Financial Management Conference 2009

Graham Wareham

Graham Wareham is the Finance Director for Leonard Cheshire Disability, a charity that currently supports 21,000 disabled people in the UK and has annual income of £147 million per annum. Graham has a masters degree in economics and trained as an accountant with British Airways Plc. After that he worked for Safeway Plc at a senior management level before joining Leonard Cheshire Disability in 2003. Graham currently sits on the advisory panel for the Charity Finance Live Conference and at last year’s conference gave a talk about efficiency measures in the charity sector.

Cliff Prior

Cliff is the Chief Executive of UnLtd, the Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs. He is also a member of the Cabinet Office Third Sector Advisory Body, Comic Relief’s UK Grants Committee, the Clore Third Sector Leadership Group and the DH Social Enterprise & Third Sector Taskforce. He has set up several organisations over the years such as Strutton Housing for people living with HIV in the 1980s through to recent work on National Voices. Additional speakers to be announced.

Dawn Austwick, OBE

Dawn is the Chief Executive of the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, a grant-making trust that aims to improve the quality of life throughout the UK, committing £25 million annually towards a wide range of work. Dawn is a member of the NCVO’s Funding Commission, a Trustee of Historic Royal Palaces and sits on the AHRC Audit Committee, the Social Investment Task Force and the Board for NESTA’s Lab.

A: Measuring an Organisation’s Social Value

Dr Richard Piper, Head of Strategy and Impact, NCVO
Verity Timmins, Impact Manager, FRC Group

Financial management increasingly involves taking on responsibility for overseeing not just what an organisation earns and spends, but also what it achieves – its impact (or outcomes or value). This highly interactive workshop aims to provide an inspiring introduction to the topic of ‘social value’ – what it means, why and how to measure it, and what it means for finance staff. It includes an honest case study from the FRC Group about how it has used the Social Return On Investment technique (SROI), an approach that translates social value into financial proxies.

B: The Role of Finance in Supporting Collaboration and Merger

Sakthi Suriyaprakasam, Head of Collaboration and ICT, NCVO
Additional speaker to be announced

Collaborative working and mergers are increasingly becoming the reality for many VCS organisations. This workshop will consider options for an effective cost versus benefit analysis, andthe tools needed to provide robust financial information to support the decision to merge.

C: Not Just Another Business: Meeting the Challenges of Managing Finance in the Voluntary Sector

Paul Palmer, Professor of Voluntary Sector, Management, Cass Business School
Panel Speakers to be announced (in partnership with Workforce Development Team, NCVO)

This interactive session will provide an overview of developments and key issues in charity financial management. Designed for those new to the sector it will also be a useful refresher to those in finance functions, particularly if moving into management or more strategic roles. Topics covered will includemapping different sources of finance and how they have changed over the last ten years;key differences in charity accounting and financial reporting between private and voluntary sectors;the development of the charity SORP and what are now the key reports, from reserves and risk to public benefit reporting;managerial financial issues including full cost recovery and the development of new techniques.There will also be a panel discussion about cross-sector experience led by the Workforce Development Team, which will look at the differences in financial requirements that newcomers need to be aware of and equally importantly, differences of culture and language that can affect the role. Come to this workshop to share experiences and have your questions answered.

D: Looking Out: What’s on your horizon? Managing the challenges ahead

Nick Wilson, Third Sector Foresight, NCVO
Anne Jenkins, Consultant, (previously Head of Finance, Dyslexia Action)

In turbulent seas, looking ahead can save you from disaster. But we often leave it too late. This workshop will help you look past onboard fire-fighting, to spot and analyse external trends and forces before they hit. We’ll use exercises to help you identify key trends and think through possible challenges and opportunities for your organisation. We’ll also look at how you can use this analysis to plot your course – to steer round obstacles and catch the fair winds! Finally, we’ll discuss real experiences of managing major change and coping with new challenges.