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As an organisation that strives to be learning-led, feedback from the people and organisations we work with is integral to us continuously improving the way we work. Given the historic power imbalance between funders and fundraising organisations, we know that feeding back to funders isn’t always an easy thing to do.
In line with our ambition to be power-aware, we have committed to offering our funded partners frequent, safe and confidential channels to share regular and candid feedback; this includes our work with Centre for Effective Philanthropy(opens in new window) on our latest Grantee Perception Survey.
In 2023 we asked the CEP to help us gather anonymised feedback from our funded partners so we can get a better sense of how organisations find working with Comic Relief. Over 300 Funded Partners were contacted, and around 70% responded. We have had some time to reflect on these and to progress some important steps we feel we need to take in order to improve. In this update, we’ll be sharing an overview of the feedback we received and how we’re responding to it.
An overview of findings
When compared to our last survey in 2021, ratings stayed steady in most areas. There were significant increases in ratings for a small handful of measures related to interactions between Comic Relief staff and funded partners (responsiveness, trust, and respect) and the helpfulness of the grant selection process. In a few areas our rating reduced. Below is an overview of what funded partners told us. If you would like to review some of these results in more detail, a version of the report is available here(opens in new window).
Key achievements
1. Improved Interactions with Funded Partners: Despite challenges, funded partners expressed an improved perception of Comic Relief’s responsiveness, trust, and respect in its interactions. This indicated a positive trend in communication and relationship-building efforts.
2. Stable Impact on Funded Partners: Funded partners’ perceptions of Comic Relief’s impact on their organisations remained solid and in line with previous years, reflecting a sustained positive influence. Funded partners highlighted Comic Relief’s role in providing stability, prestige, innovation, collaboration, and positive changes within their organisations.
3. Strategic Alignment and Large Grants: Comic Relief’s alignment with its new five-year strategy, focusing on poverty, injustice, and climate change, was well-communicated to a majority of the funded partners. Additionally, Comic Relief continues to provide large grants, with a high proportion of multi-year funding, meeting the funded partners’ desire for longer-term support.
Key areas for improvements
Enhancing Communication and Understanding: Despite some positive trends, funded partners expressed neutral perceptions towards Comic Relief’s strategic change. There were also ongoing challenges with communication clarity and understanding of Comic Relief’s goals and strategies, as well as the way in which their funding fits within our broader strategy. The survey also highlighted that funded partners felt we need to strengthen our understanding of their context and the issues that they face. We will continue to work on this, alongside our believe that our funded partners are the experts in their own communities and issues.
Streamlining Processes and Providing Support: Funded Partners still found Comic Relief’s reporting processes burdensome and inflexible, suggesting the need for streamlining and flexibility. Some funded partners felt we hadn’t sufficiently communicated with them about their outcomes at the start of their funding or involved them in evaluations. Moreover, while non-monetary support is provided, it is not fully meeting the funded partners’ needs.
Consistency and Engagement: Funded partners highlighted the importance of consistency in primary contacts (due to staff turnover) and deeper engagement with Comic Relief to build trust and mutual understanding. They expressed their interest in being involved in decision-making processes and in contributing to Comic Relief’s strategy.
Transparency: We found that funded partners felt there was a need to improve the transparency about our funding strategy, our selection process and timelines, as well as success rates of our funding.
Responding to what you told us
We know that listening to feedback means very little without action. We are committed to responding to what we have heard so that we can continuously improve our practice and enable the organisations we work with to focus on delivering their vital work. Here is an overview of some of the things we have already started to put in place following the findings of our 2023 CEP Perception Survey:
Reviewing and streamlining our reporting: After listening to feedback from our funded partners and after consulting with other funders, we have reviewed and revised all the report templates that we require funded partners to complete as part of their funding agreement with us. This includes the funding overview form, the annual report, the financial report and the final grant report templates. These new streamlined templates are available on our website. In addition, we have decided currently to discontinue 6 monthly reports (partners are currently only required to report in a phone or online call at the 6-month stage). The idea is that our new reporting formats are shorter and simpler, so that they are less time-consuming and complicated for funded partners to complete, and to avoid asking partners for information we do not use.
Ensuring continuity of portfolio managers and management processes: We recognise that the past years have been complicated as Comic Relief was undergoing internal changes, and ensuring the continuity of project management and administrative processes was a priority. We are pleased to report that over the past year, both Comic Relief and our funding team have stabilised, allowing us to offer funded partners greater consistency and reliability in our interactions, providing a consistent point of contact for funded partner inquiries and interactions, and continuity and support. We recently updated and launched our internal funding practice guidance which will provide increased consistency in the interactions, including project visits, that our funded partners have with us. We will continue to review and update this guidance so that our practice responds to ongoing learning and feedback.
Improving collaboration and communication about our strategy: To shift the power and involve people with lived experience in our funding processes, we have involved funded partners and fund reference groups to contribute to the design of our new funding calls. People with lived experience helped us define the key areas for funding, design the terms of reference, and participated in the applications shortlisting and decision-making of the applicants.
Offering flexible core funding: We’re really excited to now be offering flexible core funding – we define this as being funding that is designed to support the good work of organisations, not just projects. This funding has an agreed purpose, an agreed time period, an agreed specific geographic area if applicable, and beyond this the partner proposes how the funds are spent.
Improve how we communicate publicly about our funding: We are in the process of reviewing what we share about our funding on our website and look forward to being able to share more in 2025 so that we can be more transparent and informative. We are also working on an improved approach to how we articulate and track our impact and learning.
We’d like to sincerely thank all the funded partners who generously took the time to share their invaluable feedback with us. We look forward to providing further updates on how we will continue to improve our practice so that we can better serve the people and organisations we work with.
