The Oglesby Charitable Trust is an invitation-only funder. A small team with a focused approach, we want to ensure that we use our resources, and those of others, effectively. This is why we limit the time and energy spent on preparing applications to those most likely to be successful.
We find our grantees through our collective professional and personal networks. Each Trustee has an active role in one or more of our giving areas, and all those involved in decision-making have extensive experience of working with charitable and community organisations across our region.
We believe that how we give is as important as where, or how much is given. Therefore, we follow the 10 principles below:
- We support work that is well-planned, responds to need, and demonstrates impact;
- We often get closely involved in the work we support, which helps us understand the vision for the work, and the full potential for our role as funders;
- Our support is not solely financial – we offer connections, pro-bono advice and resources where possible and needed;
- We are willing to offer early support, helping test unproven approaches;
- We help with stop-gap funds, core funding, and overheads as well as new projects;
- We make multi-year commitments as well as one-off grants;
- We seek to create an open, honest and collaborative relationship with grantees – discussing challenges as well as successes;
- We try to ensure that our application, reporting and payment processes are flexible and purposeful, enabling organisations to focus on delivery rather than reporting and administration;
- We constantly learn from our grantees, and use impact and monitoring information to inform our future grant-making;
- We encourage collaboration, and for findings from effective initiatives to be shared with others delivering similar work.
