A Slice of the Cake - for download
We have manged to get our popular funding and support resource in a format for download. We have compressed its file size and divided it into five separate sections. Download these by clicking on the attachments below.
Please note that these are still quite large files (one is just over 5MB) so it's only going to be possible to download with a broadband connection.
Don't forget you can request a hard copy (only £5 for West Midlands VCS organisations while stocks last). Find out more by emailing us at info@www.growingupinthewestmidlands.info.
monitoring and evaluation form
The attached is a simple form designed for people using A Slice of the Cake to support their work with other groups. If this is you then please keep a record and feedback to us on the attached form. Many thanks.
Training in Birmingham July 07
Find all the notes taken from the training day here. Add your own thoughts and comments and keep building the resource.
The training was delivered by Hilary Hughes and Ben McManus from BArts. email info@pandaemonium.biz
Many thanks to Birmingham Change Up Consortium and bayc for sponsoring this event. Thnaks too to everybody who participated so actively on the day.
people that came on the day:
Mike Langsford, Fields in Trust. Email mike.langsford@fieldsintrust.org
Jacqui Clarke, WAITS. Email jacqui@waitsaction.org
Karen Argyle, Birmingham Foundation. Email karen@bhamfoundation.co.uk
Shahid Mir, East Birmingham Community Forum Ltd. Email mir3pk@yahoo.com
David Loveridge, Birmingham Foundation. Email david.loveridge@bhamfoundation.co.uk
Carole Lowe, Southwest Birmingham Community Association. Email carole@swbca.org.uk
Jackie Grant, B-Autistic. Email jacqueline.grant@btopenworld.com
Averil Owen, B-Autistic. Email owen@blueyonder.co.uk
Lacky Begum, Groundwork. Email lacky.begum@groundwork.org.uk
Rakhyia Begum, Saheli Womens Group. Email rakhbegum@yahoo.co.uk
Amy Turner, Birmingham Carers. Email amy.turner@birminghamcarers.org.uk
Joss Kennordrie, Moseley Forum and Moseley Festival. Email kennordrie@yahoo.co.uk
Helen Dowdeswell, Birmingham Rathbone. Email helendowdeswell@rathbone.co.uk
Les Hemus, bayc. Email les.hemus@bayc.org
Alison Straker, G:up. Email info@www.growingupinthewestmidlands.info
Questions and answers about sustainability:
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How can we find specific volunteers to enrich our programmes?
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Talk with Sarah Crawley from ISE as they are funded to support this.
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Overcoming barriers – too large or small for criteria
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Separate account for small grants
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Access funding for education about healthy life-styles
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Talk with PCT or LSC
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Engage with hard to reach communities
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Contact local CVS – working with faith groups.
Contact regional faiths forum
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Long-term funding
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Campaigning to funders. Using the compact. Compact ombudsman. Use umbrella organizations to campaign to funders or advocate on your behalf. Look at how you list things in your funding bids so not everything looks like management fees.
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How can we improve team members working together when we are all so busy on our own projects?
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Make team meeting innovative and make a different person take the meeting each week and focus it on their work area.
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What is the best way to access grass roots
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See above
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How can I encourage groups to understand that several organizations in one building is more sustainable
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Show benefits of partnership working and maybe start by joint bidding. Show an example from another city and go and visit.
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How do we maintain passion and enthusiasm with ever changing volunteers
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Meetings to get people relaxed and to chare issues. Accreditation and experienced volunteers to mentor
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Managing ever decreasing time scales for delivery
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Negotiate more with partners. Educate them about the needs of your group and why time matters.
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As a new organization how do we plan for sustainable staffing
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Effective target focused business plan.
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Is there an easy and effective method for completing applications
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Some help in the pack. Read the criteria and priorities carefully at the start! Build a relationship with the funder. Talk to them and warm them up.
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Diversifying from being a grant-making trust in a changing sector
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Lead agency role – bring groups together and capacity build. Get people with experience of doing this to talk to people who can make decisions in your organisation. Recognize that we need to diversify. Look at LAAs and LSPs. Understand the tendering requirements.
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Encouraging volunteers
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Need to open eyes to understand the needs of volunteers, to make the proposition more attractive. Accrediting them for their work and supporting their development. Ensure all staff understand the needs of volunteers. Contact volunteer hubs for support. BVSC coordinate this in Birmingham. See Volunteer England.
