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Welcome to the North East Funders' Network (NEFN) Bulletin. The network meets three times a year and allows regional funders to share knowledge with each other. In between meetings, this bulletin is designed to share relevant information to funders, local infrastructure organisations and local authorities. Many thanks to all for their contributions. 

A report by the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) has said that funders need to show confidence in small charities and create an atmosphere of honesty to help bulid resilience. The report, titled How funders can do more to support the resilience of small charities, is based on findings from a pilot project which aims to help small charities safeguard their long-term survival and ensure the continuation of the services they provide. The project, which involved 10 small to medium sized charities across the UK, resulted in five core recommendations for funders:

1. Fund small charities to focus on their strength and resilience: time with an independent adviser will help them identify what they really need

2. Build long-term relationships with small charities: multi-year funding with agreed outcomes but flexibility creates stability as charities get to grips with their plans to become more resilient

3. Show confidence in small charities and create an atmosphere of honesty: encourage the charity to be honest about what does or doesn’t work and where its skills gaps lie

4. Recognise that you might not be able to ‘see’ your funding working: organisational strength is not bricks and mortar but can offer unseen benefits with real impact

5. Recognise that building partnerships takes time and therefore money: exploring partnerships to become more effective is not a quick process, but with a clear strategy, it can pay off in the long term.

Earlier this month, Newcastle Council for Voluntary Service changed to Connected Voice, refreshing its brand with a new set of values and a new look and feel that better reflects what it does. The rebrand has been a long journey and you can read the story behind it on the Connected Voice website.

Lisa Goodwin also became the organisaton's CEO on October 1st, joining from VONNE where she was Deputy CEO and having worked in local infrastructure for many years. Lisa was Chief Executive of North Tyneside VODA for eight years and her focus at Connected Voice will be on business development, increasing the use of digital and developing new partnerships.

Important information:

· All email addresses have changed to firstname.lastname@connectedvoice.org.uk. Old email and website addresses will remain active for several months but please update your address books and directories with the new details, particularly if they are public facing.

· All phone numbers remain the same

· The organisation's charity number and company number remain the same but the registered name has changed to Connected Voice

· There have also been changes to service names: Advocacy Centre North is now Advocacy, Ellison Services is now Charity Business Services, HAREF is now Haref, and Support and Development remains unchanged.

Connected Voice also has an upcoming skills-building session:

On Thursday, December 5th, from 1pm to 3pm, Good Fundraising: planning for success is for those who are new to fundraising, or who want to improve their chances of success. The session is free for organisations from Newcastle and Gateshead.

Over the last two years the foundation has worked alongside a group of passionate and committed young people to deliver the #iwill Take Action Fund.

Youth Focus NE helped the foundation to find a group of experts by experience aged from 15 to 22, to help it understand the challenges young people face as well as what interests and excites them, bringing their unique perspective to the foundation's application and decision making processes. The group went on to assess all shortlisted applications and, wherever possible, attended each assessment visit, talking directly to the organisation and the young people applying. They then attended the foundation board meeting to feed back their views and monitored grants awarded.

The foundation wanted to evaluate the effectiveness of working in this way, and felt a film evaluation would be a great way to do this. If the film sparks questions in how you involve the people you hope to benefit from your work in your decision making, you can email rachel.kyle-barclay@virginmoneyfoundation.org.uk to find out more, or visit the foundation website to read blog posts by Rachel and the young people involved.

Grant Advisor UK is a new pilot website created to empower charities to speak up about the service they receive during the grant application process.

The new beta site, hosted by CAST, a tech for good charity, offers a free platform to hold funders to account and increase transparency.

You can use the site to post anonymous reviews of how accessible the application information has been, how prolonged the decision-making, or how onerous the reporting requirements, as well as flagging up good practice, and suggesting improvements.

Inspire South Tyneside has welcomed a new part time CEO, Charlotte Harrison and Michael Linsley, who joined in September as Funding and Governance Development Worker, working 28 hours per week. Get in touch with Michael at michael.linsley@inspiresouthtyneside.co.uk.

Hartlepower CIO has also welcomed two new development workers – Julian Penton and Juli Simons. Hartlepower CIO is Hartlepower's sister charity, established to prevent or relieve poverty by providing grants, items and services to individuals and organisations working to prevent or relieve poverty.

Year 3 of the Thrive Access to Employment scheme is open and looking to support people who are working to improve access to employment for those distant from the labour market.

There are 24 places available to work one to one with tailored support from a dedicated venture manager over six months, and get the opportunity to take on up to £50K of debt or equity investment. Applicants will be game-changing social businesses that have been operating typically for between two and six years, improving access to employment for those who face significant struggles, such as disabled people, ex-offenders and the homeless.

