Entering consortia helps charities to access additional funding and to build their capacity through peer support and sharing of resources, a Charity Commission study has found.
Consortia for the delivery of public services: the issues for small and medium-sized charities, which looked at the experiences of charities in five consortia of varying sizes, heard that their involvement helped organisations to cost their services properly and operate in a more businesslike way.
As one participant said: “If you’re a smaller organisation, you don’t have an HR department and it’s a massive help to be able to call someone to check that you’re doing things in the right way and to provide you with support.”
Charities also revealed that mission incompatibility had not been a concern, as overall, those in the consortia found they had broadly similar aims.
Risks not considered
However, charities were not always fully considering the risks of joining consortia, with a tendency to not carry out any due diligence.
This was often because they felt they already knew the other organisations and had already worked together, or because they were happy to rely on the commissioning body to do this.
The report also contains the news revealed by Dame Suzi Leather earlier this month that some organisations are not consulting their trustee boards before taking the decision to join consortia.
Speaking about the findings, Commission chief executive Sam Younger said: “This research demonstrates that working together in consortia is a really effective way for charities to access more funding sources than they can on their own. However, it is surprising that decisions to join consortia in some cases are not being taken by trustees.
“While everyone hopes nothing will go wrong, there are more steps charities should take to protect themselves from any potential pitfalls”
The five consortia studied in the report were: the Birmingham Disability Consortium; Rotherham Children, Young People and Families Consortium; Northumberland Learning and Employability Access Partnership; Sheffield Well-being Consortium; and the 800 Group.
