pbeardmore wrote: ↑Fri 04 Feb 2022, 12:55 pm
One of the golden rules re fundraising is that if you set a target for a certain project, you need to have a very good estimate that it will be reached. It enables the organisation to celebrate success, donors can see the results and additional funds can be targeted at the next project. We are here seeing the results of when a target is not reached.
PS anyone know the repurcussions of when Lottery funding TandCs are breached?
In reply to the PS, I work in the Lottery grants ‘sphere’ … not for the Heritage Lottery Fund, though.
The most obvious remedy is to require repayment of all or some of the grant. If it chose to go down this route, HLF would, I think, recognise it’s got good value for money from its investment by virtue of the public being able to see XH558 fly for several years and would not require full repayment.
HLF would also I’m sure be conscious that if it does ask for all or some of its grant back (assuming VTTS has the cash to repay it, of course), it would likely be scuppering any chance VTTS has of preserving XH558 for the future, under cover or indoors. There would be an element of the HLF biting it nose off to spite its face in that scenario.
Another route might be for the HLF to ask VTTS to apply for a grant to build the visitor centre and give it more money. That might sound daft, but HLF could see it as a way of protecting the £2.7 million investment it’s already made. It might suggest VTTS looks at other, perhaps cheaper, options to put XH558 under cover and achieve its educational aims.
In this scenario, and given what’s already happened, I would imagine HLF would want to be pretty darn sure the visitor centre/hangar is sustainable. It would want to see a very robust business case, not just for the build, but for it as on ongoing faculty that will pay for itself. HLF certainly wouldn’t want to be in the position of having to rescue the project for a second time. ‘Build it and they will come’ is not a mantra most grant givers subscribe to.
Whether or not the HLF has the right to repossess XH558 I don’t know. Personally I doubt it, as a public body of that nature might not have the powers to own property. It probably wouldn’t want to anyway. It wouldn’t have the wherewithal to care for the aircraft and would immediately have to find a body that does. And pay them to do so until another custodian can be found.
HLF may have a half-way house option, exercising any powers its contract with VTTS gives it to work with VTTS to find a way of protecting its investment whilst ensuring XH558 has some sort of future. It could, perhaps, release VTTS from the obligation that I believe exists to keep XH558 under cover. This might be in return for assurance from VTTS that it will provide public access to the aircraft even though it’s outdoors.
There is always risk in grant making. You effectively enter into a partnership with the applicant and have to accept they may make mistakes and that the environment affecting the applicant can change. What’s perfectly plausible and achievable when you give the grant may be next to impossible 10 or 20 years down the line. Obligating VTTS to fly XH558 for a period and then keep it under cover and publicly accessible for 80 years was a big ask and a risk, especially when HLF would have know all its grant would have been eaten up restoring the aircraft at the very start.
Of course, HLF could have seen it as too big a risk and not given a grant, in which case we wouldn’t have had the pleasure of seeing XH558 return to the sky and thrill us at airshows. In my opinion, the grant gave very good value for money by doing just that - anything that happened afterwards was always going to be a bonus in my mind.