Following Durham Community Action's annual Meet the Funders event, a localised funding fair was held in East Durham in support of the Coalfields Regeneration Trust. More than 60 people attended the drop-in event at Blackhall Community Centre at which local funders were on hand, including local housing providers, County Durham Community Foundation, Durham County Council and Northstar Ventures.

The trust ran a workshop on its programmes and feedback on the event from both funders and participants was positive. Planning for the next Meet the Funders event, to take place in July 2020, will get underway in the new year.

Durham Community Action is also excited to have been awarded £200,286 to deliver a three-year Community Hubs Development Programme.

The grant, awarded through The National Lottery Community Fund, will allow it to provide practical help to build resilience in communities through the provision of well run and well led community spaces that host a range of activities and services. The overall aim of the project is to support volunteers who carry responsibilities for community buildings and spaces to realise their local ambitions.

Support will include organisational health checks, development plans for volunteer management groups and relevant training. For more information about the project click the button below, call 01388 742040 or email info@durhamcommunityaction.org.uk.

The Carnegie UK Trust has a new report, The Practice of Kindness: Learning from the Kindness Innovation Network and North Ayrshire, which explores the practical implementation of kindness in both communities and organisations.

The report brings together learnings gained through two collaborative projects – the Kindness Innovation Network and the trust's partnership with North Ayrshire Council – and reflects the conversations and activities of hundreds of people that have contributed to these projects over the last 12 months. It presents practical ways to create the conditions for kindness, and highlights the barriers to relationships within organisations, arguing that radical kindness requires rethinking the systems and structures that currently govern our institutions. Some of these themes are also discussed in our short film, which we launch today alongside the report.

At the same time, a data factsheet on the experiences of kindness of people in Scotland has been released, which shows that, while levels of kindness are relatively high, people are less likely to experience kindness from public services than they are in their community.

The trust hopes to involve you in ongoing conversations as it looks to build a coalition of people committed to embedding kindness in their organisations and communities. To get involved, contact ben@carnegieuk.org or join the debate by tagging @CarnegieUKTrust on Twitter and using the hashtags #KIN and #kindness.

The places in which we live and work define who we are and what we do. They determine the nature of our relationships with our fellow citizens and the communities we create together.

So, charity and philanthropy consultantancy NPC has developed a framework for place, a practical guide for funders, sharing common characteristics identified through its consulting and think tank work, for developing place-based projects.

VODA will be holding a volunteer recruitment fair on Saturday, January 25th from 10am to 3pm at the Beacon Centre in North Shields. The event is a great opportunity to meet with VODA and other VCS organisations with volunteering opportunities. If you'd like to host a table, email volunteering@voda.org.uk.  

VODA celebrated the successes of the North Tyneside VCS at its AGM and awards ceremony last month. Keynote speaker Wendy Burke, Director of Public Health at North Tyneside Council, discussed population health in North Tyneside and the role of the voluntary sector, a theme VODA is continuing at its next Working With the VCS event on December 10th.  

There was a fantastic response to the call for nominations and VODA was delighted to announce the award winners at the event: 

- Organisation of the Year: Earsdon and Wellfield Community Association 
- Volunteer of the Year: Rizwan Ali, from Walking With in North Tyneside 
- Young Volunteer of the Year: Bobbi-Lou Taylor from TyneMet College 
- Trustee of the Year: Anna McConville from Pathways 4 All 

During the awards, the contribution of local business to the VCS was also recognised via the Sector Connector Community Friendly Business Awards, which were presented to Accenture, Carney Consultancy and Bell Group. Read more about the awards on the VODA website. 
  
In September, VODA launched the NT LIFE Recovery College for the residents of North Tyneside, offering educational courses around mental health and recovery, which are designed to increase students’ knowledge and skills and help them feel more confident in the self-management of their own health and wellbeing. 

Delivered in a safe and friendly community setting, courses and workshops are designed by individuals who have lived experience of mental health challenges and want to pass on their LIFE learning, skills and knowledge to help others. Courses such as Football for Health with the Newcastle United Foundation, creative writing, Dog and Friends walking group and Talk Tech and Tinker have been a big success, with more than 100 hours of student and volunteer engagement so far, with a whole range of new courses due to start in early 2020. NT Life is funded by the North Tyneside Clinical Commissioning Group and delivered with a range of local partners.
  
