playing up the organisations strengths and downplaying weaknesses.

In contrast, a Project Definition will take a more dispassionate view of the business case, and highlight difficulties and areas of weakness in order to deal with them.

If all the work goes into the application form and the application is unsuccessful, then the organisation is left with nothing but the unsuccessful form. This can be used as the basis for another application but priorities differ and so it may not be very useful.

A better approach is to use project management techniques to help with the funding applications. A Project Brief can be used to prepare the ground for a funding application. The template will act as a checklist for all the issues to be considered, and can provide the basis of an agenda to discuss the application. This discussion should lead to clear consensus on the nature of the project, and will tease out the detail that will provide the basis of the application.

The Project Initiation Document template includes a number of headings in the Business Case that reflect the questions on the current Community Fund application form. This approach to funding application brings a major benefit: the project will be defined in its own terms not just within the framework set by the funder’s application form. If the application is unsuccessful then the basis for other applications is in place. If the application does succeed, then the process of project initiation can get off to a flying start.

Project definition will still need to take place once a funder has given approval. The first task of staff appointed to a newly funded project will be to revisit an initial Project Brief that was done at the time of a funding application and rework it in more detail, looking hard at the assumptions that were made at the time of the original application. Circumstances may have changed, and the business case will still have to be made.

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