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]
  

 

Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland Community Foundation

An interview for the Basis Project. You can find more interviews and case studies on the Basis Project website.

Transcript

My name is Jane Avery and I work as the grants officer for the Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland Community Foundation. I started in the job in May 2009 and was really new to the grants giving world, although I had worked in the third sector before.

I quickly realised that Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) communities, newly arrived communities and asylum seekers would form a big constituency of people who were applying for grants.

Using existing contacts and making new ones - and one of those was Modupe Odifa, who works at Refugee Action (for the Basis Project) in Leicester – we began to draw up a panel of expertise. Because you can’t know the needs of every individual group. SO we have a wide range of experts on our grants panel to help us make decisions that are fair and transparent – and a lot of those have been successful, and we’re keen on keeping in touch with groups.

We’re developing the work that we do with refugee groups and BME communities by building on a bank of knowledge. Because clearly, if people come to this country and English isn’t their first language, or form-filling or compliance with contracts is new to them then it is important that they get that sort of knowledge base so that there is a level playing field.

One of the things we are doing is running a training day – not just for newly arrived communities, but they are being targeted with the advertising – to get information on how to make their application stronger, pointing out common mistakes. Also we’re hoping to build up a bank of buddies so that people who have made successful applications can help people making new applications. In this way we can strengthen communities and people will be able to help each other.

Clearly there is a big gap between people who put in successful applications and people who put in weak applications. And I can imagine it’s really frustrating to get a letter saying ‘Your application wasn’t successful because…’ and then in thee sentences say ‘It wasn’t value for money’ or ‘There wasn’t a proof of need’ or whatever. And they’re sort of clichés, so it must be very frustrating. So what we wanted to do was put people who have made successful applications with people who haven’t been successful just so thast during the application process they can phone someone up – they can phone me up as well – but someone who can perhaps give some extra time to explain what is meant by a certain phrase. And I think that’s going to be really helpful.

The point is that we do have money and our donors want us to give it away. It’s not our intention to make it difficult. It’s just a question of people being able to find that the Community Foundation is approachable and that there are different ways of approaching us.

The first thing is that we would look for a group that has a constitution and we’ll point organisations in the right direction if they need help with that - we have links with other organisations in the city. And also a bank account, because we can’t pay money into someone’s private account – so they need a bank account with two signatures. So that’s the foundation really of a good group.

And the next things is for them to look at the guidelines for the different funds and apply to the appropriate one – don’t bend your application to try and fit. Be realistic. Sometimes people have a habit of saying, ‘We can apply for up to £5,000 so we’ll go for £5,000’ – they go from the bottom up. And you know that. And it’s applications that have got genuine figures for their costs that ring true to a panel that have got perhaps 20 minutes to assess – although we do have a process of pre-assessment. So, yes, realistic budgets are important and a project that has a purpose and they can demonstrate a need. It’s important not to apply for funds just because they’re there.

Free governance and fundraising training for refugee community organisations (London)

The Basis Project is organising its first set of free training, open to all refugee community organisations (RCOs) in London. The planned training sessions will cover fundraising and governance. Further training opportunities on safeguarding children and financial management will be confirmed shortly. Please visit the Basis project website  or e-mail [email protected] for more information and updates.

Workshop 1: Introduction to fundraising
7 May 2010, 10am to 4pm, Refugee Council, Brixton

Workshop aim:
To provide an introduction to what organisations need to consider when applying for grant funding.  It is for individuals responsible for raising funds in RCOs.

Learning outcomes:

• Increased awareness of sources of funding and investment
• Understanding the importance of fundraising strategies
• Understanding of what contents are required to make a good application
• Greater familiarity with what funders are looking for
• Increased awareness of why applications for funding fail

Workshop 2: Fundraising for £10,000 plus
12 May 2010, 10am to 4pm, Refugee Council, Brixton

Workshop aim:
This workshop will help those developing their skills in applying for funding and in particular those looking for larger amount of funding (over 10K).  It is for those responsible for raising funds in RCOs.  It will complement the previous session.

Learning outcomes:

• An understanding of what is required to make a good large grantapplication
• A familiarity with what funders are looking for in a large application
• Awareness of common mistakes when submitting large grant application
• Increased knowledge of where to look to find funding opportunities
• A better understanding of the planning process required for a large grant

Workshop 3:  Governance
Day one: 27 May 2010, 10am to 4pm, Refugee Council, Brixton
N.B. The second date will be arranged at the convenience of participants.

Workshop aims:
This two-day training is for RCO management committee members and / or coordinators who require a better understanding of the laws that govern their organisations and positions. They will increase their understanding of their legal responsibilities under Charity and Company Law and develop an action plan, based on knowledge gained from the training. Participants will be encouraged to commit time to co-facilitate training for their organisation’s staff and management committee members (with support from the Basis Project)

Learning outcomes:

• Understand the legal status of your organisation and the legal responsibilities of management committee members.
• Have a good understanding of the main roles, responsibilities and duties of management committee members.
• Enable your management committee to work more effectively and plan for the future.
• Have an action plan and agree time to co-facilitate training with support from the Basis Project for your organisation’s staff and management committee members.
• You will be able to make the best use of and understand your constitution.

