Monitoring form guidance
For large and small grant progress reports and final reports
We want to hear your story. Tell us your thoughts and findings about your organisation if you received a small grant, and the project the MCF grant has supported if you received a large grant. This report collects the achievements and challenges experienced, and information about the organisation/project which will help us see to see the difference the MCF grant made to your project, your charity and those who you support.
There are set character limits for a number of questions, so please be concise and clear in your answers. For clarification or further information, please contact the MCF Charity Grants team at charitygrants@mcf.org.uk or on 020 3146 3337.
Small Grants
Details of your charity and the MCF grant
Qs 1–7: Provide details about your charity and state the date range your form covers – The content should relate to these reporting dates.
| Creating the Best Start in Life for Disadvantaged Children and Young People | Reducing Isolation in Later Life |
| These grants support charities which work to help disadvantaged children and young people under 25 overcome the barriers they face to achieve the best possible start in life | These grants support charities which work to reduce loneliness and isolation in affected older people over 50 |
Q 8: Select the most suitable answer for how the grant was used:
- Maintaining core services integral to the charity’s function, or
- Increasing the efficiency of the organisation, or
- Other – please give a brief line about the main purpose of the grant
Qs 9–11: Tell us how the way you used the grant helped your organisation. Provide an overview of the successes and challenges experienced i.e. how have you developed. Include what you have learned and what you would do differently next time.
Qs 12–12a: State how many Unique Service users you’ve helped over the past year and then explain how you calculated this. This is the number of different individuals you have supported, not how many sessions were attended or hours of support etc.
Q 13: Select from the list the best explanation as to how you spent the grant:
- Paying for essential costs such as rent, venue hire or travel costs
- Covering direct costs such as salaries
- Building staff capacity
- Developing work such as monitoring and evaluation systems
- Improving marketing and strategic planning
- Maintaining and/or developing services
- Funding volunteers or participant expenses
- Training staff, trustees or volunteers
- Other – Please briefly specify how the majority of the grant was spent
Declaration
Complete the Declaration to confirm that the information provided is correct to your knowledge, and provide the contact details for the person who is responsible for the content of this form. Ideally, they should be best person to contact if there are any follow- up questions about the information provided.
Large Grants
1. Details of your charity, your project and the MCF grant
Provide details about your charity and state the date range your form covers – The content should relate to these reporting dates.
Grants awarded before February 2019 will fall under one of the following four categories. Please select the category which best describes your project’s work:
| Financial Hardship | Social Exclusion & Disadvantage | Health & Disability | Education & Employability |
| Support to relieve household or individual financial poverty.
Helping people to recover from financial hardship or avoid getting into financial difficulty altogether |
Support to relieve isolation and loneliness for those experiencing family breakdown or crisis, rural or urban deprivation, homelessness, digital exclusion or social exclusion as well as those with a disability or long-term illness which acts as a barrier to a fulfilling life | Support to improve the lives of people with poor physical or mental health, physical or learning disabilities, and chronic or
life-limiting conditions. Helping carers and those in need of end- of-life or palliative care |
Support to help support disadvantaged children and young people by providing opportunities for those who are not in education, employment or training, affected by poor health or disability, and those at risk of further disadvantage |
Grants awarded after February 2019 will fall under one or both of the following two categories. Please select the one which best describes your project’s work:
| Creating the Best Start in Life for Disadvantaged Children and Young People | Reducing Isolation in Later Life |
| These grants support charities which work to help disadvantaged children and young people under 25 overcome the barriers they face to achieve the best possible start in life | These grants support charities which work to reduce loneliness and isolation in affected older people over 50 |
Select the most suitable answer for how the grant was used. State your project’s aim and briefly explain how you have spent the grant to deliver activities to meet it.
2. Project results from the MCF grant
Provide an overview of the successes and challenges experienced i.e. how have you developed. Include what you have learned from carrying out your project and what you would do differently next time. As well as thinking about your project, you might want to also draw on the influence of the sector, and working with the MCF.
For the Final Report, please tell us about your future plans for the project e.g. this might include plans to continue or expand. Where a service will be stopping, please tell us why e.g. lack of funding.
Provide a breakdown of how you have spent the grant to-date, explaining where spending may have altered from the original proposal. As an indicator of the difference being made, we would like you to tell us about the outputs and outcomes of the project. Where possible, please complete to best illustrate and evidence the activity made with the MCF grant.
What We Mean by Outputs and Outcomes:
| Output | Outcome |
| These often relate to your activity and the amount of products, goods and services provided to the people supported | The changes or benefits resulting from activities and outputs. These could be short-term, medium or longer-term |
Attribute date ranges and provide details based on how you recorded and measured your outputs e.g. contact database that recorded attendees. Ensure you include the total number of people supported in the first line.
Add relevant outputs that resulted from the MCF grant to the table e.g. the number of workshops delivered or hours of support provided. Where possible add comparison data
e.g. from the year before the grant began. Make sure to reflect on your progress towards achieving your outcomes. Use the boxes provided to list your outcomes, summarise what activity took place to reach the outcome, methodology (if you used any validated tool sets or outcomes software please include this) and your findings. Include quantitative and qualitative data.
Example:
3. Success, challenges and future of the project
Provide an overview of the successes and challenges experienced i.e. how have you developed. Include what you have learned from carrying out your project, and what you
would do differently next time. As well as thinking about the project, you might want to also draw on the influence of the sector, and working with the MCF.
For the Final Report please tell us about our future plans for the project. This might include plans to continue or expand. Where a service will be stopping, please tell us why e.g. lack of funding.
4. Financial breakdown of how the MCF grant was spent
Provide a breakdown on how you have spent the grant to-date, explaining where spending may have altered from the original proposal.
5. What have we missed?
The form is designed to structure how you report back to us but there may be other information which you would like to tell us. Please use this box to tell us anything else that you feel is relevant to the grant and working with the MCF.
6. Marketing and declaration
We would love to see any media activity about the MCF grant so please share examples of any marketing promotional activity. Please remember to include the source e.g. the name of the newspaper.
To best illustrate the difference being made please include a case study (with photo/s where possible) and don’t forget to ask for permission from the person/people being supported to ensure that they are happy for us to share their story for publicity and marketing purposes. If they are not happy for their story to be shared, please leave the box unticked.
If you have produced a separate outcomes report, please include it with your form in addition to completing this question. It can’t be as a substitute to completing the Outcome boxes.
Finally, tick the box to declare that the information provided is correct to your knowledge, and provide the contact details for the person who is responsible for the content of this form. Ideally, they should be best person to contact if there are any follow-up questions about the information provided.
7. Contact Details
Please ensure you provide us with the most up-to-date contact information so that we know who to speak to regarding this grant. If this changes after the form has been submitted, please email charitygrants@mcf.org.uk