Charities advised to focus on short-term gain of early intervention

Finance | Vibeka Mair | 26 Jul 2010

Charities should focus on short-term savings they can make to local government when making the case for early intervention projects, according to civil servants.

This is the advice that was given to children’s charity Chance UK on engaging with local authorities, says its chief executive Gracia McGrath.

McGrath, who was speaking at New Philanthropy Capital event Intervening early for the Big Society, was answering a question on how charities could show a local authority that early intervention projects were vital:

“We’ve been told by civil servants not just to focus on the long-term,” said McGrath, “but focus on what we can save a local authority this year and the next. Civil servants described it as ‘horizontal integration’ – looking at short-term cost savings.”

Elsewhere, the event also addressed the enthusiasm among charities for franchising projects.

CSV’s director of part-time volunteering Sue Gwaspari said the charity had looked at franchising its Charity Awards-winning project Volunteers in Child Protection based on CSV’s values, but it was concerned it would be tricky to maintain its values in outside projects.

However, former chief executive of NSPCC Dame Mary March said "social franchising" was necessary otherwise successful projects would never get UK-wide reach.

Directory: National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) | New Philanthropy Capital
Who's Who: Dame Mary Marsh

Comments

[Cancel] | Reply to:

Name *

Email *

Organisation

Job Title

Comments *

Verification *

* Please read our Community Standards

Close »

Community Standards

The civilsociety.co.uk community and comments board is intended as a platform for informed and civilised debate.

We hope to encourage a broad range of views, however, there are standards that we expect commentators to uphold. We reserve the right to delete or amend any comments that do not adhere to these standards.

We welcome:

Robust but respectful debate
Strongly held opinions
Intelligent relevant discussion
The sharing of relevant experiences
New participants

We will not publish:

Rude, threatening, offensive, obscene or abusive language, or links to such material
Links to commercial organisations or spam postings. The comments board is not an advertising platform
The posting of contact details for yourself or others
Comments intended for malicious purpose or mindless abuse
Comments purporting to be from another person or organisation under false pretences
Gratuitous criticism, commentary or self-promotion
Any material which breaches copyright or privacy laws, or could be considered libellous
The use of the comments board for the pursuit or extension of personal disputes

Be aware:

Views expressed on the comments board are left at users’ discretion and are in no way views held or supported by Civil Society Media
Comments left by others may not be accurate, do not rely on them as fact
You may be misunderstood - sarcasm and humour can easily be taken out of context, try to be clear

Please:

Enjoy the opportunity to express your opinion and respect the right of others to express theirs
Confine your remarks to issues rather than personalities

Together we can keep our community a polite, respectful and intelligent platform for discussion.