In the Spotlight
In this section we highlight news on a current topic that we think will be of interest to both our community and corporate members.
City Action Community E-Bulletin
This quarterly e-bulletin contains information that we feel will be of interest to our community members.
In the Spotlight: The Big Society
NACVA & The Big Society
The National Association for Voluntary and Community Action has a number of articles and guides to understanding The Big Society. Click here to see listing
NEF & Ten Big Questions About The Big Society
The New Economics Foundation has identified ‘Ten Big Questions About The Big Society’, and put together a list of proposals for how concept might work in practice. Click here to read more
Red Tape Purge
The Cabinet Office announced on 17 August that red tape would be purged for charities, voluntary groups and social enterprises. Read the full article here
City Action Community E-Bulletin: August 2010 Edition
The following topics are covered:
Funding news
Upcoming events
Corporate Community Involvement in the news
Case studies
Top Tips
Other news
Funding news
Please visit https://communityfund.natwest.com/Nominate for further details.
- Abel Charitable Trust give small grants to projects that support offenders, young people, those with addiction problems and sex industry workers including victims of trafficking. The grants are for groups with an income of less than £500,000 per annum and reserves of no more than 1 year's funding. Application deadlines: 31 October 2010, 30 April 2011.
Please visit http://www.abelcharitabletrust.org.uk/grants.html for further details.
- For guidance on how to apply for money from trusts, foundations and businesses, please click here.
Upcoming events
- Proving and Improving Our Worth - Performance Management
Wednesday 13 October 2010, 6.00pm for 6.30pm
Centre for Charity Effectiveness, as part of the ‘Charity Talks’ series
Please visit http://www.cass.city.ac.uk/cce/newsevents/CharityTalks/index.html for further details.
- Volunteering
Corporate Community Involvement in the news
- Volunteering is good for business
An article in City AM on a new report published by the City of
Case study: partnership between Colt and Friendship Works
Colt:
Friendship Works: provide mentoring and support to children from vulnerable backgrounds in the
Colt have a Corporate Social Responsibility Steering Committee that is led by their CEO and they agreed that the charity selected should be in the children and education area, as they felt that this resonated best with their brand. The company were also looking for a charity that was relatively small and local to where they operate in the
Shared goals agreed from the start:
1. Awareness raising and employee engagement within Colt: the company wanted to be sure that as many employees as possible were aware of Friendship Works and what they do.
2. Fundraising: set a target of raising £15,000 during 2010 through employee fundraising initiatives and Friendship Works events.
3. Volunteering: committed to offering the charity professional assistance in the areas of IT, marketing and business strategy (Colt employees have 2 volunteering days per year).
The company smashed their original fundraising target and decided to increase it to £30k. The funds raised have already made a big difference to the support that Friendship Works is able to provide to children and young people facing disadvantage. The enthusiasm and engagement of Colt staff has raised the profile of the charity within the company, business sector and local community. Friendship Works is also benefiting from the business skills that Colt share with them.
The partnership has enabled Colt employees to use and develop new skills, e.g. taking responsibility for organising an event or initiative, and to also network and work in collaboration with colleagues they do not normally work with. Colt have also been able to access new networks and contacts via Friendship Works.
Top Tip
Addressing the threat of statutory funding cuts: the following ‘top-tips’ are suggested by www.charity-fundraising.org.uk:
· Analyse the breakdown of your income and consider the potential risks and impact of losing any of your key funding streams;
· Talk to your commissioners and find out what changes they anticipate;
· Talk to your service users and make sure you are meeting and exceeding their expectations. If you don’t do so already ensure your service users are engaged in the planning and development, monitoring & evaluation of all of your services;
· Identify potential changes to future funding that may affect your organisation;
· Consider how these potential changes will impact on your organisation;
· Assess the positive changes you can implement now to avert future risks.
Other news
Helping your organisation focus
Voluntary and community organisations face difficult choices about their future in the months ahead. It matters more than ever how well they're governed and how effective their strategies are. Launching into a strategy or governance review can be a major commitment in staff and Trustee time and cost. To help a wide cross section of voluntary and community bodies, Cass Centre for Charity Effectiveness (Cass CCE) is offering a specific service of scoping days in governance and/or strategy.
The scoping day can help your organisation by:
· Surfacing, defining and organising the issues you need to deal with
· Mapping who needs to be involved and how in engaging with those issues
· Establishing how much you want to do in house and how much with expert support, including pro bono assistance
Cass CCE provides expert advice and facilitation for the half day session. Cass CCE charges £850 plus VAT for preparation, facilitation and writing a summary note of the scoping day. The note will be in a form that can be shared with Trustees and staff. If you would like to follow up this practical suggestion, please contact Hilary Barnard (hilarybarnard@aol.com) and Ruth Lesirge (ruth.lesirge@btinternet.com). Both Hilary and Ruth bring many years experience in senior management and consultancy within the sector.
Colt and Friendship Works
Colt have been building their CSR programme from scratch since 2009. Selecting a charity partner was one aspect of setting up their community programme - the other aspect was introducing an employee volunteering policy which they introduced at the end of 2009. Colt operates in 14 countries and in 2009 each country was asked to work with its employees to select a charity partner for the next two years.
read moreOriel Securities and Blackfriars Settlement
Oriel Securities, a corporate and institutional stockbroking and advisory firm with 55 employees, became a City Action member in 2009. The company made a decision to partner with a community organisation that they could support in a range of ways and approached City Action for assistance with sourcing a suitable partner.
read more