Fund — Templates

Money already spent gets no vote.

About these templates

The Fund stage releases money on a rhythm and structures uncertain investments to learn rather than deliver. Three templates: the funding and commitment sheet, the funding cadence calendar, and the staged fund-to-learn card.

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D1 — Funding and commitment sheet

Purpose: The record of what the portfolio has committed — to each investment, in what amount, on what conditions, with what review date. The aggregate of all sheets is the current allocation of the pool.*

Field	Content
Investment name	[Name — matches the intake log and One-Pager]
Funding period	[Start date] to [End date]
Funding mode	Rolling / Periodic / Gated / Fund-to-learn
Amount committed this period	[£ / € / $ — the amount released for this period only]
Conditions	Any conditions attached to the release (e.g. “subject to delivery of milestone X by [date]”)
Review date	The date at which this commitment is next examined
Decision rights	Who must approve the next release (portfolio owner / board / governing board)
Total envelope	The maximum total authorised for this investment across all periods
Spent to date	[For in-flight investments: cumulative spend excluding this period]
Cost to complete	[Updated at each review — the money still needed after this period]
Notes	Any material changes since the last review

Rules:

1. A funding commitment sheet is required for every investment in the funded set.
2. The sum of “amount committed this period” across all sheets must not exceed the total pool for the period.
3. The review date is a portfolio commitment, not a suggestion. If the review date passes without a formal decision, the commitment should be treated as lapsed and the investment brought to the next Steer meeting.

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D2 — Funding cadence calendar

Purpose: The schedule of the portfolio’s regular re-decision points for the coming year — the heartbeat of the loop.*

Date	Event type	Purpose	Preparation due	Decision rights
[Date]	Direction review	Review and update the reference framework and weights	[Date — N weeks before]	Portfolio board
[Date]	Demand window opens	Intake log accepts new proposals		Portfolio office
[Date]	Demand window closes	One-Pagers due for this cycle		Portfolio office
[Date]	Comparison session	Scoring, balance check, capacity check, funding-line decision	[Date — N weeks before]	Portfolio board
[Date]	Funding release	Money committed to the approved set for the period		Portfolio owner
[Date]	Steer forum	Running portfolio health, dependencies, contention, escalations	[Date — N days before]	Portfolio owner
[Date]	Review / re-prioritisation	Re-judge full live set, stop-or-continue decisions, reallocation	[Date — N weeks before]	Portfolio board

Lean adaptation: Collapse the demand, comparison, and review events into a single regular session with the owner. The calendar is the owner’s standing commitment.

Enterprise adaptation: Expand to reflect tiered governance cycles, nested sub-portfolio cadences, and the relationship between the portfolio calendar and the corporate budget cycle.

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D3 — Staged fund-to-learn card

Purpose: Structure an uncertain investment as a sequence of learning tranches, each funded to answer a specific question. Complete one card per uncertain bet.*

Field	Content
Investment name	[Name]
Classification	Uncertain bet — fund-to-learn
Strategic hypothesis	The assumption this investment is designed to test: “We believe that [X] will [Y], which will [Z].”
Total envelope	The maximum authorised for all tranches combined, if the learning is positive throughout

Tranche structure

Tranche	Learning objective	Method	Amount	Duration	Decision criteria (to proceed to next tranche)	Owner
Tranche 1	What specific question will this tranche answer?	[Prototype / spike / experiment / pilot]	[£]	[N weeks]	Proceed if: [specific, observable condition]. Stop if: [specific, observable condition]	[Name]
Tranche 2			[£]	[N weeks]	Proceed if: [condition]. Stop if: [condition]	[Name]
Tranche 3			[£]	[N weeks]	Final decision: fund to deliver / stop / redesign	[Name]

Rules:

1. Each tranche must have a specific learning objective — a question with an observable answer. A tranche with a vague objective (“explore the market”) is not a learning tranche; it is unstructured spending with a fund-to-learn label.
2. The decision criteria must be specific enough to determine in the room, at the tranche review, whether the condition is met. “Positive user response” is not specific. “At least 40% of test users complete the core flow without prompting” is.
3. A tranche review at which the stop condition is met results in a stop — not a renegotiation of the stop condition.
4. Stopping at any tranche is a successful outcome, not a failure. The investment did what it was funded to do: it produced information.