About this time of year many charities and churches are required, by law, to hold an annual meeting; and the prospect fills many leaders with something close to despair. What will you find to talk about and why on earth would anyone come? After all, there are usually lots of…
Charities
One of the questions I am most often asked by charities and other organisations is how they can cover their core costs. There are, of course, individuals and trusts who do prioritise their support for day to day running costs, recognising that these are vital to the broader work that you do. However,…
If you have ever found yourself at loggerheads with a colleague, read on. People in organisations fall out all the time, even nice people over silly things! This can even be constructive and helpful, throwing up problems that may not otherwise have been talked about. However, if we are honest, few…
One of the real privileges of what I do is getting to hear some fantastic stories from the charities and churches with whom I work. Some really are amazing, but too often they don’t get heard. Maybe some of us have concerns around confidentiality; maybe many of us just feel too…
Many of the requests for consultancy I receive are from people who need money to deliver a project or idea. However, many of the funders I talk to are inundated by requests from worthy causes and struggle to decide who to support. Most trusts and foundations can only offer grants to a small proportion of the…
Those of us who have worked with charities for any length of time will know both the excitement of receiving the grant cheque envelope and the the fear of it either n0t arriving or not containing what you had hoped for. Many smaller organisations can feel like they are existing…
We have just received the first one of the year; the Christmas card that has, as a PS, ‘hope to see you in 2017′. Some people have been sending us a card like this, with virtually the same message in it for many years (with different dates), but somehow that…
I have just run some more workshops for church administrators. One of the many things we talked about was the invisibility of the role. When everything goes well, they all told me that nobody notices what they do, or often notices them. However, when there is a ‘typo’ in the news…
Recent national surveys have painted a fairly bleak picture. Public trust in charities and specifically in fundraisers is falling and this probably does not really surprise us. We have probably all heard. or even offered, criticism of charities and there is a widespread perception that money is wasted or poorly…
I am working with two community-based groups at the moment, both of whom need, for the first time in their history, to raise significant sums of money. This can be intimidating and nerve wracking, but it can also be fun! In both cases, their funding need is not urgent, which does…