Reset and Recover – Sandwell Communities

July 9, 2020by Leona in Blog, Did you know...? tagged

Are you looking for opportunities to develop the health and well-being of those in your community group? Are you interested in alternative ways to help people in your community recover and reset, following the challenges of lockdown?

How about trying one of the centres in the Sandwell Residential Service.

We are four centres with one basic goal; to create enjoyable, meaningful opportunities and experiences for the people who step through our doors. We can work with you to develop experiences that use a variety of environments to:

• Build self-confidence and self-esteem in the aftermath of lockdown.
• Provide opportunities for vulnerable groups to develop in a safe, supportive environment.
• Facilitate team work and leadership opportunities
• Develop resilience and a growth mindset through the medium of adventure and challenge.
• Use engagement with the outdoors and/ or creative arts to develop mental health and a sense of wellbeing.
• Create opportunities for people to engage in meaningful environmental activity that develops their sense of community.

If you are interested in forming new and exciting partnerships that will benefit the people around you then please get in touch.

Dan Jackson – Senior Tutor at Plas Gwynant Outdoor centre – dan_jackson@sandwell.gov.uk
Richard Oakes – Head of Service – richard_oakes@sandwell.gov.uk

If you want to get a further taste of what we offer then have look at our website www.sandwellresidentials.co.uk or follow us on Facebook.

How to Run Your Own Charity Webinars

July 8, 2020by Libby Mahoney in Blog, Training Support and Resources tagged ,

As more and more charities start to deliver their services digitally and find virtual ways to communicate with donors, the webinar can be a trusty tool in any charity’s arsenal. 

The hardest part of embarking any new program or initiative is starting. It’s easy to get bogged down in the specifics and over-do planning meetings. There are only 4 things you need to get going:

1. An audience
As with any content, your audience is key to success. They can help you determine your topic, time and platform. It’s essential to make sure there’s interest in a webinar programme before you put in action. Speak to your audience, find out if they’re interested and if so, what is the best time, best platform and key topics or services they’d like to hear about?

2. A topic
If your webinars are for donors, then ask them what they’d like to hear about. Lockdown has shown that donors can be charity’s most creative assets for content creation. They’ll not be short of an idea or two- be it a discussion with a service user who benefited from a donation or a seminar on what happens with a donation.

3. A time
Ask your audience what their time preferences are. This is a tough one, especially where services are concerned. Try and find the balance between flexibility and regularity. This might mean running 3 sessions a day at different times to be fully inclusive.

In our recent webinar with Thirtyone:Eight, they shared how they’d moved webinar training sessions to the evening to be more accessible and available to their service users. Similarly, for a donor audience we’ve found routine works best to increase engagement. If your survey comes back with a definitive time and date then stick to it until otherwise informed. Your audience will follow suit and start building into the daily, weekly or monthly routine

Read the full article by clicking here.

Source: Charity Digital News

Nominations for the 2020 National Lottery Awards Are Now Open!

July 8, 2020by Libby Mahoney in Blog, News and Events tagged , ,

The National Lottery Awards celebrate the ordinary people who do extraordinary things with the help of National Lottery funding.

This year,for the first time, the Awards will, honour individuals who have made an extraordinary impact in their community especially those who have adapted during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

There will be no public vote, but your nominations will be put before a judging panel made up of members of The National Lottery family and partners who will crown which of our hometown heroes or lockdown legends will pick up a coveted National Lottery Awards trophy and a £3,000 cash prize for their project.

We are looking for individuals or small groups of people who have made an outstanding contribution in any of the categories below. Young Hero nominees should be under 18 years of age and all suggestions must have been either funded by the National Lottery or be associated with a project which has received National Lottery funding. If you are not sure, don’t worry, nominate them anyway, and our team will check it out.

  • Arts
  • Charity/Voluntary
  • Education
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Heritage
  • Sport
  • Young Hero (under 18s)

To nominate in any of the above categories click here.

Source: National Lottery

Sterling notes and coins

Charities have Received Over £32 million From Dormant Trusts

July 8, 2020by Libby Mahoney in Blog, Did you know...? tagged ,

Sterling notes and coinsCharities have received a total of £32 million from dormant trusts through the Revitalising Trusts programme since 2018, it has been announced, with the programme now funded to run until 2021.

The Revitalising Trusts programme is managed by the Charity Commission and UK Community Foundations, with funding from the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). It aims to help inactive or ‘ineffective’ charities either get back up and running, or redeploy their dormant funds to other good causes.

