The funding philosophy, which the Postcode Lottery Group has in fact been applying for more than thirty years and which it recently refreshed, is based on a positive approach. Judith: “We fund organisations that meet our criteria on the basis of trust, for the long term and without restrictions. Of course, we do assess them carefully once in a while and maintain close contact throughout the year, but we don’t want too much red tape.”
Courageous funding
Postcode Lottery Group's CEO Sigrid van Aken attaches great importance to ‘courageous funding’. “We fund with a firm dose of courage, because risks are part and parcel of serious ambitions,” she said recently, in a video about the importance of unrestricted, long-term financing. Judith: “We are also open to plans that have not yet proven themselves, or been fully worked out. We dare to stick our necks out, and making mistakes is allowed. That’s also instructive and brings progress.”
Research has shown that charities benefit more from unrestricted and long-term funding. It increases their independency, which can be of great significance when being a counterforce in society. It can also have a flywheel effect, attracting other donors when there is already money available to ignite change. It enables organisations to make far-reaching plans and provides flexibility. “Especially in times of crisis, such as now with covid-19, the importance of our freely disposable resources becomes even more apparent. In addition, we were able to help some organisations with incidental support.” Last year, for example, the Food Banks in the Netherlands and Germany received additional contributions from the Postcode Lottery.
Flexibilty
Recently, Nobel Prize winner and Postcode Lottery ambassador Nadia Murad, whose organisation Nadia’s Initiative we support, asked if she could use the lottery donation differently than applied for. Nadia, a Yazidi woman from the destroyed Sinjar region in Iraq, is a survivor of sexual violence and managed to escape from the hands of IS in 2014. Since then, she has been working for survivors of genocide and sexual violence, involving them in restoring their community and ensuring a better future.
Initially, Nadia Murad wanted to set up a women’s centre with the lottery contribution. “She told us that Iraq wants to close all the refugee camps, so that 300,000 displaced Yazidis will soon return en masse to their original homeland. Only this is still full of mines, and there are no schools and not enough hospitals.”
“When she explained to us that the priorities now are actually elsewhere than with that women’s centre, we immediately said, ‘Of course, use it where it is needed most right now’. She could hardly believe it. Her reaction showed that our flexibility makes us truly an exception. Often funds from donors and governments are earmarked in such a way that it is difficult to use it otherwise.”
'Sometimes things don't go as planned'
Charities often meet a lot of bureaucracy, Judith says. “To get funds, they often have to describe everything in detail beforehand, report in the interim, and justify every step afterwards. We have never been like that; it’s a waste of time and effort. We understand that sometimes things don’t go as planned.”
With courageous funding, the lotteries want to make a statement and inspire other funders. “We are not saying that flexibility is equally easy for every donor, but we do want to encourage other private funds to show more courage. We are convinced that changes will come about more quickly as a result.”
