Meet Grant Farrant, Chief Executive of The Lauderdale Trust. We asked Grant some important questions…
Marmite – love it or hate it?
Neither – but would prefer Vegemite if I had the choice!
What’s one value that guides your funding decisions?
Partnership – we strive to remove any power imbalance by being relational, rather than transactional; where we can offer support, we go on a multi-year journey where we pray for and encourage the charity in good times and tough times. We utlimately need each other: projects need funders and funders cannot achieve their objectives without projects to support – we recognise and embrace that mutual relationship.
What does “impact” look like to you?
This depends on the project and the context and needs to be realistic and achievable. We recognise that spiritual impact can be hard to measure, but there are still goals a charity can aim for – e.g. sowing seeds in people’s hearts by running a Christianity Explored course 3 times a year.
What kind of change are you most passionate about supporting?
The Lauderdale Trust’s passion is to enable projects that are making Jesus known in areas of deprivation in the UK, transforming communities by helping people to know and follow Jesus. There are many excellent social action projects going on up and down the country but, as a Trust, we want to ensure that our funding helps people to encounter and experience Jesus, rather than supporting the kinds of things that a secular fund might get behind.
What’s one hope you have for the sector in the next few years?
Within the Christian sector, I want to see a greater boldness and confidence in our Christian distinctiveness as funders. If, ultimately, we are about promoting the Christian faith and making Jesus known, then let’s make that clear through our mission, vision and values, and through the projects we choose to support. It saddens me when an applicant feels they need to ‘tone down’ the distinctively Christian parts of their work, when in fact we are funders who would love to support that core part of their activity.
What’s something you’re experimenting with or learning right now?
Supporting projects across multiple years is helping us to see that something which might not look ‘successful’ in one season might look very different in the next. For example, a project that has gone through recruitment delays might achieve more in the second half of the grant period than we ever imagined for the entire period at the outset! We are also still learning that we are only playing a part, that ultimately it is God who is producing growth and not us. As Paul expressed it in 1 Corinthians 3, “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.”
What do you think about the use of AI in the funding space?
Where it is used to help describe a project in a way that is succinct, clear and compelling, it can be a helpful tool (e.g., for someone who might otherwise find this difficult). What concerns us is where AI is used to send out lots of applications in bulk which are not tailored towards any specific funding criteria. This is a waste of time for all concerned and has the unintended consequence of increasing application volumes while reducing ‘success’ rates. For us as a funder, AI could no doubt assist us with some of our administrative processes; however, a key part of Lauderdale’s assessment process is meeting applicants on a call. There is simply no AI substitute for having a conversation with someone in terms of helping you to understand the context and nature of a project.
What are your key funding priorities at the moment?
For Lauderdale, it is providing support for community-focused initiatives in areas of deprivation in the UK which are helping people to know and follow Jesus. We will consider support for UK charities who are advancing the Christian faith, are working in IMD 1-4, have an income of less than £1m and are seeking between £10k-£50k/year for up to three years, with at least 50% of the remaining project costs either raised, or with clear plans in place.