The programme classes charities that have had no income or expenditure for the last five as inactive, with those that have spent less than 30% of their total income over the last five years classed as ineffective.

Once identified as dormant, the Commission gives the trustees an option to accept support to help them get back up and running. Alternatively, the funds are redeployed to causes in line with the aims of the dormant charity or the trust is transferred to a local community foundation to be managed for the long-term benefit of local communities.

The programme began in January 2018 and has contacted over 1,800 charities to date. The Commission has so far removed 179 charities from the register – 67 since lockdown – transferring funds to similar charities, to local Community Foundations or to UK Community Foundations, and revitalised 26 charities.

To read the full article click here.

Source: UK Fundraising

Coronavirus Sees Two-Thirds of Charities Change How They Communicate With Supporters

July 8, 2020by Libby Mahoney in Blog, Did you know...? tagged , ,

Lockdown has seen two-thirds (67%) of charities surveyed by Rapidata change the way they communicate with supporters, with use of digital rising sharply and 49% saying they expect to continue using channels they hadn’t used before in the future.

The findings are among those revealed in a new report from Rapidata, released today during Fundraising Convention.

For the report, Rapidata questioned charities on their experiences during the coronavirus pandemic, specifically around regular giving and how they had adapted their fundraising.

It found that, among the charities surveyed, communications saw a general shift from donor acquisition to supporter stewardship, with a big rise in the use of digital, and increased impact reporting and thanking.

Key survey findings:

  • 67% of charity respondents changed how they communicate with regular giving supporters during lockdown.
    Use of digital: 71% increased their use of social media, followed by email (62%), online advertising and online virtual events (both 46%). The latter also saw the biggest increase in first time use, at 16% of respondents.
  • A quarter (24%) increased their use of the telephone to thank supporters and reinvigorate relationships.
    Social media, additional impact reporting and thank you mailings were the top three activities used to tackle attrition.
  • Almost a quarter of charities (24%) pre-empted cancellations by offering payment options such as skipping a month, taking a holiday or reducing their gift.
  • The most successful channels for recruiting regular supporters during lockdown were social media, email and online advertising,
  • The most successful channels for stewardship were email, direct mail, and telephone.
  • Almost half (49%) expect to continue using channels they hadn’t used before lockdown.
    75% expect to continue their increased use of digital.
  • Barriers to digital uptake remain: 23% would like to make more use of digital but lack the skills or resources, while 17% are impeded by lack of budget.

Survey responses were received from 87 charities of all sizes. The highest proportion came from London and the South East, followed by Midlands and South West, with causes ranging from children and young people, to hospices, religious causes, animal welfare, and the environment.

As well as asking participants to share how they reacted to lockdown, and to the initial recovery phase of lockdown easing, Rapidata also asked about the strategies implemented to drive donations, mitigate attrition and protect regular giving income, and for their thoughts on the future of regular giving.

Read the full article by clicking here.

Source: UK Fundraising

Sir Lenny Henry wins Special Recognition in Fundraising Award

July 8, 2020by Libby Mahoney in Blog, VCS Feature tagged ,

The Chartered Institute of Fundraising has awarded Sir Lenny Henry with the Special Recognition in Fundraising Award for his contribution to fundraising.

The one-off award was announced yesterday morning just before Sir Lenny began his opening plenary at this year’s Fundraising Convention, presented entirely virtually for the first time.

The award was made in recognition of Sir Lenny’s achievements with Comic Relief and for his continued role in championing diversity and inclusion across the creative arts.

Henry co-founded Comic Relief in 1985 with comedy scriptwriter Richard Curtis in response to the famine in Ethiopia. Through a series of telethons on the BBC, expanded with the introduction of Sport Relief, Comic Relief had by 2015 raised over £1 billion for charitable work in Africa and in the UK.

The first live fundraising show was held on 4 April 1986, and the first Red Nose Day campaign was held on 5 February 1988.

Henry is also a campaigner for the greater representation of Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) people in the entertainment industry.

He addressed the issue of diversity and representation in the charity sector in his opening plenary, together with sharing his experience of fundraising through Comic Relief.

Read the full article by clicking here.

Source: UK Fundraising

Julia & Hans Rausing launch £10m Charity Survival Fund

July 8, 2020by Libby Mahoney in Blog, Funding tagged ,

Julia and Hans Rausing are making £10 million available to support UK charities, through the launch of a new Charity Survival Fund.

