I am thinking about adding this to the grants operation rules:

If the grant does not finish within three times of the proposed duration or within two years, the grant will be considered a failure.

First of all, it should be noted that it won't affect most grants (see the reason 2).

Reason 1: Budget structure & allocation to new grants

TPF does not allow over-allocation of the budget. If we have 3 x $3,000 grants running and our budget is $9,000, no more grants can be funded.

If a grant worth $3,000 is running for five years, this $3,000 is stuck in the TPF safe. Even if we get good proposal, we cannot fund it using this money.

The aim is to increase liquidity of the fund.

Reason 2: If a grant runs more than a year, chance of failure increases

During 2009-2013, we managed 17 grants. Here is the breakdown:

(Proposed/Actual: Duration in months. The grant N did not estimate duration)

Statistically, all the grant failed if they ran for more than a year. And except for the grants C and I, all of them failed after running more than 2.5 times of the proposed duration.

Would like to have your feedback.