We noticed that many charities we talk to don’t include technology costs when applying for grants, even though these costs are fully justifiable and essential for the charity to serve its cause.
There is no argument that technology saves your team time and makes them more efficient - whether it be a fundraising tool, a volunteer management system, or an expense payment solution like vHelp. We believe technology should always feature when completing a grant application, whether the application is for a grant to cover core costs or project-based costs.
Grant Application For Projects
When it comes to Project funding, most funders would accept the cost of a technology tool if the charity can clearly define the cost of this tool for the life of the project.
vHelp is a perfect example of a technology tool that can be easily incorporated into a project grant application. Let’s say a charity is applying for project funding and this project requires the support of volunteers and let’s assume the work involves approximately 120 shifts.
The charity can easily claim for both the value of volunteers’ expenses and the cost of vHelp to process the expenses for the 120 shifts.
The charity will need to provide retrospective evidence of the volunteers’ expenses which is easily done on vHelp by running a report on our dashboard filtering by a particular project and a period of time.
On the grant application, you should always describe the benefits of using the technology tool and if there are any cost savings, to continue with our vHelp example here are some benefits our charities would state in a grant application:
- Supporting diversity and inclusion – paying expenses promptly enables a more diverse pool of volunteers.
- Efficiency – reduced admin in processing expenses. The existing staff can manage the project efficiently. Check our case study to see how much admin time one of customer’s saved.
- Audit trail – digital audit trail of all expenses paid through the vHelp reporting dashboard.
Grant Applications for Core Costs
Core costs are slightly different. Core costs are generally the overhead costs of running an organisation, they may not produce a direct output, but they are essential in delivering charitable activities. Some technology costs come under core costs such as the cost of hosting and running a website, the annual software license fee for your volunteer management tool, HR and payroll systems and so on.
Most funders don’t accept grants for core costs; however, this is starting to change and funders are opening the door for some core costs. It’s important that funders are challenged on including core technology costs in grant applications to help encourage charities to adopt and utilise technology.
Technology used to be viewed as a luxury and the old ways of thinking such as ‘If we can do it manually, why do we need a system’ was the norm. Today, Technology is part of every aspect of life and as a charity serving a cause you need to push your funders to help you utilise technology and do your job more efficiently.
We have two questions that came to mind after writing this blog:
- Do you include some technology costs as part of your project grant funding?
- To help charities adopt technology and become more efficient, should more funders start funding technology core costs?
We would love to hear your thoughts