Previous experts
Expert in charity finance and business organisation
Mark Freeman became involved in the UK charity sector since 1995 and is renowned for his work in re-engineering charity finances and operations. After being involved in 2 major research exercises – one for Marie Curie Cancer Care and one with Arthur Andersen consultants – conclusively showed that using shared services would result in massive savings for UK charities, he launched Charity Business in March 2000. With Charity Business, Mark has provided business planning and strategic financial advice for charity and not-for-profit organisations of all sizes.
Mark E Freeman, Chief Executive of Charity Business was a speaker at our Risk management conference on 9 March 2010. Ever keen to share the knowledge and experience in the sector, Mark holds regular seminars on topics including: Budgeting and Planning, Investment, maximising asset use, outsourcing, risk management and strategic financial management.
Question submitted to Mark
- All mainstream political parties speak of public spending cuts – how should a charity plan its future activities?
- How can my organization minimize risk and deal with financial difficulties?
- Should a charity reposition itself or merge with other organization(s) in order to achieve its outcomes?
- I have a disclaimer on my website, which I have written myself, see Centronuclear website disclaimer. However, I have started to wonder whether this is sufficient and whether, if the need ever arose, it would actually protect me, seeing as it has been written by me rather than someone in the legal profession. I would also like to know, that were I to set up my own forum / social networking space, instead of using Facebook as I do now - something along the lines of http://www.actionduchenne.org/ is there any risk to me in 'owning this facility'.
Read Mark's answers (requires log-in as an NCVO member)
Innovation experts
Following the Innovation Action training on Thursday 11 February and Friday 12 February, the experts from the day answered questions about how to engage with your users to design better services and products on 15 February 2010 from 10:00-12:00. They also be answered questions on valuing innovation and the innovation process.
Find out more and participate to the Innovation discussions and join the Innovation Group.
Captions: Ben Reason, Director, LiveWork (Photo). Other innovation experts: Deborah Szebeko, Founding Director of thinkpublic, Mitchell Sava, MD of Virtuous Circle consulting and Quinn McKew, Management and fundraising Consultant, =mc.
Voluntary sector management and finance expert
Paul Palmer, Professor of Voluntary Sector Management, is an expert in Voluntary Sector Management and Finance.
He was a member of the Charity Commission SORP committee from 2000-2005. He acted as an independent consultant on Charities to UBS Wealth Management, and an independent expert on charity dispute issues for courts and arbitration. He made Television and radio appearances on charity issues and work as a writer on 'practitioner' how to do books on charity finance and websites. More recently his work has extended into the area of Corporate Social Responsibility having co-authored a book on Socially Responsible Investment and completed a research project on Responsible Lending.
Paul was a speaker at our Financial Management Conference last December and work in Cass Business School's Centre for Charity Effectiveness. We have worked with him several times and he is also the author of NCVO's Good Financial Management Guide for the Voluntary Sector, (he is currently working on the new edition).
Question submitted to Paul
- In a difficult funding environment, should we be dipping into our reserves to tide ourselves over? We are a small charity with reserves to cover about one year of core costs at our current level of service.
- Do you know of a good model to use when costing volunteer contribution into a bid for a public sector contract?
- How can we invest our reserves ethically? There seem to be a growing number of specialist providers out there, but many have higher charges than ‘non-ethical’ providers. Is it worth paying higher service charges to ensure our investments are meeting our ethical standards?
- We’re a small charity delivering youth support services in three boroughs in London. We’d like to integrate the SROI model into our strategic planning, however, it will involve considerable time resources to understand and implement the model. We are currently almost entirely grant funded but hope to move into contracting within the next 3-5 years. Is there some way we can work out the benefits to ourselves of using SROI, and whether it’s worth the investment of time?
Read Paul's answers (requires log-in as an NCVO member)
Expert in direct marketing and fundraising
Kevin Kibble is development director at The Supporter Development Team, a fundraising consultancy specialising in donor and supporter relationships. With over 30 years’ experience in communications and marketing, 13 of which have been in fundraising, Kevin is passionate about raising money from individuals.
