The Basis Project blog

Coping with the new external funding environment -The next East of England Basis Project Seminar - 27 June'12

East of England Basis Project Seminar: "Coping with the new external funding environment - Finding solutions and strengthening the resolve of your organisation"

In light of the recent new funding conditions we are going to talk about the possible practical approaches towards funding for community groups, funding tools, solutions or fundraising strategies which can be useful by community organisations based in East of England (RCOs or BMEs) in order to survive the funding climate changes. The selected speakers at this event are:

•Robert Beard - National Association of Vountary and Community Action (NAVCA)

•Noelle Gilbert - Paul Hamlyn Foundation

•Jane Darlington - Cambridgeshire Community Foundation (CCF)

•Rosaline Jenkins - National Council of Voluntary Organisations (NCVO)

•Jonathan Clark - Big Lottery Fund

Date: Wednesday 27th June 2012

Time: 10:00AM - 3:00PM

Venue: St Paul's Centre in Cambridge

Booking information: Attendance is free, but there are limited places available, so please book in advance by sending an email or SMS request to the contact details below. There are a maximum of two places available each organisation(RCO) .

If you need any further information please do not hesitate to contact Shpetim at:

Shpetim Alimeta

Organisational Development Officer

The Basis Project, East of England.

The Refugee Council

ICVS, 1 Cornhill, Ipswich, Suffolk, IP1 1DD

M: 07908 952 405

E: [email protected]

www.thebasisproject.org.uk

Understanding Social Enterprise – One-day training for RCOs



Is social enterprise right for your organisation? Are you a refugee community organisation (RCO) and in a dilemma as to whether social business is really right for you? Are you struggling to increase and diversify your income? Do you really need to set up a social enterprise?

Are you thinking of setting up a business with social aims and need to know more about social enterprises? Not sure if you should transform your charity into a social enterprise?
If some of the answers to the above questions are 'Yes', then this training is for you.

What's involved?
This is one-day introductory training is designed to offer you information and advice in order to help you identify whether social enterprise is right for your organisation.
This training course will also give an overview of the different types of legal structures available to social enterprises in U.K.

The programme:
• The definition of social enterprises
• What are the opportunities for charities to benefit lawfully from doing trade without changing their status? What are the limits?
• The differences between social business and charity organisations
• Examples and case studies
• Different models and types for social enterprises
• Legal structure available
• An overview of these different legal forms for social enterprises

Trainers
This training session is designed and co-delivered by Shpetim Alimeta and Sharmarke Diriye who are very experienced trainers and advisers on organisational development for community organisations and social enterprises at the Basis Project.

When and where?
Refugee Council, Conference Room, 240-250 Ferndale Road, Brixton, London, SW9 8BB.
Friday 11 May 2012 from 9.30am to 4pm.

How do I book a place?
For information on any of the courses or to book a place please contact Liam Cranley on: 020 7346 1297 or by emailing Liam at [email protected]
  

 

RCO Connect - 15 March 2012

RCO Connect is a  regular email that provides an opportunity for you to share learning from your Refugee Community Organisation (RCO), and get inspired by learning from others. Download the most recent issue: RCO Connect 15th March (pdf)

To subscribe to RCO Connect please email [email protected]

Grants and contracts

A guest post by NCVO

Over the last ten years, voluntary and community organisations have played an increasingly significant role in delivering public services. Now about 1/3 of the income community and voluntary organisations receive is to deliver public services.

This funding obviously represents opportunities for organisations to grow their work. However, it’s not without risk. In the next few weeks, these blogs from NCVO’s Public Service Delivery Network explain some of the basic facts and risks to help you decide whether delivering public services is suitable for you.

Grants and Contracts: what’s the difference?

Originally, most money for public services has come in the form of grants income. Changes in the law though (Public Contract Regulations 2006) have encouraged public bodies to manage these relationships through contract rather than grant funding. This creates clearer accountability and changes the way the risks and liabilities of delivering services are shared, and even whether VAT should be paid.

Truthfully, it can sometimes be hard to distinguish the difference between grants and contracts, especially as many grants are changed into contracts over a period of time. In law, it isn’t what you call the agreement that matters: it’s what’s in the content that determines the legal status. So the first rule is: always read carefully.

Grants are funds given to support the work in organisations which add value to the work of a public body, but aren’t their core business to deliver. Contracts on the other hand tend to be for services which public bodies – under government statute – have to ensure are delivered.

Legally, grants tend to have very little weight beyond the agreement to deliver a service, and perhaps to pay back any surplus money at the end. Contracts on the other hand have to adhere to the complexities of Contract Law and will therefore include sanctions, liabilities and demands for guarantors. Failure to deliver a contract therefore results in heavier penalties than failure to deliver a grant. Organisations have to understand the implication of this.

To be sure whether you’re signing a grant or contract, look at this contract checklist (PDF 49kb) or read more about the difference between the two.

Always make sure you know what you’re signing, and if in doubt, speak to a solicitor or ask a voluntary organisation with more experience of contracts and law.

You can also join NCVO (organisations under £10,000 join for free) and organisations with an income under £500,000 can access free legal advice through our helpline. See membership details to join now.

RCO Connect - 2nd March

RCO Connect is a  regular email that provides an opportunity for you to share learning from your Refugee Community Organisation (RCO), and get inspired by learning from others. Download the most recent issue: RCO Connect 2nd March 2012 (pdf)

To subscribe to RCO Connect please email [email protected]

RCO Connect - 15th February

RCO Connect is a  regular email that provides an opportunity for you to share learning from your Refugee Community Organisation (RCO), and get inspired by learning from others. Download the most recent issue: RCO Connect - 15th February 2012 (pdf)

To subscribe to RCO Connect please email [email protected]

Dover Detainee Visitor Group

Case study: The Dover Detainee Visitor Group continue with core services and it is extending its impact.

