Essentials of Governance Series is designed to help members of the management committee to improve their overall effectiveness in this challenging environment, the governance series will help you gain a better understanding of your role as a trustee and how to make your organisation more sustainable. It will also help you better understand how to demonstrate the impact your organisation is making.
Essentials of Governance Series is designed to help members of the management committee to improve their overall effectiveness in this challenging environment, the governance series will help you gain a better understanding of your role as a trustee and how to make your organisation more sustainable. It will also help you better understand how to demonstrate the impact your organisation is making.
You are invited to register for another Essentials Series for all trustees, managers/staff of small/medium organisations and those aspiring to become trustees.
The first part of the new series on the Essentials of Governance courses is starting from 23rd March 2012 with the course titled: “Effective Management Committee”.
The second - “Facing the Future” will hold on 24th May 2012 and the third – “Planning for Impact” will hold on 26th June 2012. These three courses are designed to empower members of management committee, Managers/Staff, and prospective trustees to improve their overall effectiveness and be able to carry their organisations through this challenging environment.
Content: This is the second session in a series of two courses, designed to develop and improve your fundraising skills and the competence of your management committee. Part 2 will focus on: understanding income spectrum, developing projects, demonstrati ng the need for the project and deciding on appropriate fundraising methods.
At the end of the course participants will be equipped with the skills to make good funding applications, increase their prospect of getting funding for their projects, understand how to find funders, various methods of raising funds and the monitoring requirements of funders.
To Book: To book a place please complete the attached booking form and return it to Voluntary Action Lewisham, 120 Rushey Green SE6 4HQ enclosing a cheque for the relevant course fee. Please phone or e-mail Mike: 020 8698 6034 mike@valewisham.org.uk
Who is the course suitable for?:
Management committee members and/or those responsible for making funding applications for their organisations. Further courses will be made available in the new year. Further courses will be available in the New Year.
Prerequisites for attending this course:
This is mainly for those who attend Part 1 and those with some fundraising experience.
For an organisation looking to improve its sustainability it is hard to point to specific steps. So much depends on where the organisation is starting from.
Governance
Some organisations will need to look at governance. If an organisation is employing staff, has leased premises, or is thinking of contracting to run a service they should look at limiting their liability. All of these examples could potentially lead to the organisation being liable for substantial costs. If the organisation is unincorporated the trustees are liable to pay these. If the organisation is incorporated in most cases the liability falls on the organisation rather than the trustees. Another area to examine is whether the right skills are available to the Management Committee.
Other areas of Risk
Other areas of risk may include a failure to carry out adequate risk assessments, not having equal opportunities policies, failing to take professional advice over investments, not having relevant insurance in place, a lack of financial controls etc.
Financial Controls
Particularly when facing turbulent times a tight control on finances can be helpful. If there is a chance that funding may be cut, having up-to-date financial records, a cashflow-analysis, and a good idea of costs will make planning far easier. This may make the difference between an organisation closing and being able to continue. It may also mean that some organisations close rather than continuing when they should not (and breaking the law by doing so).
Planning
Some organisations may benefit from looking at improving their planning. This will usually require the financial information mentioned above. In addition to Business Planning or Strategic Planning, in turbulent times it may be a good idea to look at contingency planning. This involves looking at a number of scenarios. For example, what would happen if funding was cut by 5%, by 15%, or cut entirely? Having already explored the options available, a funding cut becomes easier to cope with, as decisions do not have to be made immediately with inadequate information. Instead it becomes possible to respond proactively rather than reactively to a situation.
Another type of planning that would be useful for organisations is a form of Emergency Response Planning. This deals with questions such as:
What would happen if we couldn’t access our premises (due to fire, flood, etc)?
What would happen if we lost our computer server?
Who are the key members of staff and how would we cover for their absence?
There are many more questions that could be added and the questions will differ from one organisation to another. Like the contingency planning they enable an organisation to respond to a crisis.
The consequence of not addressing sustainability
The consequence of failing to address sustainability is to remove the choices available to an organisation. Some areas will have an immediate effect, other areas will only become apparent in times of crisis, still others will act to drain the organisation over time. Many can be prevented by acting in advance.
This is a summary of a report prepared by the CRIB Project entitled “Towards Sustainability”. This summary was first printed in the March edition of Grapevine. A full copy of the report can be downloaded from here.
Some factors affecting sustainability may go back to when a group was first formed. Three in particular are:
Vision The group thinks through what it wants to achieve and draws up ideas of how to achieve it. Once this has been agreed it can be hard to change even if the original vision was flawed or duplicates other work
People The people that come together to form a group each bring their own strengths, ideas, skills, contacts and experiences. Unfortunately they also bring weaknesses, prejudices and attitudes or beliefs. The precise combination of strengths and weaknesses can either reinforce or reduce the viability of the organisation.
