NCVO

Lots on offer to support new and experienced trustees this Trustees’ Week

Becky Leave a comment

Trustees’ Week has landed again and I wanted to share some of the great resources out there that can help you become a better trustee, as well as invite you to an informal Trustees Week chat that we’re hosting alongside our colleagues from SCVO. Many of these resources will help you all year long, whether you’re thinking of become a trustee, you’re new to the role or you want to build upon your experience.

Trustees are the people in charge of a charity. They often give their time in the background, making sure their charity operates properly, safeguarding its staff and the people it supports and making sure the charity fulfils its purposes.

Trustees’ Week is an annual campaign to showcase the wonderful work trustees do and to open up opportunities for more people to become trustees from all walks of life.

The Trustees’ Week website is a great starting point for information about trustees and the events and resources open to them. Here are some of my picks from the big programme of guidance, events and activities happening across the country, many of which you can access online.

Events during Trustees Week

Getting on Board’s Festival of Trusteeship

“It’s for people who want to become trustees, trustees who want to keep learning and developing, and for charity leaders who want to understand best practice in trustee recruitment and diversity.

We’ll have an action-packed week of events, with workshops, Ted-style talks, networking events, Q&A clinics, and more.

If you want to learn about: youth leadership, anti-racism in the boardroom, anti-ageism, charity finances, ableism, how to recruit amazing candidates, anti-sexism, how to manage volunteers, diversity & inclusion, safeguarding for trustees, how to be a strategic force for change, what charitable impact is and how to drive it forwards as a trustee, and even more… join us at the Festival of Trusteeship!“

There’s also lots of webinars, workshops and discussions covering topics such as board diversity, governance in challenging times, recruiting new trustees and more. Find the full list here.

On Friday, we’re jointly hosting a Trustees’ Week chat with our colleagues from SCVO. Intentionally without an agenda, you’ll be free to join us to learn more about trusteeship, ask specific questions or share your experience and expertise. If you’d like to join us on this Zoom call, please register here.

Resources for trustees

The Charity Commission’s new ‘take 5’ guides

The Charity Commission has written new 5 minute guides, covering the top 5 areas of trustee responsibilities:

The Essential Trustee

The Charity Commission’s core guidance for charity trustees, which covers the legal duties and responsibilities of charity trustees.

The Charity Governance Code

A practical tool for charities and their trustees to develop high standards of governance.

NCVO Good Trustee Guide

Primarily for new trustees. This guide is available to NCVO members and has been made available to non-members until 9 November.

NCVO Trustee Recruitment Pack

A toolkit for small charities looking to recruit new trustees. This is available to NCVO members and has been made available to non-members until 9 November.

NCVO also has great resources and tools available all year round to help you to improve your governance. Visit https://knowhow.ncvo.org.uk/ for more.

Finally, we offer training to any Dudley-based charity on the roles and responsibilities of trustees using The Essential Trustee and the Charity Governance Code. This training takes boards through the principles of trusteeship and helps you to identify gaps, providing you with support, guidance and knowhow to improve your board’s performance. Please get in touch if you’d like this training.

 

Resources for charities and not-for-profits during the Coronavirus pandemic

Becky Leave a comment

It’s probably fair to say that it’s an uncertain time for the not-for-profit sector. The Coronavirus pandemic has affected organisations in different ways, depending on their activities, their size or how they’re funded. Some have had to suspend their activities; others have continued but scaled down; some have had their income streams completely dry up; others have faced an unprecendented increase in demand. Odds are also that added into that mix have been the challenges of doing things differently, loss of staff or volunteers due to sickness, shielding or furlough, and mental health implications.

Reassuringly, people have come forward in their droves to help in their community; this is very welcome and many of us are beginning to think about how this impetus is best harnessed as we enter new phases. The increase in volunteering could pose challenges in itself as organisations try to ensure that people volunteer safely.

I wanted to bring together some of the useful things we’ve been sharing to help not-for-profits over the past few months, share what’s coming up and pose some questions for us to explore over the next few months.

I’ll start with what’s coming up.

Next week is Small Charity Week and there are lots of events listed on the Small Charity Week website. We’re hosting three events next week.

Virtual drop in SCW

On Tuesday, we’ll host a virtual drop-in for small charities, voluntary groups & nonprofits. We can chat about anything to do with running a not-for-profit. We’ll also be joined by Jade from Severn Trent Community Fund and John from The National Lottery Community Fund.

Charity governance code SCW

On Thursday, we’ll run a brief training workshop on the Charity Governance Code to help trustees understand their role. It will be most useful for trustees of registered charities or people who are thinking of registering their organisation as a charity.

Sector catch up

And on Friday, we’ll host a sector catch up for charities, voluntary groups and other nonprofits. An opportunity to network, to catch up with developments and to discuss moving forward through the Covid19 pandemic.

NCVO (National Council of Voluntary Organisations) is also hosting a webinar on ‘Building organisational resilience: things for small charities to consider‘ next Wednesday.

