Funding and Costs

"Funding is a juggling act. A lot of it's short term and you have to try and get money from all sorts of different places just to get by". Manager, supported housing & resettlement service

A large number of agencies that we talked to spoke of a struggle not just to access funding, but to make it stretch enough to cover costs. Many suggested that their costs were higher than equivalent urban-based agencies due to higher transport costs, especially for floating support and outeach or mobile services that cover large geographical areas. In addition to transport costs, such services also restrict the number of appointments or support sessions that a worker can undertake due to the time taken to travel between them. Such costs might be more easily absorbed by larger organisations working across large areas, but for small service providers it can be a huge issue.

Some funding takes into account the higher costs that might be incurred through being based in rural areas, and full-cost-recovery commissioning of services helps in allowing smaller organisations to compete against others with lower overheads, but accessing additional funding or reducing costs is still a high priority.

Local authorities in some areas can be quite supportive of rural agencies with, for example, 2nd Home Council Tax receipts in some areas including parts of Devon and Norfolk being used to fund homelessness services and affordable housing schemes, and a number of councils provide free or subsidised training for support staff and have funded regional outcomes pilots. The move towards Local Area Agreements in many regions can also provide an opportunity to access funding for services relating to local targets. For example, Young Devon have funded posts via an LAA to reduce youth homelessness.

Exploring funding sources can be expensive in itself, and time-consuming, and for smaller organisations it is not practical or affordable to employ a fundraiser, but a number of agencies have sought to utilise the skills of volunteers to research prospective funding streams such as charitable organisations and capacity-building grants, as well as direct donations.

Other agencies have looked at utilising existing resources to generate funds that can be fed back into their services. These include renting out meeting rooms to other local organisations, a cafe or internet room that is open to the public, or some other social enterprise that can involve service users. For instance, People Off The Streets, based on the Isle of Wight, runs a charity shop at which ex- and current service users provide voluntary assistance, and this not only provides much-needed revenue but also gives the organisation a tangible presence in and support from the local community. It can also be very fruitful to resarch available free resources or funding that can sometimes be available to charitable or not-for-profit organisations. For example, there is a great deal of affordable or free ICT support, information, training and equipment o offer from a range of ICT organisations. Further information can be found here. Another good example is CRASH who give practical, professional constuction and property support to agencies working with vulnerable people, in order to improve the physical environment within which support services are provided.

The short-term nature of much of the funding available for charitable and voluntary services means that it is always important to look at ways of reducing costs as well as accessing revenue. For organisations working over a large geographical area, remote working can be a useful way to reduce transport costs, with workers covering and based in smaller areas and not necessarily in a head office. This type of working arrangement can be facilitated, as is the case with Yound Devon, by using an online intranet that enables workers to access emails and update client information remotely. Another alternative is to hold regular drop-in or outreach sessions in certain areas to reduce travel costs that would be incurred arranging a number of individual appointments. Partnership working can be especially useful in reducing costs and will be explored in more detail elsewhere. For instance, joint-bidding for services spreads costs, and having an extended network of other local agencies can provide you with venues for drop-in sessions or meetings and give you a range of referral routes for clients who may not be suitable for your won services.