How to Minimise Bias in Grantmaking

Our own life experiences shape how we read other people’s. If you decide who gets funded, that matters. Once applications are in and review is underway, the job is to make sure each one is judged against the standards of the grant rather than the instincts of whoever happens to open it.

Most of the attention goes on the review stage, and that is only half the story. By the time a panel sits down, a good number of organisations have already been filtered out by the form itself. So it is worth taking the two stages together.

Where does bias show up in grant funding?

The application form itself

A long, repetitive form is not neutral. It favours applicants who employ a bid writer and penalises the small, volunteer-run organisation doing the work you actually want to fund. This is why one of the eight commitments in the Institute for Voluntary Action Research’s Open and Trusting Grant-making framework asks funders to test their application forms for clarity and relevance and to stop collecting information they do not use. More than 150 UK funders had signed up to those commitments by March 2025, between them making grants worth over £1 billion in 2023-24. Source: UKGrantmaking, ukgrantmaking.org.

We looked at how this plays out for one group of applicants in the barriers social work organisations face when applying for grants.

Language bias

Clear communication matters in any application. But a misplaced apostrophe is not a measure of whether a programme will work, and scoring writing quality heavily penalises applicants who are not writing in their first language, along with anyone whose strength is delivery rather than prose.

Diversity bias

Representation cannot stop at the applicant pool. If your applicants span different cultural, social, educational and economic backgrounds, and your panel all read the same subjects at the same handful of universities, the panel is not well placed to judge that spread fairly. The gap usually shows up as reviewers rewarding what feels familiar.

Racial bias

Personal or institutional, conscious or not, racial bias is among the most persistent problems in philanthropic funding. The Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity, which published Grantmaking with a Racial Equity Lens with GrantCraft in 2006, describes the approach as “paying disciplined attention to race and ethnicity” when analysing problems, weighing solutions and defining what success looks like. PRE has since published a successor guide, Grantmaking with a Racial Justice Lens. Source: Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity, racialequity.org. Both guides are written from United States practice, so the framing transfers to UK and Irish funders more readily than the data does.

Three steps to minimise bias in your grantmaking programme

1. Use single or double blind review

Blind review hides identifying details from the reviewer: name, address, age, gender, ethnicity and anything else that says nothing about whether the proposal is sound. What remains is the case the applicant has made.

Funders often resist this because they want to see an applicant’s track record. That instinct is understandable and it is also where a lot of the damage happens, because a thin track record frequently reflects who has been funded before rather than who is capable now. Blind the assessment round, then reveal identity at due diligence once the shortlist is set on merit.

2. Diversify your review panel

Look hard at who is on your panel. Are they mostly men? Mostly the same educational and social background? Mostly one ethnic group?

Widen it, and do not stop at race. Gender, disability, socioeconomic background, geography and lived experience of the issue you are funding all change how an application reads. Bringing in external reviewers on limited access, rather than relying only on internal staff, is usually the quickest way to broaden a panel without restructuring your team.

3. Use technology to take the admin off reviewers

High application volumes overwhelm panels, particularly where selection runs across several phases with peer review in between. The small, repetitive jobs (chasing missing documents, allocating applications, collating scores from spreadsheets) eat the hours that should go into reading.

Tired reviewers take shortcuts, and shortcuts are where bias lives. That is a judgement rather than a measured finding, but it is a familiar one to anyone who has sat on a panel in week three of a funding round. Handing the admin to a submission platform buys back attention for the part of the process that genuinely needs it.

How does submission software reduce bias in grant review?

A submission platform reduces bias by enforcing consistency. Applications are distributed to reviewers on defined rules rather than by whoever picks them up first, identifying fields can be hidden for blind rounds, and every reviewer scores against the same criteria with the same weightings. Because scoring is recorded, you can see where two reviewers diverge sharply on the same application and ask why, instead of averaging the disagreement away.

It also makes form discipline easier to hold. If conditional logic only shows a question to the applicants it applies to, you can cut the form down without losing the information you need from the minority who do need to answer.

With the right grant management software, teams spend less time on administration and more on choosing well. If you would like an independent view before committing, Research.com’s Submit.com review covers pricing, features and alternatives in more detail.

None of this eliminates bias. No process does. What it does is narrow the space in which bias operates and make your decisions defensible to your board, your applicants and anyone reviewing the programme later.

Frequently asked questions

What is bias in grantmaking?

Bias in grantmaking is any influence on a funding decision that comes from the reviewer or the process rather than from the merit of the application. It includes penalising imperfect written English, favouring applicants with familiar credentials, and racial bias, whether conscious or implicit.

What is the difference between single and double blind review?

In single blind review the reviewer cannot see who the applicant is. In double blind review neither side knows the other’s identity, so applicants also cannot see who assessed them. Double blind removes the risk of reviewers being lobbied or approached directly.

Does blind review work for every funding programme?

Not always. Some programmes are targeted at specific communities or organisation types, so eligibility has to be checked against identity. The practical approach is to verify eligibility separately, then run the assessment round blind so scoring is done on merit.

How does weighted scoring reduce reviewer bias?

Weighted scoring fixes the criteria and their relative importance before review begins, so every application is measured the same way. It also creates a record, which means outlying scores can be identified and discussed rather than quietly averaged away.

What is Open and Trusting Grant-making?

Open and Trusting Grant-making is a set of eight commitments developed by the Institute for Voluntary Action Research with UK funders and charities. They cover being clear about priorities and exclusions, asking only relevant questions, and reducing the reporting burden on funded organisations.