Application burden: how much does the funding system waste?

The debate in brief

Every UK funder has its own application form, its own eligibility criteria, its own monitoring framework, and its own reporting template. Charities applying for grants must learn each system from scratch, repackage the same work in different formats, and invest significant staff time in applications that overwhelmingly fail. The system as it stands is a transfer of administrative cost from funders to applicants, and the organisations least able to absorb that cost — small charities — are the ones most affected.

Quick takeaways

The arguments

The case for standardisation

The inefficiency of the current system is not a matter of opinion. Each funder requiring its own bespoke application form means that a charity applying to ten funders must complete ten different forms, each with its own word limits, question structures, budget templates, and supporting documentation requirements. The same information — organisational history, governance structure, financial health, project rationale — is reformatted repeatedly to satisfy different institutional preferences.

This is not cost-free. Lloyds Bank Foundation's research into small and medium-sized charities found that the application process itself is a significant barrier to accessing funding, with smaller organisations lacking the dedicated fundraising staff to navigate complex systems. The Foundation for Social Improvement (which closed in 2023, transferring its assets to NCVO) found that 78% of small charities identified the complexity of funding applications as a major barrier.

The cost of failure is where the waste compounds. If the average success rate for grant applications is between 10% and 30% — and ACF's Foundations in Focus 2025 report confirms that many funders are now receiving 50-60% more applications than in previous years — then the overwhelming majority of the work charities invest in applications produces nothing. That is staff time, consultant fees, and opportunity cost that could have been spent on delivery.

A common application form would not eliminate competition for funding, but it would dramatically reduce the per-application cost. Charities would complete core organisational information once and submit it to multiple funders, with supplementary questions where specific funders need additional detail. This model operates successfully in parts of the US philanthropic sector and has been piloted in limited form in the UK.

The case for bespoke applications

Funders are not all looking for the same thing. A community foundation making 5,000-pound grants to grassroots groups has fundamentally different information needs from a national foundation making 500,000-pound strategic investments. A common form risks being either too generic to be useful for large, complex grants or too burdensome for small, simple ones.

There is also a quality signal embedded in the application process. A charity that can articulate its theory of change, evidence base, and financial position clearly in response to a specific set of questions is demonstrating organisational capacity. Some funders argue that the application process itself is diagnostic — not a hoop to jump through but a genuine test of whether the organisation can deliver.

The accountability argument matters too. Funders have fiduciary duties to their own donors, endowments, or (in the case of government grants) the public. Requiring information in a specific format is not bureaucracy for its own sake; it is how funders satisfy their trustees and auditors that due diligence has been conducted. Standardisation could, paradoxically, reduce the quality of information funders receive if the common format does not match their specific risk assessment needs.

Open data as a middle path

360Giving has demonstrated that standardisation can work — but from the other end of the process. Since 2015, 360Giving has developed an open data standard for grant data, enabling funders to publish information about the grants they have made in a consistent, machine-readable format. As of 2025, over 320 funders have published data through 360Giving's GrantNav platform, covering more than 1 million grants worth over £300 billion.

This transparency has real practical value. Charities can use GrantNav to research which funders support work like theirs, what typical grant sizes look like, and whether a funder has previously funded in their area or theme. This reduces wasted applications by helping organisations identify where they are eligible before they invest time in applying.

But 360Giving standardises data after the award, not before it. The application process itself remains fragmented. The logical next step — a shared application infrastructure that uses 360Giving's data standards to pre-populate organisational information and reduce duplication — has been discussed but not implemented at scale.

The evidence

The scale of wasted effort is significant. Research by the Lloyds Bank Foundation found that small and medium-sized charities (income between 25,000 and 1 million pounds) spend a disproportionate share of their resources on fundraising administration. For charities with income under 100,000 pounds, the cost of preparing a single major grant application can represent several percentage points of total annual income — money effectively gambled on a process with a 70-90% failure rate.

NCVO's UK Civil Society Almanac consistently shows that smaller organisations have less capacity to absorb administrative burden. Of the approximately 166,000 charities in England and Wales, around 96% have income under 1 million pounds. These organisations typically do not have dedicated bid writers, compliance officers, or monitoring and evaluation staff. The application burden falls on chief executives, project managers, and sometimes volunteers — diverting time from the work the organisation exists to do.

ACF's Foundations in Focus 2025 documented a 50-60% surge in grant applications across the sector in 2023-24, with some foundations seeing applications double. Success rates fell correspondingly. This is not a sign of a functioning market; it is a sign of a system where demand so far outstrips supply that the transaction costs of applying have become a significant deadweight loss.

360Giving's data provides the clearest evidence that standardisation is possible and valuable. Over 320 funders publishing to a common standard, covering 1 million+ grants, demonstrates that institutional resistance to data sharing can be overcome. The challenge is extending this logic upstream to the application process itself.

Current context

The application burden debate has intensified since 2023 as the funding environment has tightened. The combination of rising costs (including the employer NIC increase from April 2025, estimated to add 1.4 billion pounds in costs across the sector), increased demand for services, and several major funders closing or reducing grantmaking has created a perfect storm: more charities chasing less money through fragmented, resource-intensive application processes.

IVAR's Open and Trusting Grant-making initiative, now with over 170 funders signed up, includes commitments to simplify application processes and reduce reporting burden. But these remain voluntary commitments, and adoption varies widely. Some funders have made genuine progress — Lloyds Bank Foundation moved to simplified, unrestricted three-year grants; the National Lottery Community Fund has streamlined its application process for smaller awards. Others continue to require extensive bespoke applications for relatively modest sums.

