There are over 24,000 registered charities in Scotland. All of them making a positive difference in local communities. Fundraisers play the crucial role of ensuring charities can raise funds to carry on with their excellent work.

What makes a good grant application?

Charity fundraisers often ask me ‘what makes a good grant application’. During these challenging times, the stakes are high, and competition for funding is fierce. The grants committee will often be considering dozens of applications, so my advice is:

• • Keep it Clear, Simple, and Concise
  • Don’t ‘Pad Out’ your application with jargon and text you pasted from your annual report
  • Provide insight on what you will achieve if your charity receives a grant
  • Ask for a specific award amount

Keep it Local

Always provide local impact stories from user groups involved with your charity. Trustees like to hear about what is happening locally, and the criteria for Merchants House requires that charities operate within Glasgow and the West of Scotland. See our grants page for the map.

Real People, Real Stories

There’s nothing better than to hear the real stories about real people. We received an application recently from a charity based in the East End of Glasgow. Urban Fox was able to use the power of telling the real stories of the challenges facing their local community, and they supplied a specific amount that they required to carry out their charitable work.

The lesson here is- always be clear on what you are looking for, provide the award amount. Check out our website for the grant stories and the awards Merchants House have made in previous years.

Measuring Your Impact

Measuring a charities impact after an award has been spent is an important part of a grant-giving charity’s work. Trustees want to ensure your grant has made an impact and being able to communicate this to Trustees will help if you want to submit an application for funding in subsequent years. Check out our frequently asked questions to find out about how often you can apply.

Apply Online

Applying to Merchants House for a grant is a straightforward process. The form is available online. All you need to do is fill in the form with some background to your charity and answer some questions about your project and what the costs are.

• Remember to attach your latest audited accounts and bank statement.
• The form will tell you how many characters you have available to input at each section.
• After you have submitted the form, click on send, and we will send you an acknowledgement and a timescale for us responding with an award decision.

Promoting Your Award

When we award grant funding, we provide a draft press release and a social media pack. This will support you in raising awareness of both the good work of your own charity and the work being done by The Merchants House.

Keep up to date with all Merchants House news, events, and charitable work by following us on Twitter @TheMerchantsHse or connecting on LinkedIn