The Charity Finance Group has set out its “ambitious and exciting leadership strategy” for 2017 to 2020 and said it plans to “walk the walk” , in its annual report. 

CFG’s annual report and accounts for the year ending March 2017 have been published on its website and show that its annual income was down from £2m last year to £1.9m this year. 

This drop is largely because it received a one-off grant to set up a programme for small charities in 2015/16.

Charity membership was up by 2 per cent to 1,417. The vast majority of its members are based in London and the South East and CFG said it plans to do more to increase its reach in other areas of the country. 

Over the year membership in London and the South East grew by 9 per cent, but membership in the North fell by 5 per cent. “The unevenness of growth in reach is something that we need to address in future years,” the report said.

‘Ambitious and exciting leadership strategy’ 

In the introduction to the report its chair, Nicki Deeson, and chief executive, Caron Bradshaw, said: “This year’s report will give you a good sense of the lessons we have learned and the thinking behind our ambitious and exciting leadership strategy 2017-2020.”

The new strategy has three strands: 

• CFG should “walk the walk as well as talking the talk” and will share its own experiences of being a charity and how it approaches risks and opportunities.
• It will “bring finance skills to all leaders” and continue to “build leadership skills in all levels of our finance professionals”. 
• It will build CFG as the “go-to” brand for finance issues and broaden its “audiences and our influence”. 

Its previous strategy, covering the past three years was to grow its income and broaden its offering. The annual report said it had been “successful in many respects, but it is important that we adapt to the changing environment facing charities”. 

CFG said it will continue to “champion the importance of good financial management” and it had now launched a leadership strategy because: “Strong leadership within a charity is often the missing link between turning the technical skill and information at the disposal of a charity into lasting change and improved performance for beneficiaries.”