The Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (ACEVO) in partnership with Neil Coulson Associates have developed a seven stage toolkit to support charities through the process of collaboration, from formation to consolidation and expansion.
The toolkit also contains advice for charities in existing consortia, including on quality assurance, contarct delivery and maintaining reputation.
The Cabinet Office has announced the first 15 investments that will be funded through the £10 million Innovation in Giving Fund. The aim of the Fund is to supportive innovative ideas that promote charitable giving. The Fund is managed by NESTA, and over 430 applications were received. The applications were reduced to a longlist of 62 which in turn was reduced to 15 applications who received funding.
You can read the full list of organisations who received th funding here
The Inspiring Impact Group is made up of a range of voluntary sector organisations who provide advice and information for charities on impact and evaluation. The group aims to provide leadership in the area of impact assessment and measurement over the next ten years.
The Inspiring Impact Group is currently considering whether to encourage charities to set aside 5 – 10% of funding for the purposes of evaluation and impact reporting. The next meeting of the group will take place in June.
The Big Lottery Fund has produced seven good practice guides for organisations working with young people. The guides have been produced from good practise examples taken from projects delivering the Young People’s Fund. The Young People’s Fund ran across the UK and invovled children and young people in planning and delivering youth services.
The good practice guides cover the following areas:
The Community First Endowment project is now open for donations. Under the scheme, which aims to support community projects, the Governemnt will donate 50p for every £1 that is raised by companies and individuals. Funds will be distributed by the Community Development Foundation who will work with the Community Foundation Network. From 2015, funding will be paid out to 56 Community Foundations across the UK.
The health and social care volunteering fund is sponsored by the Department of Health and aims to help voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations deliver an effective role within their community. The volunteering fund provides local grants to organisations supporting volunteers, as well as to organisations with a national remit to deliver strategic or developmental volunteering projects. The volunteering fund is being jointly managed by Ecorys, PrimeTimers, Attend and CSV.
A volunteering fund evaluation tookit has been produced for projects funded by the scheme and covers:
The Big Lottery Fund has announced £6 million of funding for civil society organisations to support social investment proposals. Next Steps will fund proposals which improve the lives of communities and people who are most in need, through the development of robust social investment vehicles, and through learning more about social investment in practise.
Social investment is described as funding that leads to positive social change and seeks a financial return. The Big Lottery Fund defines social investment vehicles as, “a specific financial product (for example, social impact bond) or fund (for example, a portfolio of loans).”
Further details on the Next Steps fund can be found: here
The Principles of Good Impact Reporting is a consultation document from New Philanthropy Capital, the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (ACEVO) and Charity Finance Directors Group (CFDG). The document is based on collaboration with seven organisations and sets out some principles of good impact reporting, based on two themes of, ‘how charities should communicatet their impact,’ and ‘what charities should communicate.’
An agreed set of impact reporting principles will be launched in February 2012 following a consultation with all the groups involved in charities’ reporting.
The National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) and the Voluntary Sector Studies Network (VSSN) annual conference discussing research in the voluntary sector has now taken place. Over 50 research papers were presented at the conference, and sessions were delivered around giving and philanthropy, challenges for governance and management in the sector, and the sector’s role and strategies.
The Cabinet Office has launched a consultation on the future direction and policy of the Big Lottery Fund (BIG), and is seeking the views of representatives from within the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector as well as other government departments.
The consultation aims to inform policy to address, “long and unwieldy restrictions,” which currently govern how BIG hands out money. The consultation period will last twelve weeks and responses must be received by midnight on 18 November 2011. Further details on the consultation, including information on how to respond can be found here