Structure Decisions on a legal structure are often made at a comparatively early stage. Unfortunately since these decisions have an effect on how the group operates they can also affect the organisation’s long-term viability. While it is possible to change a legal structure it can be a very difficult and time-consuming process.
Other Critical Factors
There are many more areas that affect sustainability in addition to those already mentioned. They include:
Having a diverse range of funding sources that are stable and sufficient
Having the skills needed by the organisation. These skills change over time depending upon the stage an organisation is at in its life-cycle and the work it is doing.
The way the group understands a problem, plans and breaks the problem down into manageable chunks
Access to information such as funding opportunities, local and national policies and strategies, best practice, etc
How adequate a group’s financial controls are and whether the group has up-to-date knowledge of its finances and commitments.
Whether an organisation duplicates the work of other organisations
How well the projects run by an organisation fit into its long-term strategy. Sometimes a project may attract short-term funding but be counter-productive to long-term strategy.
The vision an organisation has of its work and whether this is able to sustain the group’s activities
How an organisation views the long-term and whether it plans for the future
How an organisation responds to a changing environment. Local and Central Government strategies and policies can change drastically with comparatively little notice. Voluntary organisations need to be forward looking to adapt to these changes.
Whether an organisation is able to devote adequate time to reducing risk, planning, making funding applications, preparing policies, etc
Whether the organisation monitors the results of its work, communicates this with funders and other stakeholders and uses the information to inform its future work
Although leadership styles differ a good leader will help their organisation be sustainable by:
Providing direction and impetus
Being forward-looking
Making timely responses to opportunities and threats
Promoting the organisation
Being knowledgeable about the environment their organisation works in
Embodying the culture of the organisation
This is a summary of a report prepared by the CRIB Project entitled “Towards Sustainability”. This summary was first printed in the March edition of Grapevine. A full copy of the report can be downloaded from here.
The goal of sustainability for voluntary and community sector organisations has been in the mainstream for at least 10 years, although the idea is likely to be much older than that. At this point most people will probably immediately think of financial sustainability; while this is very important, it is not the only factor that affects the long-tem viability of an organisation.
With the current talk of public sector cuts, sustainability is a obvious concern at the present, especially since a significant part of the sector’s funding comes from public sources. It also seems likely that there will be more demands made on voluntary and community sector organisations just at the same time as the cuts take effect. In this context it is important to realise that a sustainable voluntary sector may not be the same as a thriving voluntary sector.
The term ‘sustainability’ seems to be fairly straight-forward, but for a voluntary organisation it has three component parts.
The most obvious sign of a sustainable organisation is that it is still in existence as a ‘dead’ organisation clearly hasn’t been sustained.
The second factor is whether the organisation is providing a service for members or service users/clients. If the organisation doesn’t provide anything, or isn’t planning to do so, it might as well not exist.
Finally the service has to be relevant. If the service isn’t taken up because it isn’t addressing needs the organisation may survive, but it doesn’t serve any purpose.
In addition to the normal requirements of funding, equipment, and premises, etc voluntary organisations also require considerable ‘soft’ inputs such as encouragement, drive, ideas, creativity, and initiative. Although support organisations can assist, these are largely dependent upon the make-up of the voluntary organisation. There is also a need for a range of skills, which is an area where support organisations can help. However, the particular range of skills needed will change during the life of the organisation
Is sustainability always relevant?
Although sustainability is sometimes put forward as being the ideal that all voluntary and community organisations should aim towards, it isn’t always relevant.
Time limited organisations may be only intend to exist for a certain period of time or to address a short-term need.
An organisation may have succeeded in meeting the need it was set up to address. In this case there may be no further need for the organisation.
Pilot Projects. An organisation may have been set up to pilot a new approach or a new area of work.
In some cases the need for an organisation may have changed as demographics have changes or work may have been taken over by other organisations with more resources.
Sustainability and Risk
There can be a conflict between what some see as the purpose of the voluntary sector and the ability to be sustainable. For example the voluntary sector can be seen as the place to experiment with different approaches, take risks, and tackle unpopular causes. It is also often seen as filling the gap between the public and private sectors. All of these can impact on the ability to be sustainable as the more unpopular or innovative an approach is, the more risky it is and the more likely it is to fail. Groups in this position may need to spend longer on funding applications, find that they have a smaller pool of funders and need to spend more time justifying their work. However, it is embracing this risk and coping with these difficulties that leads to developing new solutions and meeting long-term or unmet needs.
