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Almost as frequent as the Charity Commission’s investigations into charities up and down the country is the advice given to Trustees from different quarters about what steps to take to ensure a Charity Commission investigation doesn’t happen.

Kids’ Company is the most frequently cited example of where procedures go wrong – but sad to say, there […]

Methods of giving are a regular topic for discussion, the more so as we enter the post-coronavirus era.

So what’s best for charities? Perhaps more to the point, what’s best for our donors?

The coronavirus crisis has shifted fundraising towards digital technologies. Lockdown and the general feeling we should not be attending large – or even small […]

Should grant-making trusts and foundations give more money to charities?

The UK benefits from more than 4,000 charitable foundations, many of which were set up centuries ago. Indeed, the concept of charitable foundations has its roots in ancient Greece, although they became more significant during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Some UK foundations have reserves running […]

Acceptance of gifts from dubious, or sometimes simply unpopular, sources is a perennial challenge facing charities.

Endowment of charitable projects by individuals who whose morality or source of wealth is open to criticism is nothing new. For example, how many schools are there in the UK endowed by, and named after, King Henry VIII – hardly […]

Earlier this week I was reading a sad story of a successful local charity not too far from Minerva’s Northamptonshire base faced with an uncertain future as a result of funding cuts.

Not an unusual scenario, given the coronavirus crisis and the economic state of the country.

But could it have been avoided?

A quick glance at the […]

Few people would deny the enormous effect which the coronavirus crisis has had on all our lives up to now, heightened by the uncertainty of what will happen next – new variants, new vaccines, relaxation or reinforcement of restrictions, to name but a few.

We experience this overall uncertainty in our day-to-day fundraising. During the early […]

Are young people connecting with charities?

In the 20th Century, young people’s involvement with charities was likely to consist largely of doing small-scale fundraising events – fun runs, laying a mile of pennies, etc – but few were expected to connect with charities, let alone wishing or being able to give to them.

The 21st Century has […]

Fundraising from Trusts and Foundations is easy – right?

Wrong !!

Too many charity staff and volunteers up and down the country assume that because trusts and foundations exist to give grants, all they need to do is to send a generic letter round to as many different trusts as possible. A sort of mass “give-us-your-cash” […]

Recruiting new Trustees is a challenge which faces all small charities from time to time.

Every charity knows that it should demonstrate diversity amongst its Board members, and recruit Trustees with the skill sets it needs. As with many things, these are easier said than done.

For a start, few small charities are trampled to death in […]

Many years ago I was running a fundraising campaign for a school in the Midlands. The Chairman of Governors was the Vice Chancellor of a neighbouring university.

He told me one day that he had done a Masters degree at one of the American universities. Every year since, the university concerned had invited him to a […]