The Charity Commission's public trust research (2025) adds a complication: the public expects visible accountability for charitable spending, which funders interpret as a mandate for detailed oversight. Simplifying applications risks being perceived — by the public and by funder trustees — as reducing rigour, even when the evidence suggests the opposite.

Last updated: April 2026

What this means for charities

For charities, the immediate implication is strategic. Every application has a cost, and organisations should be calculating the true cost of each bid — including staff time, opportunity cost, and the probability of success — before committing resources. A 20,000-pound grant with a 15% success rate and a 40-hour application process may not be worth pursuing if those 40 hours could be spent on delivery or on a funder relationship with better odds.

Charities should use 360Giving's GrantNav to research funders before applying. Understanding a funder's typical grant size, geographic focus, and thematic priorities before investing in an application is basic due diligence that many organisations still skip.

Collectively, charities have a role in pushing funders toward standardisation. Organisations that provide honest feedback about application burden — through IVAR's channels, through ACF consultations, or directly to funders — contribute to the pressure for systemic change. The sector cannot solve this problem charity by charity; it requires coordinated action by funders, infrastructure bodies, and applicants together.

Common questions

How much do charities spend on failed grant applications?

There is no single authoritative figure, but the cost is substantial. If a mid-sized charity spends 20-40 hours on a typical grant application and the success rate is 10-30%, the majority of that investment produces no return. Across the approximately 166,000 registered charities in England and Wales, the aggregate cost of unsuccessful applications runs into hundreds of millions of pounds in staff time annually. The Foundation for Social Improvement identified application complexity as the single biggest barrier to funding for small organisations before its closure in 2023.

Why has no one created a common application form for UK funders?

Several attempts have been made. The idea has been discussed at ACF, within the 360Giving community, and by various funder collaboratives. The barriers are practical and cultural: funders have different information needs, different risk appetites, and different governance requirements. There is also institutional inertia — application forms reflect internal processes, and changing the form means changing the process. The US has had more success with common application forms in regional philanthropy, but the UK has not yet achieved comparable adoption.

What is 360Giving and how does it help?

360Giving is a UK initiative that promotes transparency in grantmaking through an open data standard. Over 320 funders publish data about their grants in a consistent format, accessible through the GrantNav platform. This covers more than 1 million grants worth over £300 billion. For charities, GrantNav is a research tool: it shows which funders give to organisations like yours, at what scale, and in which locations. This helps reduce wasted applications by enabling better targeting, though it does not address the application process itself.

Are small charities really worse off?

Yes, significantly. NCVO data consistently shows that smaller charities bear a disproportionate administrative burden relative to their income. A charity with income of 50,000 pounds preparing a major grant application is investing a far larger share of its resources than a charity with income of 5 million pounds doing the same. Small charities are also less likely to have specialist fundraising staff and more likely to rely on chief executives or trustees to write bids — diverting leadership time from delivery and strategy.

What are funders doing to reduce application burden?

Some funders have made meaningful progress. Lloyds Bank Foundation has moved to simplified, unrestricted three-year grants for small and medium-sized charities. The National Lottery Community Fund has streamlined applications for awards under 10,000 pounds. Over 170 funders have signed IVAR's Open and Trusting Grant-making commitments, which include pledges to simplify processes and reduce reporting. But these remain voluntary, and the sector as a whole has not adopted common standards for applications.

Would a common application form actually work?

In principle, yes. Core organisational information — legal status, governance, financial health, track record — is the same regardless of which funder is asking. A common form covering these basics, with the option for funder-specific supplementary questions, would eliminate the majority of duplicated effort. The technical infrastructure exists (360Giving has demonstrated that data standardisation works); the challenge is persuading enough funders to adopt it. Regional funder collaboratives may be the most promising route to piloting this approach.

Key sources and further reading

• GrantNav and the 360Giving Data Standard — 360Giving, ongoing. The UK's open data standard for grantmaking, with over 320 publishers and 1 million+ grants worth over £300 billion. The most significant standardisation achievement in UK philanthropy to date.

• Foundations in Focus 2025 — Association of Charitable Foundations (ACF), 2025. Annual data on UK foundation grantmaking, documenting the 50-60% surge in applications and record 8.24 billion pounds in grants distributed in 2023-24.

• "Facing the Future" — Lloyds Bank Foundation, 2023. Research on the challenges facing small and medium-sized charities, including the disproportionate burden of funding applications and reporting requirements.

• Open and Trusting Grant-making — IVAR, ongoing. The framework for better funder practice, with 170+ signatories committed to simplifying applications, reducing reporting burden, and increasing trust.

• UK Civil Society Almanac — NCVO, annual. The definitive dataset on the UK voluntary sector, including data on charity size distribution, income sources, and administrative costs.

• The Road Ahead 2025 — NCVO, 2025. Annual sector outlook describing the "big squeeze" from rising costs, increased demand, and tightening funding — the context that makes application burden more damaging than ever.

• "Why Restrict Grants?" Evidence Review — IVAR, March 2023. While focused on restricted funding, this review documents the broader burden of funder-imposed administrative requirements on charities.

• Public Trust in Charities 2025 — Charity Commission for England and Wales, 2025. Research on public attitudes to charity accountability, relevant to the tension between simplification and perceived rigour.

• Small Charities Funding Research — Foundation for Social Improvement (closed 2023; assets transferred to NCVO), various years. Surveys identifying application complexity as the primary barrier to grant funding for small organisations.