 

Free fundraising training - Brighton

The following training run by the Basis Project is open to all organisations, including those not currently working with the Basis Project. Places are limited, so please book in advance.

Writing winning fundraising applications
(Useful for those who have little or no experience fundraising)

Run by the Basis Project in partnership with the Black and Minority Ethnic Community Partnership.
Facilitator: Beatriz Fernandez (the Basis Project and Refugee Action)
Venue: Clarendon Centre, 47 New England Street, Brighton, BN1 4GQ .
Date: Friday 4 December 10.00am to 3.45pm
Cost: Free.

To book a place please contact Beatriz Fernandez on [email protected] or call 07776454237.

Community Foundation for Greater Manchester

Since the Community Foundation for Greater Manchester was founded in 1989 more than £17 million has been distributed to over 7,000 community groups and projects, changing the lives of many people in Greater Manchester.

We spoke to Gill Green and Rob Malyan (pictured, below) about the funds available and what advice they would give to refugee community organisations (RCOs) that were thinking of applying.

Q: What’s the role of the Foundation?

Our vision is “Helping ordinary people do extraordinary things” and we work with many different partners including local business, individuals, local authorities and the government. We work across the ten boroughs of Greater Manchester and, though we’re not a development agency, we will offer support to organisations to help them make a funding application. If they need infrastructure development support we’ll signpost them elsewhere – to their local Council for Voluntary Services (CVS), for example.

Q: What funding is available?

We manage more than 50 grant streams including some that we administer for local councils and a small grants fund for locally-led community groups with an income of less than £50,000. As part of this small grants fund, we administer the government’s new Grassroots Grants programme on behalf of the Community Development Foundation. The Grassroots Grants is a £130million scheme which aims to provide much needed access to small grants for local community groups. The programme, will run from 2008-2011. Organisations thinking of applying should visit our website (www.communityfoundation.co.uk) for details of which fund best suits them. Or they can call us on 0161 214 0940.

Q: Who decides which applications are successful?

Our model is independent grant making by local people, so funds are overseen by panels of volunteers who make the final decisions. We try to ensure that these panels represent the local community, although we do need to get some more young people at the moment.

Q: Is there any particular advice you’d give to RCOs who might want to apply?

The key thing for any organisation is to make their case. They should explain as clearly as possible what they want money for and why. A one-off event might be fine, but funders want to see that there is a real community need. It’s also important that the management committee – not just the Chair - has been involved and supports the application.

Q: Can organisations claim for volunteer expenses?

Yes, absolutely. But they must be realistic and can’t contravene asylum law. We’d suggest that organisations go to their local Volunteer Centre or CVS for advice before completing their application.

Q: What about full cost recovery?

The Grassroots Grants scheme requires full cost recovery (i.e. claiming back for all overheads associated with a project) but, realistically, we can’t do it for other small grants. We encourage organisations to charge participants for services even if they get a grant to cover core costs. The panels like to see a contribution from members and it helps to develop a project’s sustainability.

Q: Can you tell us about your Quality Standard for Funding?

It’s a unique initiative we’ve developed that recognises good practice in grant management and reporting by voluntary and community groups. As well as helping groups to develop their practice relating to funding it also serves to identify those who complete the process as effective grant recipients – that should help them with other funding applications.

For more information visit: www.communityfoundation.co.uk

 

Funding news

There have been important changes in the administration of two funds that many refugee community organisations (RCOs) have successfully applied to in the past.

1) The income threshold for groups applying to Grassroots Grants has increased from £20,000 to £30,000 per year.

2) Following a review of the Awards for All England programme, the small grants scheme’s existing format will change from 1 April 2009. Each of the lottery distributors supporting the scheme will have their own small grants programmes, which means that each distributor can better address the needs of their applicants. The programme will retain its current broad eligibility, covering a wide variety of projects.

Further details can be found on the Refugee Council's Fundraising information for RCOs group. If you sign up to join you will be emailed updates about the latest funding news relevant to RCOs and can also post your own comments, advice and questions.

Interview with Carlos Chávez – Leeds Community Foundation

By Penny McLean and Tom Green

Having first been set up in America almost 100 years ago, Community Foundations have been active in communities across the UK since the 1980s. We spoke to Carlos Chávez (pictured below), the Grants and Community Manager of the Leeds Community Foundation, to find out more. 

What’s the idea behind Leeds Community Foundation?

We’re an independent charity, affiliated to the Community Foundation Network and we aim to provide a link between funders and community groups. We work with local groups and networks to find out community needs and manage various funds for grant-giving. These can come from a variety of sources, including national funds like Sport Relief  and Grassroots Grants, and  local donations from individuals and companies.

