A quick Google image search for the term “finance professionals” brings up a large number of very similar results.
The vast majority are stock photos of smartly dressed men and women pointing at charts and graphs, or working on charts or spreadsheets on a computer.
Oh, and there is often a calculator on the desk somewhere.
To be fair to the famous search engine’s algorithms, this probably reflects what a lot of people think the work of finance professionals looks like.
Yet, those working in charity finance know a different story which is perhaps not easily summed up in one image.
That story is that the role has become much more strategic over recent years and one element of this should be helping the charity to tell its story – to demonstrate its impact.
However, as Elliot Trevithick and Sarah Broad of NPC write in the October edition of Charity Finance magazine: “Impact reporting is often seen as the responsibility of programme teams or fundraisers.
“But finance professionals bring essential skills that are critical to doing this well.”
This year’s Charity Finance Week, which begins today, recognises this important role with its theme of Seeing the Big Picture: Finance, Impact and the Story You Tell.
It should not be forgotten that most charities rely on public trust to survive, and getting the story of your organisation’s impact out is an important part in building that trust.
The Charity Commission’s report, Public Trust in Charities, this year found that 45% of people said that whether a charity “makes a real difference to the people and communities that it serves by achieving its stated purpose” was an important factor in trusting them.
A new SORP
The theme is also timely, given the imminent publication of the new version of the Charities Statement of Recommended Practice (SORP), the accounting rules for charities.
The majority of the updates contained in the draft version of it, which was published earlier this year, focused on the narrative part of the annual report and accounts, rather than the more technical accounting elements.
On impact reporting, the draft SORP proposes making it compulsory for all charities to “explain how their work has benefited society as a whole”. In addition, larger charities “must provide more detail on impact reporting”.
If this carries forward to the final version, then it will only reinforce charity finance professionals’ role in this crucial area.
And, who knows, maybe one day it will mean that Google provides more varied images of finance professionals.