The Rausings have created the Charity Survival Fund in response to their concerns about the economic impact of Covid-19 on charities. It will target small and medium size charities with the aim of providing core funding to help charities overcome this impact and offset lost income.

And for the first time, The Julia and Hans Rausing Trust will be open to accepting funding applications from charities.

The fund aims to reach charities across the UK whose annual income is below £5 million. It will fund charities that need financial aid to support the costs of existing programmes and their day-to-day work, rather than for expansionary purposes or to fund capital projects.

Grants on offer range from £1,000 to £250,000, with the aim of supporting approximately 200 charities across the country. There is a particular interest in receiving applications from charities not previously funded by the Trust.

The deadline for application submissions is 27 July 2020, with a formal announcement of the charities who have been awarded funds to be made in September.

To read the full article click here.

Source: UK Fundraising

Decline

Pandemic Impact Means Inevitable Shrinkage of Voluntary Sector

July 8, 2020by Libby Mahoney in Blog, VCS Feature tagged

DeclineWhile it is too early to determine the full impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the charity sector’s finances, the sector will inevitably be smaller in the immediate future at least, according to the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO).

NCVO publishes its annual UK Civil Society Almanac today, which looks at the charity sector’s finances. Because of the time delay in charities’ accounts being compiled, audited and published, the latest data covers the financial year 2017/18.

It shows modest income growth in the sector during 2017/18, reserves back to their pre-financial crisis level and employment in the sector at a record high. However, with government income at its lowest ever level and public money the main source of income growth, the forecasted post-Covid economic downturn is likely to have a direct impact on finances.

Income

In more depth, the Almanac shows a modest income growth in the voluntary sector of 2% in 2017/18. This was the same level as for the previous year, 2016/17, and confirms a trend of the levelling off of  faster growth seen in the years prior, according to NCVO. Total income went up by £1.2bn between 2016/17 and 2017/18 to £53.5bn, but almost half of this increase came from two individual legacies that totalled £555m.

While  voluntary incomes were not hit as hard as expected during lockdown with a  joint survey by the Institute of Fundraising, NCVO, and Charity Finance Group showing that voluntary income from the public dropped by 14% whereas trading income fell by 72%, NCVO warns that this may  represent a lagged effect as was the case following the previous recession in 2008/09.

The Almanac also shows that while government income grew £280m from the previous year to £15.7bn in 2017/19, this was its lowest point on record as a proportion of the sector’s total income, at 29%. This, it says, reflects other income streams outpacing growth in income from government with the increased reliance on other sources of income further suggesting that decreased income from the public will have a negative impact on the sector.

Reserve levels completed their recovery to pre-financial crisis levels, reaching £63.5bn in 2017/18: just over the previous high of £63.2bn in 2007/08.

Additionally, NCVO notes that it took seven years to recover its net assets to pre-2008 levels following the global financial crisis. The speed of bounce back this time will vary for different subsectors, it says, and will largely depend on the overall economic recovery.

To read the full UK Fundraising Article click here.

Source: UK Fundraising

Radcliffe Trust

July 8, 2020by Mazeline Hemmings in Blog, Funding tagged ,

The Radcliffe Trust continues to support the music, heritage and crafts sectors in the UK. This includes classical music performance/training (chamber music, composition and music education) for children/adults with special needs; development/practice of skills, knowledge and experience in heritage and crafts.

One year grants of between £2,500 & £7,500 are available for innovative, imaginative and creative projects developed in response to the current challenging times as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic delivering activities safely and successfully.

Apply by 31 January or 31 July each year for meetings in June and December. However, as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic, there is a new revised deadline of 14 September 2020.

More information

Doing Things Differently

July 8, 2020by Mazeline Hemmings in Blog, Funding tagged ,

It is recognised that organisations may need to work differently during these unprecedented times to ensure the needs of communities are met. The ‘Doing Things Differently’ grant programme, from Heart of England Community Foundation, support Birmingham, the Black Country, Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire based organisations through this difficult time.

There are grants of between £3,000 and £20,000 available to enable organisations to change the way they deliver their work to continue to meet the developing needs of their communities during Covid -19. This could include moving services to provide them digitally or redeploying staff to meet the changing needs of the community.

The funding is not to replace core costs, or a loss of income, if you have had to close your services due to Covid 19.This fund is for organisations who are deeply rooted in their community.

There is a rolling deadline for applications.

See here for further info

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