Accessibility Consultant: approaches and barriers to accessible grant-making

OVERVIEW

After launching in 2019, Elrha’s Disability and Older Age Inclusion portfolio has had an increasing interest and focus on engaging directly with Organisations of People with Disabilities (OPDs) and Old People’s Associations (OPAs). To date, the portfolio has never directly funded an OPD / OPA as a lead grant partner, though grantees have had OPDs or OPAs as partners. The next funding challenge that the Elrha is hoping to launch will focus on knowledge sharing by OPDs and OPAs themselves.

The Safeguarding Level of this engagement is 0.

PURPOSE

In order to engage directly with organisations of people with disabilities (OPDs) and older people’s associations (OPAs), we need to ensure that every stage of our innovation challenge process is accessible: from the initial design of the challenge, through how we engage with grantees throughout the funding period, and right to any activities or engagement after the closing of the grant. This Request for Proposals (RfP) represents an early step towards better understanding accessibility in grant-making, by looking outwards to identify how other grant-makers attempt to make their processes accessible, highlighting best practices for accessibility in grant-making, and engaging with OPDs / OPAs to explore their experiences when engaging with grant-makers.

OBJECTIVES

Working in consultation with the HIF’s Disability and Older Age Inclusion team, the selected consultant will undertake an exploratory piece of work with the aim of identifying and synthesising current successful (or unsuccessful) approaches to accessible grant-making.

The objectives of this piece of work are:

• to understand how grant-makers are making their application, reporting, and grantee support processes accessible for OPDs and / or OPAs,
• to consider how effective and cost effective these accessibility measures have been in engaging with OPDs and / or OPAs,
• to assess the ease of implementation and skills required for implementation of these measures.

This assessment should take into account:

• Technology solutions in use that aim to increase the accessibility of grant-making,
• Organisational capacity allocated to accessibility measures,
• Reasonable accommodations made by grant-makers when engaging with OPA/OPDs,
• Non-traditional approaches to application / reporting,
• Types of funding available (flexible, restricted, unrestricted, size, duration),
• Perspectives and experiences of OPAs and / or OPDs who have applied for and have been successful or unsuccessful in accessing these funds.

KEY ACTIVITIES

The key activities envisaged for this work are:

• Production of a short inception concept note,

• Regular short check-ins every week / two weeks with the Elrha team to update on progress,

• Desk research, including literature review, on:

  • approaches taken by grant-makers of innovation, humanitarian interventions and wider sectors (private sector, development), to ensure their processes and approaches are accessible for OPDs and / or OPAs,
  • how other funding mechanisms outside of grant-makers engage with OPDs and / or OPAs (eg: British Council, community funding mechanisms, etc.),
  • literature reviewed does not need be limited to innovation, or the humanitarian sector

• Engagement with:

  • staff members of grant-making organisations to further understand the approaches taken to ensure accessibility (minimum 10),
  • with staff members of OPA / OPD organisations to understand the perspectives and experience of grantees, including experiences of good and bad practice and recommendations for better practice (minimum 10).

• Validation of findings and recommendations with OPAs / OPDs, via an optional validation workshop or other appropriate forum.

DELIVERABLES

The consultant/s is/are expected to deliver the following:

• Initial inception report and workplan detailing the approach to the research, including:

  • Methodology of which organisations will be researched and engaged with, when and how, and an outline of ethics process and timeline (including any formal ethics approval procedures, if required),
  • Structure of the final report, with bullets on what each section will include,

• Written report detailing approach taken, organisations researched and approached, and findings from desk research and engagement with stakeholders.

• Summary PowerPoint presentation of findings and recommendations.

The Provider will assign to Elrha all Intellectual Property rights in the Arising Intellectual Property for the full term of those rights (including any copyright and database rights arising in the future), to the intent that those rights will immediately upon their creation vest in Elrha.