A current retained client
Three risks caught before this charity submitted
A UK charity with a small team carrying the funding pipeline alongside the delivery sent us what they had already written. Three risks came back before any of it was submitted. Here is each one, and how you check it with them.
The client has agreed to take a reference call.
What did reading their papers catch?
Two of the three findings were money, and the third was a security problem.
- £822
- gap between one bid's ask and its own budget table, caught before it went in
- about £2,500
- of overheads one application was leaving unrecovered, found and priced
- 6
- questions handed back because only their trustees could answer them
An £822 gap inside one application
One charity's narrative asked for one total, and their own budget table in the same document added up to a different one, £822 apart. One line in the table ("balance met by the charity") proved which was right. It was caught by adding every column up again, independently of the draft.
An overheads line worth about £2,500 to them
The overheads line is where the core costs of running the charity get into the bid. Theirs was set at 3.7 per cent of the budget, and on that one application the difference was about £2,500, money they were entitled to ask for and had left out.
A live login printed inside a PDF
A previous application they sent us for context had a funder portal login printed inside it. They were told the moment it was found.
Why did we tell them to ask for less?
Because the number they had in mind would have read as a risk. They wanted to increase their ask. The funder's own giving record showed that figure sat just below the largest single grant the funder had ever made, and around a fifth of what it gives away in a year.
They got three options with the reasoning and which one we'd choose. The decision stayed with them. Six other questions went back with the document, and they were with the trustees in time to act on them before the deadline.
Who pressed submit
The charity did, every time, because we hold none of their portal logins, and what the funder read was their application, in their name, checked before it went.
Can I check this with them?
Yes. They were our first client, they are still on a monthly retainer, and they have agreed to take reference calls, so ask when you enquire.
What they bought was a £5,000 engagement, and the retainer followed it. The same read of your papers is where a bid review starts, £400 to £750 for a charity's funding application and £550 to £950 for a tender response. If yours is a tender, the company page shows what the same check catches on a pricing schedule.
Get the same read on your bid
The same read starts with your papers, your deadline and whatever is drafted.