It can be difficult to know how best to communicate with supporters in a crisis like the Covid-19 pandemic, knowing they will likely be anxious and not knowing what else is happening in their lives. This blog offers a few simple tips to help you decide what will work best for your charity.

In partnership with the British Library Business and IP Centre, our Director Julian Lomas presenting a webinar on “Social Enterprise: choosing the right legal structure” at 2.30pm on Thursday 21st May. Read on to find out more or book your place here.

Our colleague Miriam Gilbert of Coincidencity in partnership with the British Library Business and IP Centre, is presenting a webinar on how to “Stop procrastinating and get more done when working from home” at 11am on Monday 4th May. Read on to find out more or book your place here.

Our colleague John Eary of JEC Professional Services, in partnership with the British Library Business and IP Centre, is presenting a webinar on “Practical advice on Managing Homeworkers effectively” at 11am on Wednesday 29th April. Read on to find out more or book your place here.

In recent weeks a few of our clients have suggested they have more important things to focus on than governance. But good governance matters more in a crisis than it does in so called “normal” times.

As the Covid-19 situation continues charities are facing tough fundraising challenges. This short blog offers a few early thoughts on how fundraising can continue while respecting social distancing.

Earlier this week we were asked by one of our clients for our top five tips for coping with the current Covid-9 situation and planning and preparing for post Covid-19. We thought we’d share what we sent in response.

In the current lockdown situation many of us have been forced to conduct meetings online that we would otherwise have wanted to hold face to face. We’re all learning as we go but we wanted to pass on some tips from our experience to help others get the best out of video conferencing, particular for large “workshop” style meetings.

This article signposts our readers to a range of helpful resources on how small and medium sized charities can cope with the Coronavirus pandemic and offers some reflections on how to plan for the longer term amidst the turbulence of the immediate crisis.

Managing conflicts of interest effectively is not just about declaring your interest or leaving the room; it is about a mindset and culture of integrity and honesty. This short article explores the thorny topic of managing conflicts of interest in a little more depth.

What would happen if you lost your core grant tomorrow? If this question fills you with terror then ask yourself “what could you do now so you would be able to cope if you lost your core grant in 2 years time?”. This post outlines why this matters and a framework for diversifying income to reduce reliance on core grant funding.

Does your charity have problems with Trustee commitment or behaviours? A good Trustees’ code of conduct could help resolve the problem, or avoid such issue sin the first place. To find our more, read this short article on Trustees’ code of conduct, what they are and why they are helpful.

We’ve worked with many clients on strategies for fundraising from corporates. While there is no magic formula for success, we have noticed a number of common ingredients. This blog outlines our ten top tips for successful charity-corporate partnerships:

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.