More than 20 per cent of charities have less than a month’s worth of expenditure in reserve, new research has found.
A paper by David Clifford of the University of Southampton and John Mohan of the Third Sector Research Centre at the University of Birmingham says that of the approximately 12,700 charities in England and Wales studied, 21 per cent held less than one month’s spending in reserve.
About 10 per cent of charities in the sample held virtually no reserves, the paper says.
At Third Sector’s next briefing, industry leaders, HR and recruitment experts will present wellbeing initiatives that they have implemented in response to employees suddenly being forced to work from home.
Wellbeing in the third sector will be taking place on 10 December. Join us to learn how to best support your employees during this time of crisis.
This session has been designed to help explain what insurance requirements community groups, small charities and not for profits should consider, how an insurance policy would work, what are the most important elements of covers needed and what kind of claims could be brought against them.
The presentation will also include practical tips on how groups can understand their risk, measure it and mitigate against it, linking to the recently developed risk assessment templates.
Learning outcomes – At the end of this session, attendees will be able to:
Understand what charity insurance consists of
What considerations to make when purchasing an insurance policy
What claims could be brought against a charity of any size and the costs that may be faced without an insurance policy
Free online Asset Based Community Development training programme delivered by Nurture Development, it is aimed at people in the Uttlesford Community who want to start something in their communities in an exciting new way.
This programme is aimed at local volunteers, community leaders, people who are community-minded but don’t know where to begin and people who want to develop their knowledge in this area of Community development are encouraged to register for this training opportunity.
Volunteer Essex are looking to understand how volunteering involving organisations have been affected by the COVID pandemic, what they predict for the next 6-12months challenges and opportunities as well as how Volunteer Essex can help as an infrastructure network.
Please complete the survey and circulate it to others.
We have a vision to develop Sustainable Communities with people in Essex. Our vision is “to transition the council from service-led to a citizen-led approach to improve Health and Wellbeing, with sustainable shared approaches led by communities themselves.”
Please continue to circulate the paper and invite your membership so that we can ensure we broaden the discussion into our VCS colleagues, which is imperative to ensure this reflects the system as a whole.
Please see below the updated Life East Project for Southchurch, you can read it in full here.
We had proposed the introduction of 2 news outlets in the form of newspaper and spoken word, no longer feasible so scrapped. We had an initiative called SWAT, which has been rebranded Community Ambassadors. Connected Vision has a 2 level strategy now. Our SoHo initiative, regarding housing strategy, has been scrapped. We had a meeting with the company concerned and the concept is not transferrable and wouldn’t work, it would create issues we weren’t looking for.
New to Life East 2 are Carries Outreach, Get Together, Integrity, Concept Southchurch, which is our most ambitious plan, Village Square Deals, Twenty Minute Neighbourhood, Human CoOperative and FrostBite. Space @ The Beach has been rethought.
We have continued to work on our initiatives since August, but have been bound by restrictions. Please email us if you have any specific concerns you would like us to help with. We are currently in dialogue with the council regarding fly-tipping issues along Southchurch Road and continue to work with Community Police teams over a number of concerns.
We await funding for our website to be created and are working with the Essex Chambers of Commerce to achieve this aim. We still are scheduled for our AGM next March or April but once we have a clearer picture as to the situation we will confirm dates. We are looking for people to join us as part of the Foundation and Development Committee as Divisional Secretaries and Co-Ordinators.
As you are painfully aware, 2020 has affected the Third Sector catastrophically. According to the Institute of Fundraising, charities report that they are expecting a 24% reduction in total income for the year, which equates to a £12.4 billion loss in total.
The collapse of face-to-face and live fundraising events has meant a huge number of organisations have been driven to rapidly adapt and evolve their services and income streams. At Third Sector we wanted to provide a space for fundraisers and charitable organisations alike to access the insights and support that will help them transform their current offerings to thrive in this new world.
The Third Sector Digital Fundraising Forum will take place across the mornings of the 15 & 16 December. Apply to attend as a delegate to book meetings with leading suppliers* and participate in a packed programme of educational and inspiring content sessions. If you have any questions or queries about the forum, feel free to contact the Event Manager sam.mcintyre@haymarket.com.
*Please be aware that as places are limited to 40 delegates for the forum, our delegates are required to attend their booked meetings with suppliers as well as benefiting from the content sessions
A discussion paper from the think tank Rogare says common ground can be found between different approaches to fundraising
Fundraising needs to be prepared to reinvent itself and work with critics to avoid perpetuating injustices, according to a paper from fundraising think tank Rogare.
The report argues that donor-centred fundraising, which prioritises the donor’s needs and making them feel good about their giving, to ensure they continue to donate for as long as possible, is the dominant philosophy of fundraising and many fundraisers consider it “heresy” to criticise it.
But a newer model, community-centred fundraising, argues that putting the donor at the centre perpetuates white saviourism, marginalises the voices of the communities charities claim to serve, gets in the way of having honest conversations with donors and building true partnerships, and fuels systematic injustice.
Instead, community-centred fundraisers believe beneficiaries should be treated as equal partners, and that both fundraising and philanthropy as a whole should be grounded in racial and economic justice.
Ian MacQuillin, director of Rogare, says in his foreword to the report:
“Donor-centred fundraising is more than just professional best practice. It goes to the heart of how many fundraisers identify themselves professionally: they are not just fundraisers who do donor-centred fundraising; they are donor-centred fundraisers.
“That’s why criticism of how they do fundraising is perceived as more than this; it is criticism of who they are and the choices they have made.”
However, the report says, “there is plenty of common ground between the two philosophies”.
For example, it says, community-centred fundraising believes donors make an important contribution and wants to build meaningful relationships with them, but rejects the idea that donors’ needs should come first.
The paper suggests fundraising models that create a shared identity between donors and the communities they want to support, or integrate donors more into the mission of the organisation, would allow the two philosophies to co-exist.
“The question is whether donor-centred fundraisers are prepared to genuinely think about the different types of relationships they could have with donors,” it says.
The report also calls for donor-centric fundraisers to “bite the bullet” and engage in the conversation about white saviourism.
It says there may have to be compromises from the proponents of community-centred fundraising too.
“Community-centred fundraisers may need to accept that they may not succeed in replacing the paradigm but can succeed in changing and adapting it,” the report says.
If a compromise could be reached, the report says: “Rather than being an existential challenge to donor-centred fundraising that is sounding its death-knell, community-centric fundraising may actually provide the impetus and incentive for donor-centred fundraising to reinvent itself.”