Funding for Sustainability: How Funders’ Practices Infuence the Future of Digital Resources

By Matthew Loy, Nancy L. Maron
Strategic Content Alliance/Ithaka S+R report

This report provides funders of digital resources and their grantees with an overview of current funding practices and highlights areas for potential improvement in defining and planning for post-grant sustainability.

Full report: [PDF] Funding for Sustainability: How Funders’ Practices Infuence the Future of Digital Resources (June 2011)

• Executive Summary

Over the past decade, government agencies and philanthropic organisations have made significant investments in the creation of digital content in the not-for-profit sector. The grants have facilitated major digitisation efforts, helped to spur development of significant new digital collections and encouraged innovative work, paving the way for new forms of scholarship possible only in an online environment. Many of these investments are bearing fruit, developing from research projects into resources that are updated constantly and are valued by the communities they serve.

And yet, all too often, digital resource projects struggle as they transition from grant funding to a longer-term plan for ongoing growth and development. On the surface, the issue may appear to be strictly financial, as projects urgently seek new sources of revenue to cover their costs; but more often the issues run deeper, as projects must justify their value not just to their funder, but to their host institution, to their users and to others whose support they require. Without a clear understanding of their value to users and other key constituencies and robust plans to build upon that value, even the most ambitious digital resource can be at risk. Content developed through the course of a grant may end up on a platform that is not well maintained or developed over time, where few are likely to find and use it. In a worst case scenario, a project team disbands and the resource languishes, available to those who may know where to find it in the short term, but at risk in the long term. For those grant-making programmes where investments are intended to create, update or aggregate digital content, or to develop communities of active users or shared research resources that are meant to endure, detailed planning is needed early in the project life cycle to improve the likelihood of long-term availability.

The challenging economic environment in 2011 has brought this issue into even sharper relief, as dramatic funding reductions in the higher education and cultural heritage sectors put strain on every section of the pipeline, from funder, to institution, to communities of users. As grant-makers are forced to make difficult choices about how to disburse funds, and those who distribute public funds are under increasing scrutiny to demonstrate that they are yielding returns on investment (whether social return or economic return), what can funders do to help the digital resources and projects they fund have the best chance for success and long-term impact?

With support from the JISC-led Strategic Content Alliance, Ithaka S+R conducted a study to examine the ways that both public and private funding bodies in academic and cultural heritage sectors are defining sustainability and encouraging the digital resources they help to create to endure and continue to provide value well beyond the term of the grant. The project explored the funding practices of over 25 funders that support various forms of digital resources, and included over 100 interviews with more than 80 programme officers, foundation directors, project leaders and other experts. Our goal was to gain an understanding of how funders think about the long-term viability of the digital resources they support, and the policies and practices they have put in place to encourage successful outcomes.

This document is available in alternative formats which can be found at: www.jisc.ac.uk/contentalliance