29 January 2025
Exploring the impact of our use of unrestricted funding.
Mhairi Reid

2025 marks my fifteenth year in grant-making. Fifteen years is long enough to see patterns emerge: practices get stuck, ideas are revisited, and sometimes a concept is dusted off, rebranded and presented as something entirely new and groundbreaking. Every so often though, a genuine shift happens – something that feels like progress. For me, the move towards funders providing more unrestricted funding is one of those shifts.
Unrestricted funding is a no-strings donation, for general use by a charity to advance its mission. At the William Grant Foundation, we give this funding whenever we can. Read more about our flexible funding.
This is the kind of practice that you know in your gut is better. It builds trust, it gives funded partners the flexibility they need, and it shifts the focus to what really matters: the work itself. I like to think enthusiasm is infectious, but I know gut feelings are not enough to carry a movement.
For unrestricted funding to stick, we need to prove its value. We need to keep finding meaningful ways to demonstrate that value – ways that resonate not only within our own circles but also with those who fear that de-restricting grants undermines accountability for impact. And we need to develop our understanding of how it works – alongside the other tools in our funder’s toolbox – to support our own learning.
Diving into the human experience
Thankfully, insights and resources shared by organisations like IVAR are helping people to explore how we can learn from and evaluate the difference that unrestricted funding makes. This involves moving away from wordsmithing, stepping out of the spreadsheet and diving into the human experience. Unrestricted funding invites us to think differently about impact – not as a tidy and flashy report of outputs, but as a richer story of transformation, with all its ups and downs.
As I sit here, patiently awaiting the first signs of Spring, it strikes me that unrestricted funding is a bit like tending to the roots of a tree. When you offer unrestricted funding, you’re often supporting the vital systems that allow a whole tree to thrive. The thing about tending to the roots is that a lot of the action happens underground and out of sight. Development isn’t always obvious and evaluating the impact requires you to look for different signs of progress beyond counting the fruit: healthier leaves, a sturdier trunk, a tree that can weather the storms.

Exploring unrestricted funding
We hope that unrestricted funding helps partners nurture deep, healthy roots. In particular, we hope that it:
- Enables leaders to focus on creativity, investing in their teams and addressing the real challenges in communities.
- Gives breathing room to plan, experiment, and even fail without fear of losing funding.
- Encourages funded partners to tell us honest, important stories, even though they are harder to quantify.
- Shifts power dynamics in a way that pairs trust and flexibility with accountability and learning.
We want to wrestle with questions such as:
- What new possibilities does unrestricted funding unlock for an organisation’s staff and community?
- What does it take for an organisation to be empowered to maximise the potential of unrestricted funding?
- How do smaller and larger unrestricted grants make a difference?
- How does it strengthen the golden (but often invisible) threads that keep the sector together?
- Has it ever changed the trajectory of a third sector leader’s life?
Let’s learn out loud together
Unrestricted funding isn’t about letting go of learning. It is about learning differently and spending more time listening to the messy, magical stories of change happening in the real world. As part of my work at the William Grant Foundation, I will be exploring the impact of our use of unrestricted funding, and I’m just embarking on that journey now. I’ll be speaking with our funded partners and stakeholders to understand if and how it is making a difference, and what we can learn to improve our practice.
I also want to connect with others who are working on this – what questions are you asking to truly capture the value of unrestricted funding, and what insights are emerging? What’s the right balance between storytelling and accountability? If you would like to join an informal conversation on Tuesday 18 February (11:00-12:00 on Zoom), I would love to hear from you.
Join an informal conversation on ‘Unrestricted funding, unlimited learning’ – email foundation@wgrant.com to request the Zoom link.
Photo above: Saheliya