In November’s Charity Finance magazine.

• The charity sector’s top 50 fund managers are responsible for the investments of 70,000 charities. Whether your charity has thousands, millions or billions of pounds of investment assets, you’ll want to know what is happening, and likely to happen, to your returns.
• The Charity Commission explains its thinking behind its new investment guidance (CC14) and what it might mean for you.
• Asthma UK tells us how it overcame the financial troubles of 2008 and what lessons it has learnt from it.
• We interview Ian Theodoreson, the new chair of CFDG.
• The Bribery Act – if you haven’t done anything about it yet, Sarah Rowley has already written your board paper for you, and we have it.

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There is a significant emphasis on investment issues in this month’s magazine. But please don’t make the mistake of thinking that this subject is only relevant to your charity if you have an investment portfolio worth millions of pounds. For a start, as our annual Charity Fund Management Survey shows on pages 22-43, CCLA has more than 45,000 charity clients with average funds invested, albeit in pooled funds, of under £100,000. The other 49 fund managers in our survey manage the affairs of 25,000 charity investors, with funds under management totalling £45bn. Given the huge sums involved, it is clear that what is happening to investment returns affects the financial health of the whole sector.

All charities need to take note of the new Charity Commission investment guidance (CC14), which has just been published. Jane Hobson, head of policy at the Commission, explains the thinking behind it on
pages 18-19, and we get two external perspectives on the subject from Kate Rogers and Stephen Hammersley on pages 20-21.

Sticking with the investment theme, on pages 44-45 we have an in-depth account of the investment challenges faced by Asthma UK during the financial troubles of 2008, and what the charity has done to learn lessons for the future. Many thanks to FD Ian Bucknell for his valuable article.

Another FD in the news is Ian Theodoreson, CFO at the Church of England, who was recently elected chair of CFDG. Ian is the longest-serving CFDG member. I interview him on pages 16-17.

And finally, the Bribery Act. If you haven’t done anything about it since the Act came into force in July, Sarah Rowley has already written your board paper for you on how to avoid the pitfalls. All you have to do is read page 46.

Andrew Hind
Editor