Earlier this year, VODA supported the North Tyneside Clinical Commission Group to develop a new grants programme for the voluntary and community sector. The programme was designed in recognition of the important role that voluntary organisations play in improving health outcomes for the local population. Among the large grant recipients were Age UK North Tyneside which, in partnership with YMCA North Tyneside will develop a new service called ‘Healthy Habits’ – an early intervention service that assists people to make sustainable lifestyle changes to improve their health and wellbeing through self-determination. The service is aimed at young people entering adulthood, and adults entering older age. Plans are now being considered for the launch of a further round of small and large grants in 2020.  
  
There is a new, free, VODA-facilitated Chairs' Network called Chair Talk, which allows Chairs and Vice Chairs to discuss the demands of leadership, share ideas and knowledge and participate in peer to peer learning with other North Tyneside Chairs and Vice Chairs. Contact keith.hardy@voda.org.uk for more information. 
 
As part of VODA’s commitment to help end loneliness in North Tyneside, it has expanded its team with an addition to its Good Neighbours project. Good Neighbours volunteers help out with tasks that you might expect from a good neighbour: small jobs around the house, DIY, shopping and gardening. VODA is keen to expand the provision by developing under-resourced geographical areas and to expand the scope of the project by working with other demographics that may face social isolation, such as new mums, families with children who have disabilities and those living with the onset of dementia.  

VODA has also appointed an Ending Loneliness Coordinator who is working to promote a ‘Winter Buddy’ scheme across North Tyneside during the harsh winter. VODA is encouraging local residents to pledge small acts of kindness to help keep people safe, such as collecting shopping, and salting icy pathways.

As part of North Tyneside Council’s #WhoCares campaign, VODA has been sharing case studies such as that of Min Marshall, a beneficiary of the Good Neighbours project and a star of the Government’s Ending Loneliness campaign, and Janet Ross, a volunteer that has seen the benefit volunteering has made to her life.  

Yes We Can: Lead and Manage training offers a Level 5 qualification in leadership and management.

The programme, which may be useful to grant recipients or other individuals, runs between January and September 2020, with four days' reflective learning in two-day sets in January and March, and a final half day in September.

In between, assignments will cover self-management as well as leading others, and there will be peer-led tutorials and informal get togethers to allow the space to connect and apply your learning to the workplace.

In discussions between local infrastructure organisations and funders at a North East and Cumbria Funders Network meeting, concerns were raised about online bank accounts and whether all products offered robust enough payment approvals in line with the two-signatory cheque approvals required by most funders.

Online banking has many benefits, like saving busy volunteers time. This new guide from Sport England Club Matters offers useful advice and guidance to groups using or considering online banking, from tips about creating an online account to an overview of the security requirements you need to consider.

An anonymous former commissioner writes for Lloyds Bank Foundation England and Wales in this guest post, revealing what commissioning looks like from the inside. 

Online matching platform The Good Exchange has updated its online charitable giving solution to enable the sharing of the information that its single application form gathers from good causes seeking funding with the CRM systems used by funders to manage their grant making processes.

Additional new functionality includes integration with WhatsApp, allowing users to add a WhatsApp ‘share’ icon on their organisation and/or fundraising project page. This enables charities and community groups using The Good Exchange, as well as visitors to their organisational and fundraising project pages, to share links and personalised information with their contacts to publicise fundraising activities and drive more donations.

Funds raised for good causes by the National Lottery remained flat over the past year despite a £255m increase in ticket sales, the latest figures from the lottery organiser Camelot show.

Camelot’s financial results for the year to the end of March 2019 showed a slight fall in the amount raised for good causes, from £1.66bn in 2017/18 to £1.65bn.

Almost half (43 per cent) of the top 100 fundraising charities in the UK experienced a drop in income during 2017/18, according to the latest Top 100 Fundraisers Spotlight.

The Charity Financials report reveals that overall, voluntary fundraised income to the top 100 charities accounted for one third of all voluntary donations at £5.9bn, increasing by half a per cent after adjusting for inflation and constituting the largest share of fundraising charities’ income in 2017/18, at just over half (51.3 per cent). This is followed by £1.24bn from charitable activities and £0.96bn from statutory income.

International causes received the most in both fundraising and total income, with a 29 per cent share of all fundraised income at £1.7bn, followed by health charities at £1.6bn and welfare/special needs at £8bn.

Caroline Fiennes, director of the consultancy firm Giving Evidence, has said that the charity sector’s campaigning strategy for unrestricted funding should change to be more effective. 

Writing in Charity Finance magazine, Fiennes said the sector’s campaign should be more evidence-based than it currently is.

The Fundraising Regulator has revealed the new version of the Code of Fundraising Practice, which came into effect last month.

