Funding is possibly the biggest collective headache facing the voluntary sector – figuring out where they are going to find their next round of funding from occupies a disproportionate amount of charities’ time.
So much so that in early 2009 the NCVO established a Funding Commission to explore how to transform the funding environment for the sector, to make it more sustainable and resilient. After initial investigations the Commission decided to focus on three themes: capitalisation, stimulating giving, and local action. It is expected to publish recommendations at the end of 2009.
The Funding Commission, set up by the NCVO a year ago to examine ways of transforming the funding climate for civil society organisations, is not expecting to publish its final report for several more months.
Acevo and the NHS Partners Network have successfully lobbied for an inquiry into a Primary Care Trust’s decision to only accept tenders for running its community services from NHS organisations.
Half of UK charities say their income has not changed in the past year, while a further 30 per cent have experienced a drop of less than 10 per cent , according a new survey by accountants Baker Tilly.
GamCare, the advice and counselling charity for problem gamblers, is worried that it will be sidelined and have its funding slashed under new proposals from the Responsible Gambling Strategy Board.
Core funding improves outcomes as well as relationships with funders, argues Jessica Sklair.
Bad Funding has become part of civil society's DNA. But it doesn't have to be like that, says Nick Wilkie
If you missed US fundraiser and author Dan Pallotta expound his revolutionary ideas about the future of charities at Charity Finance Live last month, you can now catch him here in a short film by Civil Society’s very own video jockey, Alex Goddard.
A coalition of Scottish MPs has called on Lloyds Banking Group to reconsider its decision to halt funding for the Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland. Last week, the Foundation announced that it had closed its doors to new grant applications “for the foreseeable future” after failing to reach an agreement on future funding with its main benefactor the Lloyds Banking Group
A coalition of Scottish MPs has called on Lloyds Banking Group to reconsider its decision to halt funding for the Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland. Last week, the Foundation announced that it had closed its doors to new grant applications “for the foreseeable future” after failing to reach an agreement on future funding with its main benefactor the Lloyds Banking Group.
NAVCA has accused the Adventure Capital Fund of discrediting grants by urging organisations to move away from ‘grant dependence’ in its recent guidance on the £70m Communitybuilders Fund. In a 500-word report, Kevin Curley, chief executive of NAVCA, has complained that ACF’s language and thinking is damaging to the interests of the local voluntary and community sector.
Some £6.6m of government funding earmarked to be distributed by the Futurebuilders Fund had to be returned to the Treasury at the end of March because Futurebuilders was unable to spend it in time. According to the Cabinet Office annual report and accounts just published, a total of £13.8m in capital grants was sent back to the Treasury – 31 per cent of the total budget. The rest was derived mainly from an underspend in the Grassroots Grants endowment match challenge programme and to a lesser extent, the Community Assets Fund.
With CIFs on their way to the FSA, Gareth Jones asks where this leaves specialist pooled funds for charities. This year our pooled funds focus comes at a transitional moment, with the future of the two charity specific forms, Common Investment Funds (CIFs) and Common Deposit Funds (CDFs), currently up for consultation.
A benevolent fund for charity employees is to launch officially in November, six years after it was initially proposed and registered as a charity. The Charity Employees Benevolent Fund (CEBF) is dedicated to helping vulnerable charity employees, part and present, and their dependents. It is already supporting a couple with three disabled children, a family affected by a degenerative condition, and a pensioner who has lost her connection with the outside world.
Colin Nee argues innovation isn’t enough. Now that political debate about public spending has moved from the synthetic argument about whether savings will be made to how, there is space and an urgent need to focus on how to shape the post-recession economy. Innovation could be key to driving future growth but only if investment is there to propagate good ideas and scale them up.
Angela Smith, charities minister, has pledged £5m to support social investment to close “the missing link between social enterprise and finance”. Smith (pictured) announced the funding at yesterday's Social Investment Conference, organised by Social Finance, where she told delegates that she really wanted a Social Investment Wholesale Bank to happen.
