Funding

I have always been aware one of the most difficult tasks in this feasibility study will be coming up with a model of funding to support and sustain our new organisation. As I've already mentioned, in the very best case scenario, we'll still be operating on a much smaller budget than our American cousins, who have a full office of staff and four houses in four different cities.

Two days ago I met with Rashid Iqbal of The Children's Society, who advised me on a number of funding-related issues, drawing on his organisation's own experience.

• We're taking an organisational concept from the US but funding markets and therefore models are different. We'll have to explore what translates and what doesn't.
• Sustainability and scalability are often used as benchmarks for projects, but the key is to find a funding model which is adaptable enough to allow the organisation to maintain its essential mission while bringing in enough money as existing grants expire and need replacing.
• We need to be able to articulate our core mission in different - but honest - ways, so as to appeal to funders and their priorities. For example, AVODAH USA seem to put a large emphasis on the impact of their program on the individual participant, but many donors, particularly in the wider (i.e. non-Jewish) social action sector may well be resistant to investing in individuals rather than directly in social issues. In the case of Jewish funding organisations, the impact on the participant and their lifelong commitment to social action in a Jewish framework may attract strong interest, but it will be important we can also emphasise the direct impact on poverty when necessary.
• Articulating the programme's impact on social issues and poverty might be challenging. How will be able to evaluate and quantify this, when effectively we are providing existing projects and organisations with a worker for a year? If the placement organisations pay something (but not as much as a full worker's salary) for their AVODAH corps members, would they have hired someone else had the placement partnership not taken place? (We certainly wouldn't want incumbent staff to feel we're about to take their jobs.)
• To help us fundraise, we'll need to design our evaluation systems so they return quick results as well as long-term indicators (e.g. one year in plus). Presumably we'll be fund-raising for the next annual cycle just a couple of months into the first cohort's year. It will be important to point at evidence that the programme is starting to achieve what we claim it will.
• The 'Big Society', including initiatives like London Citizens, is big news at the moment, and our funding efforts may well be aided if we can frame our work in terms of community organising and the benefits to the wider society. The connections are there and I'll be meeting with representatives of London Citizens in the next few weeks.
• It may also help to ring-fence funding. For example, some funders might be willing to fund evaluation but not the project itself.
• We also might fundraise to give each participant a personal social action seed-fund, to invest directly in a social action cause or project around their placement, thereby generating more evidencible impact.
• AVODAH US have been going for 12 years, building up and investing in a strong alumni network, especially through the Pursue program. While we'll necessarily concentrate on existing corps members at first, we'll want to harness our alumni network as we move forward. Should we be instilling a sense of responsibility not only to social justice in general but also to the AVODAH programme that provided them with the experience?
• The Charity Commission has said government spending cuts will hit charities hard, costing them billions of pounds. Will potential placements and funders be reluctant to invest in our programme by the time we come round to setting it up? This feasibility study must involve a fair amount of risk assessment around the political and economic climate and the organisation's contextual environment.