Big Lottery Fund

Becoming an intelligent funder

The scale of BIG’s funding puts us into a unique position to influence and learn from approaches to funding.

Intelligent funding means that we work with the sectors and groups we fund, as well as with other funders and policy-makers, to share best practice and learning in funding.

Read more about our approach to intelligent funding. 
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We also play a key role in the Intelligent Funding Forum.

Capacity building

We have carried out a set of studies in the area of capacity-building and are currently reviewing how we work with funding advisers in England. This work highlights the complexity of supporting the varied needs of a diverse sector – but also some of the responses that we have tested.

Replication and innovation

Our replication and innovation work allows us to explore new approaches to dealing with social problems and promoting good practice.

Making a lasting difference

We want to ensure that the benefits of the projects and programmes that we fund last beyond the lifetime of our funding.

Our earlier research on sustainability This is a short version of the Sustainability research report produced by GHK Consulting. It provides a summary of the factors that appear to influence the early indications o...
- 1,702KB discussed different interpretations of this idea.More recently we have investigated how to maximise and extend the benefit of our capital funding.

But to get there, we also need to be clear about the difference that we and the groups that we fund want to make. We do this by identifying outcomes and have recently completed a research project that helped us to improve our funding policy in this area This report explores applicants’ experience of applying to BIG using its SMART outcomes approach and makes recommendations based on the findings. - 491KB.

Fairness and equality

Fairness and equality are important for publicly accountable funders.

We have looked into how to ensure that our funding reaches and benefits people in rural areas. Our work in this area includes a recent study of rural isolation in England and Scotland, and an earlier review of the patterns of our funding particularly in rural Scotland.

Making sure that all groups in society benefit from our funding is also important, so we have also undertaken studies to support our commitment to equality.

Recent research

We carry out research and evaluation that helps us and others to adapt their funding processes or to explore specific areas of need. This includes work we do ourselves and collaboration with others. Current and recent studies include:

• a review of our approach to outsourcing grant-making
• getting groups ready to receive social investment
• an investigation of factors that will promote social investment
• risk in grant-making This discussion paper looks at the concept of risk. It considers how risk needs to handled in order to maximise its benefits, and how it applies to the Big Lottery Fund with i...
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• how we can best support collaboration and partnerships to deliver our projects
• the policy effect that BIG and its predecessor organisations have had on the voluntary and community sector

We have also published an overview of our learning to 2007.

Please contact us if you have any comments or questions.