For all charity supporters, whether they give time, money or anything else, involvement, loyalty and bonding are critical to ensuring they stay with you and deepen their engagement. The more involved they are the more loyal they will be and the more likely they are to support your charity in other ways. This short blog explores a little further how you can build and strengthen volunteer relationships.

We’ve been going a lot of thought recently to how to make workshops, as one of the key tools that organisations (and of course consultants) use to develop strategy and make plans, more inclusive and therefore more productive. In our experience there are some key ingredients in the right formula for inclusive workshops: identification; preparation; inclusive methods; provisional conclusions; and follow-up. If you’d like to explore this topic further please read on.

Do you feel weary when asked to sponsor yet another friend for an ever more outrageous challenge? What is the long term future of event fundraising in the UK? Are virtual events part of that future? And how can smaller charities join in?

A couple of years ago text giving appeared to be on the way out but now it seems that it’s popularity is rising again and that it’s worth sticking with text giving as part of a growing range of donation channels for public fundraising.

A recent report co-authored by our colleague and associate Neal Trup of Neal Howard Ltd highlights the financial tightrope walked by community hub organisations and factors that are important in their survival and success. Community Hubs, Understanding survival and success is well worth a read and its overall conclusions are summarised in this blog.

Public and personal benefit issues crop of regularly in the Charity Commission’s investigation findings particularly issues around unauthorised or inappropriate personal benefit. This is surprising for a sector that prides itself on its values of service and integrity. This short blog highlights the importance of understanding public and personal benefit and signposts to more detailed guidance for those who need it.

Governance failings have been at the heart of all the high profile (and not so high profile) charity failures and scandals of the last few years and dominance has been a key factor a high proportion of those. This blog explore the issue of dominance in governance and how to avoid it.

When does a charity registered in England and Wales need to register with the Scottish Charitable regulator OSCR? This blogs explore that question and the issue of cross-border charities in the UK more generally.

In our previous blog we explored the different types of charity merger, a process also usually involved in charity incorporations. Over the last few years more and more charities have incorporated. This blog explores why and what is involved in incorporation.

The recent trend towards consolidation in the charity sector appears to be continuing, even accelerating. Over the last decade or so we have supported many small (and medium-sized) charity mergers of a range of types. This blog briefly explores the types of merger and the importance of getting the merger process right.

In early June 2019 the Fundraising Regulator published the New Code of Fundraising Practice, which it will use in its regulation of the sector from October 2019. And its huge! 117 pages huge including the rulebooks! But don’t panic, it is actually better than the previous code.

Charity consortia have continued to be popular with funders and can offer a range of benefits. However, getting a consortium right takes time and money and success is not guaranteed. This article briefly sets out the benefits and disadvantages of consortia and some key issues to grapple with when setting one up.

Recent reports on trends in charitable giving by individuals paint a mixed, and at times worrying, picture that charities large and small need to understand and respond to. This blog highlights some of the key issues and what charities should be doing to respond.

We are delighted that Almond Tree Strategic Consulting’s long-standing commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has recently been recognised through both a International CSR Excellence Gold Award and CSR Accreditation. In this article you can read more about our experience and the benefits of CSR.

The NCVO recently published its 2019 UK Civil Society Almanac and it has some interesting insights into trends in the charity sector (based on 2016/17 data). When you dig deeper into the Almanac some interesting trends and insights can be seen. We’ve highlighted just a few in this blog.

Fundraising using voice activated tools (such as smart speakers) seems to be the next “big thing”. But what is all the fuss about and is the optimism well-placed? Other recent fundraising innovations, while they have added to the mix, haven’t yet proven to be truly disruptive or paradigm shifting. This article briefly explores voice fundraising and reflects on what small and medium-sized charities should be doing to respond to yet another new fundraising technology.

Finding your organisation’s authentic voice in fundraising or any other form of communications essential if you are to be successful. But what do we mean by this and how do you find it? This article offers some short reflections on this elusive topic that we hope you find helpful in developing your pitches for funding.

I was delighted to co-host an in-depth workshop on income risk, sustainability and diversification at the Charity Finance Group (CFG) Annual Conference 2019, including a practical session for delegates to assess their own charity’s sustainability and income risk profile using a simple tool we have developed. This article briefly explains that tool and how it can benefit charities who use it (including a worked example).

Business continuity planning is not just about apocalyptic events such as terrorism, floods and so on. It’s about making sure that your organisation can continue to serve its beneficiaries (and fulfill its obligations to funders) when a major event occurs that might otherwise prevent you from doing so. How well prepared are you to cope in such situations?

In January 2019 the NCVO published Charity Ethical Principles, but how’s does this fit in with the myriad of other publications in recent years on what might broadly be categorised as charity ethics, behavioural governance and/or organisational culture? As well as outlining the principles in the NCVO publication, this short articles aims to give a few pointers on how to navigate this increasingly crowded field or guidance, frameworks and codes.