Can small grants really make a difference?

The size and frequency of the grants from Women’s Fund for Nature are going to entirely depend on our membership - how many members we have and at what level those members join us. This means that, unless we have a massive influx of membership right from the off (and who knows, maybe we will!), the grants that we disburse, at least in our first couple of years, are likely to be small, both in number and in size. 

Does that make those grants a bit pointless?

Definitely not. 

It’s true that a £2k grant won’t take a climate invention to scale. But the data and practitioner evidence are pretty consistent: small grants play a uniquely catalytic role, especially if they are unrestricted, for those whose work is at the early stages.

For a start, small grants can help organizations take the all important step from “talking” to “doing”. A grant of less than £1K could pay for lab access, for example, or software, or a travel stipend. Costs like these are not only less likely to be eligible to some of the bigger funders but, if they are not covered, the project may never get to the point where it reaches the attention of a large funder anyway.  

At Women’s Fund for Nature, we understand that some interventions are far from “market-ready” but that does not mean they are not worthy of our support. In fact, as a funder, we think we’re well suited to support those young people who have speculative or unconventional ideas, community-rooted pilots that may later inform policy or product development, and innovative ideas that may still be at the research and design stage. These are exactly the kinds of ideas that struggle most to find  funding — yet are often how transformative approaches emerge. Small grants don’t replace big money; they make big money possible.

And, as small grants generate early evidence, promote learning without reputational or financial penalties, allow failure at low cost, and provide proof of commitment and capability, later-stage funders also benefit. Put simply, small grants can help absorb some of the risk, so large grants don’t have to. 

For Women’s Fund for Nature, one of the most important reasons why we think small grants punch above their weight is that they help to level the playing field. Large grants offered by well established and highly resourced funders often require that their recipients have complex organisational and financial systems, track records of impact, and extensive staff capacity. Youth-led innovation, activism, and implementation often stand outside that model of a desirable grantee particularly if they are led by young people of colour, exist outside formal education systems, lack formal representation, or benefit under-represented communities. 

For young people especially, having any grant signals trust from an external actor. Rightly, (actually wrongly, because this shouldn’t have to be the case), even modest funding confers legitimacy. This “credibility effect” is repeatedly cited by youth-led start-ups and social ventures as one of the most valuable outcomes of early micro-funding — sometimes more valuable than the cash itself.

The bottom line? Small grants are not a substitute for significant finance. Neither are they effective at building resilience or capacity, especially if they are one-off grants. Providing unrestricted, multi-year support is clearly the model that all funders should be aspiring to, including us.