Open Members’ Meeting | Collaboration in Grantmaking | 25 March 2025
On 25 March, Scottish Grantmakers hosted its first Open Members’ Meeting of the year. The theme of the meeting was ‘Collaboration in Grantmaking’. Collaboration has emerged as a common theme for grantmakers in recent months. SGM Members noted the increased pressures on both applicants and decision makers, as well as the finite resources, both financial and administrative, available to ensure positive outcomes.
Present:
Tom Baughan, Corra Foundation
Laura Bertie, The Northwood Charitable Trust
Matthew Bruce, SGM Assistant Co-ordinator | The WS Society
Anthony Cox, The Christina Mary Hendrie Charitable Trust
Brynley Davies, The William Syson Foundation
Jo Elliot, SGM Trustee | Binks Trust
Nicholas Ferguson CBE, SGM Trustee | The Kilfinan Trust
Hannah Garrow, The Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland
Steven Greig, The Gannochy Trust
Emma Maher, Artemis Charitable Foundation
Panel:
Tom Baughan, Panel Chair | SGM Trustee | Corra Foundation
Brynley Davies, The William Syson Foundation
Steven Greig, The Gannochy Trust
Mhairi Reid, The William Grant Foundation
Clare McNally, Hillcrest Foundation
Sophie Mills WS, SGM Co-ordinator | The WS Society
Calum Mitchell, The Fyrish Foundation CIO
Stewart Murdoch, The Alexander Moncur Trust
Morgag Neville, The Northwood Charitable Trust
Mary Porter, KPE4
Mhairi Reid, The William Grant Foundation
Fiona Russell, The Gannochy Trust
David Sinclair, The National Lottery Community Fund
Claire Stone, The Newark Trust
Blair Thomson, SGM Trustee | The Northwood Charitable Trust
Ailsa Watson, Future Woodlands Scotland
Karen Wright, Fife Health Charity / NHS Fife
A recording of the panel discussion is available below:
Steven Greig - The Gannochy Trust
Steven opened the meeting with a presentation on The Gannochy Trust’s third sector youth work. For decades, Perth and Kinross Council and The Gannochy Trust have been key local funders for third sector youth work agencies. Youth work agencies were competitors for the same funding. Organisations were facing:
Short term funding
Multiple applications
Multiple reporting formats
Limited incentive for organisations to plan with each other
Short term staffing contracts
Hand to mouth existence was a threat to sustainability
Little collaboration
At the same time membership of youth groups in Perth and Kinross was facing a steady decline. To break the cycle, The Gannochy Trust and Perth and Kinross Council formed a partnership in 2018 to combine existing funding to offer third sector youth work providers five-year contracts across each of the five localities of Perth and Kinross. The intention was that The Gannochy Trust would achieve some collaboration that would deliver more than the sum of its parts.
The Gannochy trust has prioritised working with beneficiaries to improve the way funds are used by building trusted relationships, allowing organisations time to develop, sharing resources, staff and training, securing funding from multiple sources. This has led to local youth clubs doubling the area they cover, increasing their staff and volunteers, doubling the number of young people supported in the area and supporting the wider third sector.
Steven reflected on the positive impact collaboration has had on the youth work sector in Perth and Kinross, with it bringing about greater knowledge, shared skills and resources and access to additional funding that would not otherwise exist. From a steady decline, the membership of youth clubs had soared to double its previous high in 2006.
A key take away was that the amount of funding had not changed in six years. Growth was the result of funding security that built relationships, trust and enabled collaboration.
The University of Dundee has evaluated The Gannochy Trust’s collaborative approach and concluded that:
“The culture has changed from competition to collaboration, support and encouragement, underpinned by a can-do attitude. Membership has provided stability, enabling a focus on delivering quality provision rather than on survival.”
Brynley Davies - The William Syson Foundation
Brynley began by explaining the work of the William Syson Foundation. With a £13 million endowment, it provides £500,000 of grants per year for the arts. Brynley presented a current pilot project being undertaken by the Foundation to increase the number of school visits to Scottish galleries which resulted from dialogue with galleries themselves. The Foundation is working with Aberdeen City Gallery, the National Galleries in Edinburgh and the Kelvingrove Gallery in Glasgow.
£25,000 has been awarded to each gallery as part of the pilot. Galleries are sharing data amongst themselves and the Foundation is promoting the work of freelance educators, coach hire and staffing, with the aim of reducing the administrative burden on art teachers.
The project has the potential reach thousands of pupils in Scotland and the Foundation wants to engage with more funders to ensure the project is able to reach as many pupils as possible.
Brynley considered the tools available to funders to begin collaboration:
Networks such as SCVO, Scottish Grantmakers’ events and the annual Gathering.
Funders Hub
The Art Funders Group
Individual organisations with a shared interest
360 Giving
Collaboration using existing networks has the benefit of widening impact and ensuring the focus of funding activities remains on supporting recipients.
Mhairi Reid - The William Grant Foundation
Mhairi outlined the William Grant Foundation’s proactive management of its funds, with the aim of investing £4 million per year in Scotland, with a broad range of themes and causes supported. Mhairi considered collaboration to be a very good thing with it underpinning the work of the Foundation.
As a relatively new grantmaking organisation, Mhairi presented the methods used to enable collaboration:
‘Piggybacking’ on the learning of others
Open and ongoing dialogue with other grantmakers
Reaching out for support or to ask questions
‘Re-granting’ to other specialist funders to ensure awards are made with the correct level of expertise. 17% of the Foundation’s funds are spent by others
If expertise is required work with those involved in a target area
Mhairi reflected on positive and well established collaborative funds already in operation. One being Corra’s Human Rights Fund which has allowed for broader impact and learning for the William Grant Foundation with reduced costs. The Regenerative Futures Fund has also allowed for ‘riskier’ work to be taken on. Sharing burdens has been a very positive outcome for the grantmakers involved as well as allowing funds to reach smaller, unconstituted groups.
Members’ Discussion
Following diverse panel contributions, Members had a wide-ranging discussion on collaboration - with contacts even being exchanged with the hope of working together! It was agreed that all parties needed to be on the same page and to ensure that a clear goal was set for multiple parties to reach. Funders should be aware of the strategic needs of organisations and be willing to be flexible with time and resources.
It was noted that collaboration does not need to be an onerous or expensive undertaking, with good collaborative work being carried out over email, Zoom or Teams.