What sort of difficulties do you see refugee community organisations (RCOs) experience when they are seeking funding?

Often the biggest challenge is getting a good management committee. Groups find it hard to find good people or retain those they have and, with RCOs, there can be additional problems of language differences even if people come from the same country. Political problems carried over from their home country can also cause problems. And, without good governance, it’s very hard to attract funding or to manage money if you do get grants.

Are you able to help RCOs overcome these problems?

We don’t have the resources to do capacity building ourselves (although some Community Foundations do) but we signpost groups to appropriate help, such as the Basis Project, Voluntary Action Leeds and Leeds Connecting Communities.  We also point people towards training courses and the many bursaries available to pay for them.

What advice would you give to RCOs thinking of making an application to you?

Sometimes people seem to complete applications without reading the supporting material. If there’s something you’re not clear about, it’s always a good idea to contact us for help. Or you can complete an expression of interest form on our website. For example, we won’t fund religious activities, but we can fund community activities by religious groups. It’s also a good idea to think how your activity can reach out to other communities. We will fund activities for a particular group of people where appropriate, but, on the whole, we’re looking for evidence or reaching out to others. It doesn’t have to be complicated – for example, simply setting up a football team can lead to meeting with other communities.

Need £££? A guide to winning grants.

There are very few funders out there, especially for small organisations, so to help you get started, we've compiled a quick guide to funding agencies who recently made a presentation to RCOs in London.

The City Bridge Trust
0207 332 3710
Stewart Goshawk, Principal Grants Officer

Grassroots Grants from the Capital Community Foundation
0207 582 5117
Rehana Reid, Grants Officer

BBC Children in Need
0208 576 7788

Unltd.
0207 566 1136
Maryam Pasha

Each organisation’s criteria and eligibility requirements are summarised here, but for full details, please call them directly or visit their websites. Good luck! And if you have any experience applying for grants, please share what you’ve learned with other members by posting a comment below.

RCOs putting themselves in funders’ shoes

Last week I attended the West Midlands RCO funding learning event organised by David Hirst, the Basis Project Organisational Development Officer for the region. It was great to see such a diverse mix of RCO communities coming together to share, network and learn more about fundraising.

There was a choice of four workshops which looked at, practical fundraising ideas, finding evidence of need for projects, meeting the grant funders’ demands and understanding contracts and commissioning.

All of the workshops were very engaging, but for me, one of the most interesting workshops was ‘finding evidence of need for projects’, where RCOs had to swap roles, and pretend to be funders!

The first part of this session focused on understanding funding language. One of the terms discussed was, ‘anecdotal evidence’ – which is a great opportunity to express and prove a project’s needs through stories, or ‘anecdotes’ and not statistics. For individuals whose first language isn’t English, it can be very challenging trying to express why their project is needed, and how it can meet funders’ requirements. One RCO said that she can express the need for their project very eloquently in her own language, but translating it into English is difficult and just doesn’t seem to adequately convey the great work that needs to be done or that is being done.

The next activity gave RCOs the chance to be funders! The groups were given two ‘fake’ funding applications to discuss and assess, focusing on evidence of need. RCOs found this activity very challenging, but it made them more aware of the importance of providing evidence in funding applications. Our RCO funders were very sympathetic it has to be said! The key learning points were to: be specific, provide statistics and supporting information, and prove their knowledge of their local environment – prove there is a gap and a need!

In the ‘practical fundraising ideas’ workshop, RCOs got very animated discussing practical ideas for fundraising. Suggestions were: trading; fundraising events e.g. selling home made products; workshops with other organisations/schools; membership subscription; sponsored events e.g. marathons; and hiring out their premises. The key points that RCOs learnt were: the need to have a fundraising plan; to ensure your organisation has enough capacity and volunteers to help out; that sometimes a licence is required to do certain things, e.g. organising a lottery; trading can be done, but you must seek advice; and the need to be creative with fundraising ideas.

David Lane, from the Institute of Social Entrepreneurs based in Birmingham gave an informative presentation on commissioning (the process of working out what is needed in terms of services) and procurement (buying the service to meet the need) in the public sector.

Although, most of the RCOs at this session were not at a stage to compete with other organisations to sell their services to the public sector, it was useful information to store for the future.  Some of the key points learnt were the need for organisations to: understand what they can offer and the impact it will make; to understand regional priorities (get involved in Local Area Agreements); ensure you get quality marks that are relevant to the sector; prove how you will ensure quality of service delivery; have insurance in place; ensure you are legally constituted; have the appropriate policies in place e.g. equal opportunities and health and safety.

It was a really enjoyable and useful day, and most importantly, everyone there took one piece of information away that they didn’t know before. Organisational development is a slow process, but more events like this can only support RCOs to achieve personal success. The overriding comment from RCOs at the event was: “looking forward to more similar events.”