The changes are designed to make it easier for fundraisers, charities and third party organisations to understand the standards expected of them when fundraising. It is also designed to be easier for the public to navigate.

The changes include:

• Consolidation of the former code, rulebooks and legal appendices with all standards now in the one code

• Restructuring of the standards into three parts to help users more easily identify which standards apply depending on the type of fundraising they do

• Clarification of where there are differences in law in England and Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland

• Clearer language, following an independent review by the Plain English campaign, which gave the code a Crystal Mark standard.

Charity Bank has announced a £5 million deposit injection from the independent charitable trust, Power to Change. The deposit will increase Charity Bank’s lending capabilities, improving access to finance for charities and social enterprises.

Charity Bank is also encouraging charities to invest their savings and investments ethically and in support of their mission, through its new Money on a Mission campaign.

Cracking Charity Chat is a podcast from charity management consultant, Beth Crackles.

In this episode, Vicki Dawson, Founder and CEO of Children’s Sleep Charity talks about setting up Voluntary Action Doncaster and the value of infrastructure.

NAVCA has joined 19 other voluntary sector organisations in supporting a letter written by National Voices that calls on the government to prioritise and strengthen local councils’ and the VCSE’s ability to build the conditions that help people thrive.

NAVCA's Business and Communications Lead, Tom Watson, said: “If we want a healthier, happier and more together country, government must invest in community and the infrastructure that supports it and it must start now. This letter communicates an important message to the leaders of our country; cuts to community services have been devastating and they must begin now to put funding back into local government and the voluntary sector to rebuild vital services.”

Charities and their supporters in the UK can now create 24-hour fundraising campaigns in Instagram Stories using a new Instagram donation sticker, with 100 per cent of the money raised going to the charity concerned.

Any Instagram user who views the fundraiser can click on the donation sticker to give to the charity without ever leaving Instagram. Anyone can start a fundraiser on Instagram using the donation sticker to support an eligible charity.

To become eligible, charities must first sign up for Facebook Charitable Giving Tools and Facebook Payments. The charity’s Instagram profile must also be linked to its Facebook Page, and the Instagram profile must also be converted to a business profile.

Clinks has developed a set of commissioning principles which it believes would best enable the voluntary sector to deliver services in the future probation model. These have been submitted these to Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) and the Ministry of Justice (MoJ).

The Charity Commission has updated its guidance for trustees on what they need to know about independent examination of their charity's accounts.

This might be particularly relevant to small charities that don’t meet the statutory audit threshold of £1 million.

Helen Alderson of KEDA Consulting shares top tips from her session with Jessica Murphy from St Oswald’s Hospice at the 2019 North East Fundraising Conference, which guided attendees through the steps required to recruit new supporters, build relationships and set realistic fundraising targets, while maintaining the relationship.

Charities need to look beyond grant funding and consider other ways of generating income, the Head of Investment and Grants at Comic Relief has said.

Speaking at a conference organised by the NGO umbrella body Bond in London, Sue Wicks told delegates that income was one of the big challenges she foresaw for charities, including Comic Relief, over the next five years:

"I think this challenge demands of us that, as funders, we are thinking about how we can be creative with the funding we’ve got and how we can create the biggest impact," she said. She went on to say that that meant funders had to go back and consider the ways in which they offer funding.

An independent charity has launched that will act as a domestic version of the Disasters Emergency Fund (DEC) by co-ordinating support for emergencies in England and Wales.

The National Emergencies Trust will collaborate with other charities and bodies to raise and distribute funds as well as deliver support to those affected by domestic disasters. Like the DEC, it aims to provide a single point of contact for people to donate to and to approach for support. Funded by donations, it will work with local distribution partners such as community foundations and local charities to get help to where it is needed efficiently, currently for emergencies in England and Wales.

A fundraising platform has launched in the UK with the aim of matchmaking charities with funders by demonstrating the impact of their work, specifically in the context of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Maanch focuses on project-specific funding and uses algorithms to provide automated impact measurement based on UN SDG metrics and a matchmaking tool that automatically connects projects with funders, from individuals, to trusts and foundations, and corporate sponsors.

The UK is the seventh most giving country in the world, but there has been a downward trend among some of the world's richest countries, according to data published by the Charities Aid Foundation’s (CAF).