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Enthuse and inspire small groups to keep going when things seem difficult
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Tap into local services
Working together to get funding
YOF
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Challenges in creating sustainable orgs
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Long-term funding. Not just for start-up
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Encouraging board members to work on sustainability
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Asking for champions on key work areas and also having a clear work plan and an understanding of the three year picture. Team up with an effective board to share ideas. Link into development agency networks – have a role to work with local grass-roots organizations. www.birmingham-da.org
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How to build mutually beneficial partnerships across sectors
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Marketing your self be clear about your USPs. Spread the message about your work and meet people.
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Staff training
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Train to gain website. http://www.traintogain.gov.uk/
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How to overcome challenges to delivering the training:
- Preparation of course material – need to identify audience group.
- Familiarize with the pack first
- Run a pre-pack session and see what they hope to achieve
- Make sure they understand it..
- break it into bite size pieces
- Work with the groups and the pack rather than just handing it out
- Make it an enjoyable experience
- Go through it section by section
- Ensure your organization is supporting the others you are helping
- A glossary would be useful
- Try it out on your own org first
- Tailor make the pack for people with disabilities/ other language needs
- Make sure we have some funding to understand barriers that people may face
- More signposting to supporting resources
- Making the time and space
- Always make sure that you are available at the end of the line when your client organization is doing this.
- Do some follow-up or review with the groups
What does sustain mean to you?
- Long-term survival
- Holding on
- Keep going
- Continual delivery
- Life-line
- Food
- Ecology
- Survival
- Evolution
- Elastic
- Continuity
- Good house-keeping
- Investment
- Management
- Utilizing resources
- Helping
5 priority activities for building a sustainable group
- long-term funding strategy
- skills audit for management committee and staff
- ensure we have clear aims and objectives in line with service user needs
- organizational review – talk to all stakeholders
- build an action plan
long-term funding strategy
marketable strategy
sexy image
money talks
everyone needs money
actions happen with money
endowment funding
partnership
adoption of organizations or plan e.g. by the Council
membership fees
investment in smaller organizations to gain value added or surplus benefits
charitable trusts
skills audit for management committee and staff
should be done every year but frequently is not!
There is a useful skills analysis resource at www.skild.co.uk
Identify whether people are using the skills they have effectively to support the organization.
Build a strong relationship between staff and the board – have fun together. Maybe an away day.
The Change Up! governance hub – a-z of governance is really helpful and the governance code.
The Charity Commission website is also a good source of information around governance.
ensure we have clear aims and objectives in line with service user needs
needs analysis looking at user and delivery review to maximize capacity and identify untapped areas and awareness of service users and that you are on track with need.
Could the delivery of services be changed to meet this, possibly through linking with other organizations to enhance service delivery
Need a continual monitoring process
Adaptable organization and able to adapt to and react to changing circumstances
Developing organizational capacity to meet these changing circumstances by using existing capacity creatively
Consultation and feedback
Think about doing social auditing.
REACH – will give help to voluntary organizations by matching retired business people to VCS orgs.
organizational review
talk to all stakeholders
in reality most organizations don’t do a strategic review until it’s critical
must be done by whole organization - holistic approach
lead to a list of actions
strategic plan funding plan, aims objectives
implementation – who will do it/be in charge of it
evaluation and monitoring
it is an on-going rolling process that should take place every two years, some things annually and should be part way through the current business plan.
It stops mission-drift.
build an action plan
what is the need for the plan?
Aims and objectives of the organization
How long will it take? Is it for an event or a longer term activity
Need a skills audit to know who will do what?
What will the outcome be – will it be sustainable
Where do we start
Who is involved
Is there a cost? How do we address this?
Training in Leamington Spa July 07
Find all the notes taken from the training day here. Add your own thoughts and comments and keep building the resource.
The training was delivered by Hilary Hughes and Ben McManus from BArts. email info@pandaemonium.biz
Many thanks to WAYC for hosting the event and for warning us to go home when the flood waters started to rise. thanks too to everybody who partcipated with such enthusiasm on such a dreary grey day.
People that came on the day:
Vic Jones Warwickshire Children’s Fund
Cath Errington, WAYC
Angelina McNaught NWCVS
Davina Key NWCVS
Michelle Meacham wheels to work regional manager
Emma O’Dowd CSW Sport
Isolbel Fitzgerald, CHEERS
Jess Bishop Dassett Magna Youth Project
Sonia Gordon, Regeneration Services
William Clemmey, WAYC
Frankie, African Caribbean Project
Questions and answers:
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Full cost recovery – how can we make it happen?
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Some agencies won’t entertain this idea. Use creative finance – think about what headings you put costs under.
What do you do when others are not doing full cost and putting in cheaper bids?
Consortium bid – unity across a consortium that we will all put in full-cost. But the County Council doesn’t always encourage sharing of information. Let’s help people come together to make offers.
