Category: Not for profit,
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Comms III
this is the last of three posts on the subject of communications In the previous posts, I suggested that the first task was to decide on with whom you wanted to communicate. Books on marketing talk about segmenting the audience which is sound advice for commercial firms. It is relevant to small charities and when…
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Beware Greeks bearing gifts
charities have to be a little careful when dealing with members of parliament My Twitter pages and emails lit up a few days ago when our local MP said what a pleasure it was to meet some representatives of the local foodbank. It drew responses along the lines that he should be ashamed not delighted.…
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Are charity people too nice?
are people who work or volunteer for charities and not for profits too nice? A surprising question perhaps, even slightly insulting – what’s wrong with being nice anyway, better to be thought that than the obvious alternative. So what does it mean or imply? Firstly, nearly all those who work in the not-for-profit world do…
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Failure and governance
Is there an obsession with failing charities and the need for governance? Many years ago, when I was involved in small firms’ advice work, the common saying was ‘three out of five small firms fail in the first three years’. This quotation was widely repeated and appeared frequently in articles or speeches whenever small firms…
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Is the Charity Commission fit for purpose?
This is a question which has rattled around for a decade or so and has widespread implications for how charities are run. It was asked by the Public Accounts Committee in 2014 following some well known scandals or what were thought to be scandals namely Oxfam in Haiti and the Kids Company. Since that time,…
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Lived Experience
Is the idea of people with lived experience on boards a buzzword looking for a justification? The idea that people with lived experience (LE) should be recruited onto trustee boards more widely is cropping up frequently these days and some funders are expecting to see such people on organisations seeking funding. At first sight it…
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Being slow
This is written during the Ukraine crisis following the invasion of that country by Russian troops and artillery. It has caused a huge wave of sympathy for Ukrainians and the news bulletins and newspapers are dominated by the plight of people being bombed. Yesterday was news of the bombing of a children’s hospital although maternity…
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A common tension
One of the common tensions in small not for profit organisations is the need to provide evidence of their activities, frequently called ‘outcomes’. The most obvious problem is the difficulty of actually doing it. Many of the outcomes are by their nature ‘soft’ and hard to define and measure. A charity may be doing valuable…
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The deadly triangle
The tricky relationship which can exist between the chair, CEO and trustees Everyone knows of the Bermuda Triangle but few know of the deadly triangle. The former is almost certainly a myth: the latter isn’t. It is my name for a frequent problem which crops up in small charities and it refers to the tension…
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New book published
‘How to be a Successful Trustee’ just published Blogsite with a focus on small charities and not-for-profit organisations I think small charities and not-for-profits are a bit of a forgotten corner of our society. Thousands of them exist providing extremely valuable help and assistance to a wide variety of individuals and causes. Hundreds of thousands…
The Successful trustee 