With special strategic interests in donor motivations, online and new media, tribute, in memoriam and legacies, Kevin is a regular presenter at conferences where individual giving is an important element. Kevin is also an executive coach and mentor with team and individual performance his major interests, and also has the misfortune of being a long-standing member of Saracens Rugby Football Club. Kevin Kibble, consultant, delivered the workshop: Direct marketing; attracting a new profile of supporter on 14 January at our marketing event.
Questions submitted to Kevin - January 2010
- What are your views on charity street collectors? Are they valuable to charities or do they give bad PR? Jamie
- As the recently appointed treasurer of a small pre-school play group that has 1) no real financial plan or 2) a fundraising strategy I would like to ask for some advice about getting these two onto the agenda without threatening the centre manager or other trustees. Can you give some tips, suggestions for getting the ball rolling? Simon
- grant availability for organisations which train their volunteer
ATE has over 50 years experience in running residential holidays for children aged 8 to 14. It also has a rigorous programme of residential training courses for all of the vounteers who work on our 'Superweeks'.
These training courses are frequently reported to have been 'life changing' by the young people who take part, and many young adults have changed their career plans in favour of teaching or some other child-related profession as a direct result of their experience with ATE and been extremely successful in so doing.
ATE's training budget is in the region of £10,000 per annum which is a very significant portion of our annual turnover. With about 550 children attending Superweeks each year this implies a cost if just under £20 per child dedicated to training costs.
Given that the benefits of our training can clearly be shown to extend outside the immediate scope of ATE Superweeks, providing essential skills and understanding which are very transferrable to a wide range of professional and home life, are there any grants available which ATE could apply for to help fund this activity? - Barry - It seems like it’s all about ‘online and social’ these days. But is there still an important role for traditional methods of Direct Marketing? Claire
Read Kevin's answers (requires log-in as an NCVO member)
PR and marketing
Lucy Hart is an account director at Frank PR and heads up the agency's corporate responsibility offering, Frank CR, on a portfolio of consumer brands. These span a spectrum of consumer and lifestyle sectors, from major beer companies such as Budweiser to the online supermarket Ocado, insurer Aviva and a number of charity and not-for-profit accounts including Beatbullying and We Are What We Do.
David Fraser, is an Associate Director at Frank PR. Having been with the company for six years, he has worked on a range of clients in the consumer and lifestyle sectors. In addition, he has helped to develop a number of PR campaigns for educational, charity or not-for-profit clients including Cancer Research UK, Drinkaware, RNIB and Rethink.
David Fraser and Lucy Hart, from Frank PR - Marketing Week's PR Agency of the year 2008, will be speakers on 14 January at our marketing event.
Questions to Lucy and David - January 2010
- Apart from the ‘cause’, what are the basic elements/ building blocks of campaigns that really get people talking?
- How should we be measuring the success of our campaigns?
- What can I do to get my organisation coverage in the local media?
- How can I use our beneficiaries and supporters to raise the awareness of my organisation?
Read Lucy and David's answers (requires log-in as an NCVO member)
Social media
Amy Sample Ward is dedicated to supporting and educating nonprofits and the progressive social change sector about evolving technologies that cultivate and engage communities. Her passion is in connecting nonprofits with new media technologies, watching the field of nptech evolve, and having conversations about where we can go next while still getting everyone on board with what we have already. Amy was a speaker Tuesday 8 December at the Seminar: Changing ICT - What does it mean for your organisation?
Questions to Amy - December 2009
- Some people are beginning to use twitter for adverts…and doing ‘paid tweets’ Is this going against the whole ethos of SM and especially Twitter, when authenticity is the key?” - from Claire
- I work in a small organisation and have heard a lot about web 2.0 and social media but have not thought it through in relation to my organisation. What are the key things we should think about if we are going to use social media?” - from Jenny
- How do you convince technophobes and people who are resistant (or a bit afraid) of the value of social media tools?” - from Ellie
- Can you give an example of how a voluntary organization has used Social media effectively to engage with their supporters to generate income for their campaign/cause?” - from Claire
Read Amy's answers (requires log-in as an NCVO member)