We are actively contributing to the Detention Forum in their work on policy making/influencing, for which we wrote a briefing paper for parliamentarians for their meeting this year on issues faced after detention. We have also written a report presented to the Legal Services Commission highlighting the negative aspects of legal representation under exclusive legal firms’ contracts. Examples of our services follow:

A female ex-detainee in London, who had been sectioned under the Mental Health Act, telephoned us because she was about to be made homeless by her local authority. We liaised with her community care lawyers to ensure continuity of care / A male had been released from detention without enough heart medication - we referred him to Doctor of the Worlds’ ‘Project: London’, who gave him an emergency prescription and helped him to register with a G.P/ A visitor informed us he suspected his detainee had mental health issues, with the detainee’s permission we referred him to Medical Justice and he was diagnosed with brain damage. He is now released.

Problem Solving and Planning Tools

RCOs are often faced with complex challenges when trying to improve their organisational structure and achieve positive change for their communities. There are a number of tools designed to help groups to analyse the different aspects of their problems, discuss potential solutions and plan actions.

Here are two tools that the Basis team has found useful:

Problem Tree Analysis: a great tool to deeply analyse the factors of a problem (for example ‘women are not participating to the activities of the organisation’, ‘refugees voices are not heard’) by distinguishing between its causes and consequences. The tool helps you to understand which are the causes and consequences so that your organisation can address them and better plan actions and projects. Find a short guide to the Problem Tree Analysis on the website of the Overseas Development Institute http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/details.asp?id=5258&title=problem-tree-analysis

Force Field Analysis: once you know which aspect of a problem you want to focus on, the Force Field Analysis is a good and simple way to understand which are the forces and situations that are supporting your desired change and which are the ones that block it. This will show you if you have more forces pro or against your goal and decide in which activities to put most of your energy. Find a short guide to this tool here http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/details.asp?id=5218&title=force-field-analysis-decision-maker

Another useful website for tools is the http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_06.htm. It has a lot of interesting tools on decision-making e.g. choosing between options, analysing expected outcomes and making financial decisions.

RCO Connect - 30th January 2012

RCO Connect is a  regular email that provides an opportunity for you to share learning from your Refugee Community Organisation (RCO), and get inspired by learning from others. Download the most recent issue: RCO Connect 30th January 2012(pdf).

To subscribe to RCO Connect please email [email protected]

Basis Project national conference

The Basis Project team were thrilled with the energy and enthusiasm, particularly from RCO speakers, workshop leads and participants at our national conference on Tuesday 24th January.

Around 250 delegates from RCOs, funders and second tier organisations come together to look at practical ways forward for Refugee Community Organisations.

Donna Covey, Chief Executive of Refugee Council opened the day and talked about the challenges facing refugees and those supporting them whilst recognising the valuable work RCOs do to raise awareness and support vulnerable refugees.

Elizabeth Balgobin, Chair of Voice for change gave her analysis of the current climate including the Big Society and the impact on BME organisations, and Micheline Safi Ngogo of Light Project International and Refugee Council trustee Sirak Berhe of Investing in People and culture shared their inspirational stories of responding to challenges on the ground.

Delegates chose from a wide range of workshops from commissioning to social media. The incredible Women Asylum Seekers Together (Manchester) choir moved the crowd with songs about their experiences, and the day finished with closing remarks from Yvonne Cass , Refugee Council Vice Chair and co-founder of Migrant and Refugee Community Organisation.

You can see an account of the day from a variety of web and social media; more videos from the day and a full report will be available in a few weeks.

Conference agenda

Download the final agenda for the Basis Project Conference taking place in Birmingham on 24th January 2012

RCO Connect - 17th January 2012

RCO Connect is a  regular email that provides an opportunity for you to share learning from your Refugee Community Organisation (RCO), and get inspired by learning from others. Download the most recent issue: RCO Connect 17th January 2012 (pdf).

To subscribe to RCO Connect please email [email protected]

Free training in London from Charities Evaluation Service

Making your services more effective - FREE course for RCO's

1 Feb 2012 - 2 Feb 2012 This 2-day course is for anyone from a Refugee Community Organisation in London.

Overall aim

Participants will have a clear understanding of how to use monitoring and evaluation to demonstrate, and improve, the effectiveness of their services.

Specific aims

By the end of the two-day course, participants will:

• understand key evaluation concepts and terminology
• be able to identify and clarify aims and objectives, outputs and outcomes
• be able to set indicators to help assess achievements of outputs and outcomes
• be able to identify the requirements for basic monitoring systems
• have developed their own self-evaluation frameworks
• be able to identify some simple ways to collect information

For more information and to book, go to: http://www.ces-vol.org.uk/index.cfm?pg=648&archive=false&offset=1

Refugee Week Conference 2012

The Refugee Week team are holding a free one-day conference  on Friday 20 January at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London from 10am - 4.30pm.

The aim of the day is to provide a forum where those planning to be involved in Refugee Week events this year can develop and share ideas, get inspired and share their experiences with others.

The programme will feature a number of speakers sharing good practice and ideas – but the day will be more about you and your experiences. The event will be participatory and features different workshops covering a range of issues.

Full details of the programme and how to register are on the Refugee Week website.

RCO Connect - 22nd December 2011

RCO Connect is a  regular email that provides an opportunity for you to share learning from your Refugee Community Organisation (RCO), and get inspired by learning from others. Download the most recent issue: RCO Connect 22nd December 2011(pdf).

To subscribe to RCO Connect please email [email protected]