Safeguarding for grant funders: a proportionate approach

Safeguarding is the duty to protect the people an organisation works with, especially children and adults at risk, from harm. For funders, it is both an ethical responsibility and a reputational one: money you give can enable good work, and you want assurance it will not enable harm. A proportionate, well-recorded approach to safeguarding is part of responsible grantmaking.

What to expect from grantees

The right level of assurance depends on what the organisation does. A youth project working directly with children needs robust safeguarding; a research body that never meets a beneficiary needs less. Tailor your expectations to the activity, not a one-size template.

Common things funders reasonably ask for:

• A safeguarding policy, appropriate to the work and reviewed in date.
• A named person responsible for safeguarding.
• Appropriate checks (for example DBS) for roles that require them.
• A sense of how concerns are reported and handled.

Ask proportionately

Resist the urge to demand a thick policy pack from every applicant regardless of risk. Over-asking burdens small organisations doing low-risk work and tells you little. Ask for what the activity warrants, and reserve deeper scrutiny for higher-risk work with vulnerable people.

A simple way to do this is to make safeguarding evidence a required document only where the round's focus calls for it, and to assess it as part of the application rather than as a separate hurdle.

Record it with the application

Safeguarding assurance is part of the decision's story. Capture what you asked for, what you received, and any judgement you made, alongside the application, so the panel can weigh it and you can show, later, that you considered it. A policy you saw but did not record is hard to evidence afterwards.

It is a relationship, not a one-off

For multi-year grants especially, safeguarding is not a single check at the start. Build a light renewal into your reporting, so a policy that lapses or a named lead who leaves is picked up. We cover the rhythm of long grants in multi-year grant management.

Grantledger lets you require safeguarding evidence where a round warrants it, assess it as part of the application, and record it on the audit trail, so safeguarding is handled proportionately and provably. For the wider picture, see UK charity due diligence.