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Thank you for attending The Small Charity Friendly Collective conference aimed at supporting charities with incomes under £5,000 up to £1m to understand and feel equipped to manage this next period of national uncertainty. The Small Charity Friendly Collective shared their expertise in finance, fundraising, strategy, comms, HR, governance and risk in a practical, non-judgemental, and friendly way.
This event was supported by gunnercooke LLP. gunnercooke has its own charitable foundation that provides business and peer support for small charities through its inspire programme HERE.
Please find all the sessions below with the recording and presentation.
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…- Michele Price
“Just when we thought that things could not get any worse……”. Michele is an experienced charity and regulatory lawyer, with a passion for helping small charities succeed. In her opening address she looks at the cumulative impact of recent national and global events on the small charities sector and how the conference sessions will give you the tools and confidence to manage these current challenges.
Planning for financial uncertainty (Building financial resilience and managing financial difficulties)- Liz Pepler and Rachel Cooper
As small charities, we all have an iceberg. Something that, if we don’t take corrective action, will take us off course. Our job is to scan the horizon, locate the iceberg and set course around it. What this means in practice is multi-year visibility, scenario planning, active reserves management and early warning indicators. In this session, we will look at what we talk about when we talk about financial resilience and what we need to do to manage financial difficulties.
Liz Pepler- liz@embracefinance.org.uk
Rachel Cooper- Rachel.cooper@welbeckaccountancy.co.uk
Be more creative to diversify your income- Laura Salisbury
When budgets are tight it can be easy to become more risk-averse, and only consider tried and tested techniques to raise income. This session will highlight how innovation and creativity can be used to test new types of fundraising that could support your charity in the longer term. This could include promoting individual giving to encourage your supporters to sign up to a direct debit, thus providing vital and regular unrestricted income.
Navigating the cost of living crisis with funder support- Mike Zywina
Inflation and rising energy bills are driving up the cost of project delivery, and trusts & foundations are feeling more overstretched and oversubscribed than ever. This session will explore how to get a good handle on your changing costs, and how to justify this convincingly for funders. We’ll show you how to ensure you’re getting as much support as possible from both current and new funders, as well as providing some encouraging examples of funders that are stepping up their support in the cost-of-living crisis.
Understanding what your audiences need to hear from you- Yasmin Glover
In times of crisis, we are bombarded with alarming messages from all angles. As members of a sector supporting people most impacted by current crises and challenges, we risk actively contradicting our purpose and alienating our audiences if we solely churn out these same narratives - for example by fueling panic and anxiety where we seek to comfort and reassure.
This session will consider how to balance what we want to say with what our audiences need to hear from us, and explore how to develop clear, purpose-aligned messages in uncertain times.
Email Address- yasmin@the-olive.co.uk
Number-, 07539 549 696
Keeping to purpose/vision- Elizabeth Balgobin
We are all familiar with the idea of mission drift and its lesser discussed cousin mission creep. It is very easy to stray away from the vision and purpose when we are scrambling for funds or seeking ways to keep the little we have working or face a crisis.
This session is a discussion with Monwara Ali, CEO of the Waltham Forest Community Hub, David Tomlinson, Trustee at Destitution Project Bolton, Joel Lewis, CEO of The Foyer Federation Manchester, and Ellizabeth on how they have stuck to their purpose, and what we can all learn from their experience.
The people perspective: uncertain times and impact on you and your employees- Sonia Wilson
Uncertain times and the cost of living crisis have an impact on both small charities and their employees. This session will look at i) the charity view: giving an overview of restructure, redundancy, pay review and salary benchmarking; and ii) the employee view: giving an overview of changing needs and expectations and financial well-being.
Email address - populohr@btinternet.com
Number- 07584 731420
Who: The Small Charity Friendly Collective is an informal collective of small charity-friendly specialists who have come together to answer the challenge set in the Small Charities Coalition’s (SCC) “Small and Mighty” final report: to provide dedicated and trusted support to small charities.
We have a shared commitment to working in a small charity friendly way, which you can read more about here: https://www.linkedin.com/company/small-charity-friendly-collective/.