One way of addressing sustainability is to reduce the risks faced by an organisation. However, minimising risks takes time and resources. These may not be available to smaller organisations. For example, if key members of staff need to attend training or prepare policies they may not be able to devote time to running activities. When an organisation is dependent upon trustees or volunteers to run services this danger can be magnified as they may have other demands on their time in the form of family, work, or study.
In addition to the risks involved in a particular approach there are also risks arising from legislation. These include:
Health and Safety
Governance and legal structures
Employing staff
Inappropriate financial controls
Lack of forward planning
Risks to reputation
Failing to take legal/investment advice
This is a summary of a report prepared by the CRIB Project entitled “Towards Sustainability”. This summary was first printed in the March edition of Grapevine. A full copy of the report can be downloaded from here.
Tudor Trust, one of the countries largest charitable foundations, have issued new guidelines to cover the year until March 2012. They prefer to support organisations with an income of less than £1 million with 20% of their funding going to organisations with an income of less than £50,000.
Gimme, Gimme, Gimme is the name of a new report from nfpSynergy. While it is intended as a guide to organisations new to fundraising it is also useful for organisations reviewing their fundraising.
The BIG Fund (part of the BIG Lottery) has announced dates for briefing events in London for the Transition Fund.
The Transition Fund is a £100 million fund to help charities, voluntary groups and social enterprises affected by public spending cuts adapt. It helps to make organisations "which deliver high quality public services be more resilient, agile and able to take opportunities presented by a changing funding environment".
The briefing events are open to organisations which meet the following criteria:
Civil society organisations with an income of between £50,000 and £10 million
At least 60% of your income is from taxpayer funded sources
You must spend at least 50% of your taxpayer funded income on service provision in at least one of the following areas – health and social care; homelessness; education and training; offender rehabilitation; welfare to work/ employment services; children and families; debt counselling and legal advice
Your free reserves must not be more than six months
You face significant cuts; you will experience cuts of least 30% of your taxpayer funded income in 2011/12, as compared to your most recent set of signed annual accounts
The minimum grant size is £12.5k and grants will meet no more than half your taxpayer funded income. This means that you will have lost at least £25k
The majority of the grant expenditure will be on change activities
You are delivering the majority of your services in England. For further eligibility informationwww.biglotteryfund.org.uk/transitionfund To register for the event, please emailtransitionlondon@bigfund.org.uk by 8 December 2010 clearly stating in the subject line which two hour session you are able to attend (copy directly from the bullet points below), along with your name, phone number, organisation, address and any access requirements. Demand is expected to be high for these events and there are a limited number of places in each session, so please indicate all of the dates and times you are available.
13 December at 10am – London
13 December at 2pm – London
14 December at 10am – London
14 December at 2pm – London
Due to space constraints, registration is limited to one person per organisation. Spaces will be allocated on a first come first served basis.
If you are unable to attend a briefing session, all of the information you need on eligibility and applying is available on the Big Lottery website. After the regional briefing sessions all of the information from the events including the presentation will be uploaded to the BIG website.
The Big Lottery announced a new funding scheme for overseas communities today. This is aimed at Voluntary and community organisations who are working in partnership with NGOs overseas
The programme will offer funding of between £50,000 and £500,000 for up to 5 years for projects that "improve access to primary education, health care and natural resources, build sustainable livelihoods and support disadvantaged people to exercise their basic human rights". The programme will run from 2010-2015. Until the end of 2012 £25 million will be available with the budget from 2012-2015 to be decided later.
The BIG Lottery has launched its Youth in Focus programme. This offers grants of £500,000 to £1 million. The fund is targeted at supporting vulnerable young people through changes in their lives.
This programme only applies to organisations working with young people that are:
A recent article on the Third Sector website - Why funders rarely give feedback - looks at some of the reasons why funding applications fail and why funders may not provide feedback.... read more.
There were a number of announcements in last weeks budget that will affect Voluntary and Community Groups. Rather than listing each one we have provided links to the analysis provided by a number of organisations:
When making funding applications remember two changes:
VAT will rise to 20% on 4th January 2011
The standard rate of VAT (Value Added Tax) will rise to 20 per cent from 4 January 2011. The current rate is 17.5 per cent.
Employee and employer NI rates will increase by 0.5% in April 2011
The government has announced that the employee, employer and self-employed rates of National Insurance contributions (NICs) will increase by 0.5 per cent from April 2011 in addition to the 0.5 per cent increase announced in 2008.
There are also changes to the starting point for paying National Insurance and increases to the personal allowances. These may mean that some low-paid or part-time workers do not pay tax and/or national insurance.
