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Acevo trading arm to sell sector intelligence to private companies 3

Finance | Tania Mason | 7 Feb 2011

Acevo has set up a trading company that is exploring the potential for selling market intelligence about charities to private companies wishing to target the sector.

Acevo Solutions Ltd was incorporated as a wholly-owned trading subsidiary of Acevo on 18 March last year to “develop new business ideas for Acevo and support any non-primary purpose trading activities”, according to the charity’s latest annual report.

Chief executive Sir Stephen Bubb told Civil Society that Acevo was taking “an enterprising approach to diversifying its income” in light of the possible loss or reduction of its Office for Civil Society strategic grant and the expiration next month of its three-year Capacitybuilders funding.

The umbrella body admitted in its 2009/10 annual report: “A number of our current income streams cease at the end of next year so a priority will be to grow new income generating ventures, predominantly through trading, and develop scenarios for the future development of Acevo.”

Investor and philanthropist Oliver Rothschild is chairman of Acevo Solutions, while Richard McKelvey, strategist at the Office of the Ambassador for Philanthropy and Yemi Adeshiyan, Acevo’s head of events, are managing partners. BTCV chief executive and Acevo trustee Tom Flood and Acevo head of policy Seb Elsworth are directors, as are Bubb and Acevo’s finance director Louise Smith.

The company has already taken over Acevo’s business planning, full cost recovery advice and governance review services and set up Acevo Events Management to provide event management services to third parties. But Sir Stephen said he suspected there were new markets to be tapped by selling Acevo’s intellectual property.

“What we have realised is that there is quite market for intelligence, our intellectual property. We are in an incredibly strong position to know what’s going on in the sector, what’s going on in government, what’s happening on the service-delivery front – because we are in there.  So now we are thinking through how that sort of advisory service could be valuable, particularly to the private sector organisations who are in this market.”

During the 2009/10 year Acevo had total income of £3.1m. Its strategic grant from the Office for Civil Society was £210,125 and grants from Capacitybuilders totalled £812,907. Income from other statutory sources was in the region of £313,000, meaning that Acevo got around 43 per cent of its revenue from the government.

However, Bubb said that because something like 75 per cent of the Capacitybuilders funding went straight out to delivery partners, and the staff who had been hired to deliver the Capacitybuilders programmes had always known their contracts would end next month, Acevo would not be as exposed to public spending cuts as some other infrastructure bodies in the sector. The OCS strategic grant is obviously under threat but Acevo is hoping some level of grant will continue. Sir Stephen said no additional jobs were expected to be lost beyond those that were already coming to an end anyway.

Other OCS strategic partners:

• In July volunteering charity v announced 93 redundancies after the government scrapped its schools volunteering programme. Last month it said that a further 33 jobs were likely to go, leaving 32 posts remaining.
• Navca announced in September that it had begun consulting with staff on up to 18 job cuts over the next six months following funding losses of around 50 per cent.
• In November NCVO said around 30 of its posts were at risk, though several new jobs are expected to be created.
• Also in November Volunteering England said it was considering cutting more than half of its staff from 55 to 24 posts.
• The Development Trusts Association and bassac and announced a merger after extraordinary general meetings in November and said there would be job losses but haven’t yet decided how many.
• In January Youth Action Network said it would close later this year, transferring its services to the National Council of Voluntary Youth Services.

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Directory: Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (ACEVO) | BTCV | National Council of Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) | Volunteering England
Who's Who: Sir Stephen Bubb