CAF's World Giving Index examines data across a 10-year period (2009-2018). The most generous countries, with the percentage of people who had committed a generous act, are as follows:

• USA - 58 per cent

• Myanmar - 58 per cent

• New Zealand - 57 per cent

• Australia - 56 per cent

• Ireland - 56 per cent

• Canada - 55 per cent

• United Kingdom - 54 per cent

• Netherlands - 53 per cent

• Sri Lanka - 51 per cent

• Indonesia - 50 per cent

Charitable foundations including Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and Arcadia have signed up to a new Funder Commitment on Climate Change, pledging to undertake six key steps in response to the crisis, namely to:

• Educate and learn

• Commit resources

• Integrate

• Steward investments for a post-carbon future

• Decarbonise operations

• Report on progress.

1) The Charity Commission, together with Frontier Economics, has prepared a paper on the value of charity. It argues that charity’s value lies not just in its economic footprint, or even in what it achieves for its beneficiaries, but in its power to promote cohesion, wellbeing and pride in society. It also argues that, in order to maximise the potential benefit of charity in the future, there needs to be an understanding and protection of what makes charity special and distinctive in the eyes of the public. Read the report at gov.uk.

2) Most UK foundations increased their grant-making in 2017/18 despite suffering falling income, according to research published by the Association of Charitable Foundations. Meanwhile, The Charities Aid Foundation distributed £646m to the sector in 2018/19, which is an increase of more than 25 per cent on the year before.

3) Power to Change’s latest piece of research sets a starting line from which the social impact of community businesses on their local communities can be measured.

The report, researched and written by Kantar Public, is based on a hyperlocal version of the national Community Life Survey (CLS), an annual nationally representative survey that provides official statistics on issues key to encourage social action and empower communities. 

4) The majority of the public think that raising funds for a charity is important. However, nearly half of men think fundraising “is not for people like me” while overall, women view it more positively. These are some of the key findings from newly published research from the Institute of Fundraising.

What does the public think of fundraising? is the first of two instalments of a public poll conducted by YouGov that looks at how the fundraising profession is seen and understood by the public, particularly at whether age, race, religion, disability, or gender make a difference to how fundraising is perceived.

Meanwhile, two thirds (67 per cent) of people in the UK think small charities have a positive impact on their local community, according to Charities Aid Foundation research. Less people, however, think this is the case both nationally and internationally and less than half (41 per cent) could name at least one small charity when asked.

5) A study of 200 charity leaders by the insurance firm Ecclesiastical found that one third of charities are over-reliant on one funding source and that one in 10 thought losing their major source of funding would make the organisation unviable.

6) A Connected Voice study of the Gateshead and Newcastle voluntary and community sector, Canaries in the Coal Mine offers a snapshot of local organisations and the issues and challenges they face. Among the key findings, funding and sustainability continues to be the most pressing issue for organisations, regardless of their size.

7) Just over half of charities across England and Wales (53.3 per cent) increased their income in the last financial year, according to the latest Charity Financials Income Spotlight report, with overall income growth up 5.8 per cent to £4.3 billion. 

8) The government should create a more level playing field by subsidising core costs for charities competing to raise funds, according to an academic paper published by four economists.

9) A paper from YouGov explores how charities can keep the next generation of supporters engaged, why some people choose not to give to charity, and which charities have the highest levels of satisfaction.

10) In 2017 an independent commission was convened by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) and has now launched its findings and recommendations. The report offers recommendations for short-term reforms and ambitions for the future.

11) There are more than 6,300 community-owned assets, such as leisure centres and village halls in England, adding nearly £220 million a year to the UK economy and £150 million to local economies, according to analysis commissioned by Power to Change and the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government. The analysis finds that community-owned assets are also financially robust, with three-quarters of community-owned assets saying they are in good financial health despite limited resources.

12) A report from the University of Leeds is calling for a national debate on who should pay for the UK’s public parks and green spaces and whether charitable donations could, or should, help bridge the funding gap. The report argues that charitable giving has an important but limited role in bridging the funding gap and stimulating greater civic engagement. 

13) Rapidata has released its Charity Direct Debit Tracking Report 2019 which reveals that, while GDPR had a major impact on regular giving in 2018, initial signs for 2019 show positive growth. The report includes new data from January 2017 to end of March 2019 from over 600 charities, adding to the long-term trend analysis begun by Rapidata in 2003.

14) In response to three different emergencies during Summer 2017, a study from the Institute for Voluntary Action Research (IVAR) shows that funders dispensed with ‘business as usual’ in order to provide urgent support to community organisations and services. IVAR looked at what they did differently, what can be learned about responding effectively in an emergency and what opportunities there may be for day-to-day grant-making practices.

15) The Fore Trust has published a report showing the impact of its unrestricted grants to small non-profits. The Fore takes a charity-led, open-call approach which it claims is proven in this report to identify and catalyse high-potential organisations with fresh solutions to social challenges.