The Office of the Third has changed its mind and agreed to publish the assessment reports for its 11 most highly-funded strategic partners, as requested by Charity News Alert under the Freedom of Information Act. Initially the OTS refused to disclose the reports, saying the public benefit in keeping them secret outweighed the public benefit in making them available. But after Charity News Alert requested an internal review of this decision, it agreed last week to provide copies. No reason was given as to the change of heart.
The Church of Pentecost has borrowed £1.3m from RBS to establish a regional office as it parts company with its parent charity Elim Pentecostal Church and branches out on its own for the first time. The funding has allowed the Church to buy a converted warehouse in Peckham, south London to use as its new office, as well as buying seven other worship halls, residencies and commercial properties that until now it has managed under the Elim banner.
The dividend paid by Oxford University Press to its parent charity, Oxford University, has almost doubled this year to £100m. In a clear sign that the recession has not affected the printing arm at all, it is to pass over £100.7m on the back of profits up 6 per cent this year to £88.7m.
Care home operator MHA has borrowed £20m from Barclays Commercial Bank to refurbish three care homes that it bought last year and build three new properties. MHA, which comprises Methodist Homes, MHA Auchlochan and a housing association, already operates 70 care homes providing a mix of nursing, residential and dementia care, along with independent living properties and support services for more than 12,500 elderly people.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has appointed Jupiter Asset Management to handle its £40m multi-asset equity portfolio. The portfolio will have a core investment in UK equities and will be managed by Ben Whitmore, manger odf the Jupiter UK Special Situations unit trust alongside several institutional funds.
London Mayor Boris Johnson’s announcement this week that provision of rape crisis counselling in London would be doubled over the next three years has been tempered by United Nations warnings that the UK government’s commitment to women’s rights is still sorely lacking. Because the UK government has missed previous compulsory targets on ending discrimination against women, set by the UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), it was supposed to report on its latest progress to the CEDAW Committee last month.
Ruralnet UK, the rural regeneration charity founded by Simon Berry nearly eight years ago, has closed down after failing to attract sufficient funding to keep operating. For the last two years the charity has had to dip into its reserves to stay afloat, and been unable to find enough money to build them up again. It took steps to shrink its operations earlier this year but those moves have not proved to be enough and at the end of July it ceased trading altogether.
NCVO has secured funding from the European Commission for its new European umbrella organisation European Network of National Associations (ENNA). ENNA, which is spearheaded by NCVO, represents civil society umbrella organisations from Austria, Cyprus, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, N Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Scotland and Slovenia.
Jenny Willott, charities spokeswoman for the Liberal Democrats, has warned that the Conservative Party’s pledge to replace the Big Lottery Fund with an independent Voluntary Action Lottery Fund will reduce the money going to charitable work. Speaking exclusively to Charity News Alert, Willott said the Conservatives' plan to stop 20 per cent of lottery funding going to statutory organisations such as local authorities, and instead pledge all the money to the sector, sounded good but actually “covered up a state of hand which meant less money went to the sector”.
Futurebuilders and the ChangeUp programme have failed to follow basic good practice in programme and project management, Edward Leigh MP, chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts has said. Announcing the release of a damning report of both bodies, Leigh (pictured) insisted the fact the initiatives were experimental was no excuse.
In April, the Association of Charitable Foundations conducted a survey of its members to explore the prospects for grantmaking in the short and longer-term. The results paint a broadly positive picture for charities seeking funding, says David Emerson The recession has hit the stock market hard, and as trusts and foundations have much of their assets in equities, anyone might expect them to have been badly affected.
The Funding Commission has decided to focus its work investigating how to transform the funding environment for the sector, on three themes-capitalisation, stimulating giving, and local action. The Commission has recently finished a 12-week consultation with civil society organisations and experts, at which a number of issues were raised: local funding, funding practice, public service delivery, capacity-building, social investment, giving, and volunteering.
A CAF Bank survey of 280 charities has revealed that 42 per cent are struggling to deliver services because of the low interest rates.
The collapse in the value of the pound on international money markets has cost Christian Aid around £15m, or 25 per cent of the value of its money, according to its director Daleep Mukarji.
Mike Greensmith advocates getting a clear picture of the detail – and asking all the right questions – to steer you through a recession