This builds on the excellent series of webinars NCVO has produced on a whole range of topics, from protecting people, financial planning and making decisions during the Coronavirus pandemic. The webinars are all recorded and published on Youtube, so don’t worry if you’ve missed any; you can access them here.

I recently caught the recent NCVO webinar on ‘Board leadership: Supporting your charity through the next phase of the Coronavirus pandemic’

It encourages you to think about where your board of trustees are currently. Have they been helping out with delivery recently? It’s important to understand where the board is so that it can move on from emergency / survival stage and into the next phase; easing the board from management into governance and setting the charity’s direction will be important. And if planning might seem a futile exercise at the moment, there are some tools and tips for planning during uncertain times.

Finally, in case you missed our updates on our news page and in our regular email bulletin (you can sign up to that here), here’s a round up of the things we’ve put together over the last few months. The first two links are still regularly updated as the situation is changing quickly:

Help for not-for-profits

This resource covers

  • government guidance on working and providing services during the pandemic
  • guidance on governing your organisation, holding meetings, AGMs and other legal compliance matters
  • HR tools
  • financial help

It is regularly updated and visiting the page will always give you the most up-to-date version.

Funders for Covid-19

Covid19 funding

This is a comprehensive list of funders that have grants programmes for projects that will support the community during the ongoing pandemic.

It is regularly updated and visiting the page will always give you the most up-to-date version.

Helping in your community during Covid-19

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For both individuals who want to help and groups that have been taking on more volunteers during the period. This contains

  • hints and tips for what individual volunteers can do to keep themselves and others safe
  • ideas for what people can do to help depending on their circumstances
  • help and resources for groups that involve volunteers covering safety, confidentiality, lone working guidance and more.

We are still offering one-to-one support to Dudley borough groups. We can offer this support either by email or by online meetings. We do have quite a bit of demand so we appreciate your patience on this; please don’t hesitate to make contact with us!

Building kinder communities in Netherton

Becky 2 Comments

I’m really pleased that one of the small charities that Dudley CVS has supported has been awarded funding from one of Dudley Council’s Community Forums (Netherton, Woodside and St. Andrews and Quarry Bank and Dudley Wood Community Forum) to set up a pilot project to help people build important social connections where they live.

Members of Netherton Regeneration Group, which we supported to gain charity status, had this to say about their plans:

Netherton Regeneration Group is setting up a pilot in the Darby End area to train volunteers to help lonely people to get out and about. We are setting up a network of street champions and lots of interesting and healthy activities open to all comers. We want to help people who are not able to get out easily, have lost touch with friends, need something to get them moving, get help with health problems, find out about healthy foods and exercise, but mainly to have some fun!

We have been awarded £2,300 from the Community Forum and hope to win some more funds through DMBC’s Innovation Fund for the Voluntary Sector.

Our idea is simple!

We will create a regular support group, to help people become more active and less isolated. People will be offered lots of fun activities including:

  • cooking food together
  • having a cup of tea and a chat
  • making new friends
  • learning to grow plants and vegetables
  • cooking easy, healthy meals and sharing them
  • taking part in healthy walks
  • arts and crafts activities
  • playing games and having a good time!
  • practical community work to make Netherton a better place to live and work
  • setting up a patients’ garden in the Health Centre courtyard over the next year! Instead of looking at weeds, we will be able to see fresh flowers and herbs that we have grown!! Funds are being provided from the Health Centre’s Patient Participation Group Purse to set up the garden.

Volunteers are needed now!

We will be training ten volunteers to help us run the programme and they will get free First Aid and Food Hygiene courses provided.

If you’re interested in helping to make any of this happen, please contact us using our Facebook page and letting us know what kinds of things you’d like to help with.

NRG

A couple of local volunteers working with our Trustee, Chris, to tidy up Joe Darby’s statue in Netherton Centre last summer.

There’s been a marked increase recently in conversations around social connectedness and how that builds individual and communal resilience, combating loneliness and isolation. At national level the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness and its #Happytochat campaign, research done by Carnegie Trust and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on the place of kindness in communities and yesterday’s creation of a ministerial post on loneliness all point to a rising understanding that belonging and social connectedness are crucial for health, wellbeing and prosperity. The Chief Executive of NCVO (National Council of Voluntary Organisations), Sir Stuart Ethertington has also made a strong statement of our sector’s central role in building a sense of belonging and connectedness.

More locally, these messages have been repeated:

I’m really pleased that Netherton Regeneration Group is thinking about how its members can help people to get involved with building kinder communities and I like that there are lots of different opportunities to participate.

I’m sure there are lots of other ways people are building links with each other across Dudley borough, whether that’s on an individual level or through a group or charity. If you’re inspired to get involved, get in touch with Netherton Regeneration Group through its Facebook page or get in touch with us if you want to be linked to people doing good things somewhere else in Dudley borough.