Grant Assessment Service

Seamlessley increase the capacity of your assessment team

Need help assessing grant applications?

Receiving high volumes of applications and need support to assess them?
Wanting to delegate the assessment / due diligence process ensuring it's handled professionally?
Need help with assessing whilst retaining empathetic and friendly support for applicants?
Don't have time to recruit but need additional capacity without having to train?

Go from overstreched to well resourced

As a freelance grant assessor, I have over 10 years of experience assessing for funders across the UK.

I offer a high quality, empathetic and reliable grant assessment service to ease pressure at any time of year, saving you time and resources.

Count on me to effortlessley join your team and deliver expert assessments and due diligence that support applicants, ease pressure on your team and provide decision making panels with clear, evidence based assessments that lead to confident, fair, and effective awards.

Please get in touch to discuss your requirements.

Get in touch

Ways I can help your team with assessing

Retainer

You need a set amout of help on a regular basis

Each month, I deliver a set number of high quality assessments, helping to ease the team's workload and ensure a consistent and reliable service for both applicants and decision makers.

Help every month

Short term

You are at peak and need support to deliver high quality assessments

I can join your team at peak times supporting the assessment of a high volume of applications or providing cover for staff on long term leave. This gives you peace of mind, continuity of service and removes the headache and cost of recruiting and training new staff.

Support at peak times

Assessor pool

You have several funds per year that you might need help with, depending on number of applications

I can join a pool of assessors that gets called upon when you know volume of applications for a particular funding round. This gives you flexibility to be responsive and ensures you maintain a high level of service.

Join our assessor pool

Bespoke

You want to explore other ways of working together, let's talk.

We can set up a call to go through your requirements. I tell you how I can help make your life easier, we agree terms and hey presto I'm your new expert assessor. Yes, it can be that simple!

Let's talk

"I worked with Jennifer in the fully committed ERDF funded Leader programme. She was a pleasure to work with and produced over 40 high quality grant assessments for the programme.

She was a valued member of the team and consistently received good feedback from our customers."

Andy Thorpe, Employability Manager

Norfolk County Council

Tamas Haydu

Chief Executive

Cornwall Community Foundation

"Jennifer is always very professional and empathetic and a huge help for our team in conducting grants assessments for our programmes.

She is highly reliable and trustworthy and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend her for work in this field."

Sonali Banerjee,

General Manager

Music for All

"We worked with Jennifer on a programme aimed at helping older adults to access music-making opportunities.

Throughout the process, Jennifer was incredibly helpful, and her assessments were both concise and detailed which was much appreciated by our board of trustees and subcommittee.

Her attention to detail and her ability to deliver high-quality work within tight deadlines made her a great asset to our assessment team."

Claire Bowry

Chief Executive

The Eveson Trust

"Jennifer has proved to be an excellent addition to our team's resources.

She quickly understood the way we prepare application reviews for the trustees, and she writes accurate, clear and succinct summaries.

We appreciate her regular communication with us and her flexibility in taking on more work when required.

Jennifer is reliable and very professional in all her dealings with us

and our applicants."

Guiding Principles

Below is a set of principles I developed to guide my assessing as a result of reading 'Modern Grantmaking' by Gemma Bull and Tom Steinberg. It grew my awareness of the wider context of distributing grants and the need for more equity, less bias and continual learning. The principles below are my committment to doing this and to mitigating the power dynamic that exists between funders and grantees.

Customers

I will consistently treat everyone I work with—including applicants—as valued customers and partners. My assessment services serve and impact both funders and applicants alike.

Values

I will assess applications with empathy, humility, and respect. I will recognise that behind every application there are real people working to improve lives and communities.

Privilege

I will regularly check my privilege and grow my awareness of its impact on assessing and bias.

Bias

As much as possible, I will give more weighting to the potential impact of proposals than how they are presented. I will consider the context and the change applicants seek to create and value lived experience as well as formal skills.

Feedback

I will ask the people I work with for regular feedback so that I can improve my skills.

Respect

I will treat my customers with the upmost respect at all times and continually improve customer service. I will keep to deadlines, be a clear communicator, and if I say I will do something, I will do so in a timely manner.

Communication

When I communicate with applicants I will be clear, friendly and helpful to ease the application process.

Learning

I will participate in regular training courses and sector events. I will stay up to date with current trends and research, and continually improve my skills.