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Using the Forum to be more dynamic and lead on sustainability
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Pushing full-cost recovery and questioning compact issues. Proactively look at tenders and do a compact assessment and feed it back. The VCS hasn’t signed up to the Compact. We need to get VCS orgs to sign up, but it is a huge and inaccessible document. £40K a year is invested in this in Warwickshire – this provides a part time officer and admin support.
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How can the Children's Fund become more independent?
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Talk with CWIC about the role of the CF
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What experiences do people have of operating a trading arm
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What do people think of the ideas that each additional £200,000 of income should bring an additional fundraiser?
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How to make orgs less grant dependent
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They need to be more business like (and see other answers).
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Encouraging community activists to share the workload and not burn out.
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Sustaining a youth project with one person can it be long term
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Get on Warwickshire fundraiser forum. Evidence outcomes and evidence need. Share understanding with steering group members. Spread the vision beyond the single worker.
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Quality assurance
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We have a standard for junior sports clubs. Volunteers can be encouraged to undertake this – clubs get promoted for having it. We advocate for those that do and they get recommended for schools work and for funding through Sport England
Matrix standard for information advice and guidance – through Coventry and Warwickshire next step. This attracts funding.
PQASSO
PQASSO - WAYC has a system of getting this on the computer with hyper-links to evidence.
Warwickshire Award for involvement (based on Hear by Right) will become a standard that must be met for all services/funding.
Can this be shared at a regional level? Hear by Right is a national standard.
Currently free training from NYA and Participation Works nationally on Hear by Right. There is also regular Warwickshire Award training – contact the Children’s Fund.
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Developing procurement strategy
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Contact Michelle to share how they have done theirs
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Partnership and joint working with mainstream agencies
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Got contacts.
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Community groups less reliant on funding
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Will work with Isobel at Camp Hill.
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Sell development and standards to volunteers
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Transferable skills and access to funding
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Core costs
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see other answers
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Money for local groups
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Local business
See if people can offer things not necesarily money
Involve the service users
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Identifying partners for transnational funding
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Leonardo and ESF. Also got contacts.
Need to do more partnership and make the time for this to happen.
Make sure you get feedback from unsuccessful bids.
Share application information.
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Solutions to using the pack with groups
- Use food or cake as a visual aid
- Useful for small community groups to understand funding on their own
- Put a sticker with definitions that you think could be better – e.g. social enterprise
- Bite-sized chunks
- Progress chart – so people can see and tick off what they have done.
- William will talk to Frankie about using the room
- Make an index, contents and glossary
- Time management and plan ahead
- Good that it is already in an order and accessible
- Laminate the sheets
- Ring bind it
- The right partners around the table – get people involved from the beginning – not changing it at the end.
- Sell the benefits – people have limited time and need to see the advantages
- Make it fun – group activities
- Think about suitable times
- Support – from other orgs e.g. CVS
- Identify strengths in the group
- Delegate responsibility and enable people to work to their strengths
Five priority actions to support groups to be sustainable:
- Cashflow/ financial forecast
- marketing plan
- Look at skills within the group
- Business plan
- Fundraising
Sustain
Keep going
Healthily
Hold on
Nourish
Continuation
Elongates
The same thing
Be relevant
Change
Evolve
Suffer
Survive
Recover
Water
True to the point
Rooted
Lack of decay
Pruning
Constant change
Prevent damage
Persevere
Development
flexibility
Discussion around the five priority actions
1) Cashflow/ financial forecast
who is it aimed at (bank/funder)
need to look at start up costs and running costs
need to look at long term needs, revenue and capital
need to look at peaks and troughs of money in and out
needs to be best guess figures for new businesses/groups. Be as accurate as you can but don’t get hung up on this. Research what it costs for others in similar position.
Need to look at surviving the poorer times i.e. overdraft or business angels
Has to be as accurate and current as possible – keep updating it.
Send different cash flows to different people – but remember which one you sent them!
2) marketing plan
good idea to have a marketing plan
identify the audience
identify your message – what it is you really want to say
plan the marketing activities you want to do over a period of time e.g. leaflet drop every three months
identify where you will put your leaflets etc. sp it’s accessible to the right audience
identify a budget
identify free marketing opportunities
develop a brand e.g. a logo and colour scheme
who will do the marketing and publicity?
Location of event/activity (this will affect who comes)
Do your market research to get views of clients and service users
Strategy – look at users, funders and competitiors
Make sure that if you use a designer that they match your organisation’s ethos and values and that they will represent you well.
3) Look at skills within the group
skills audit
SWOT – respond and move forwards
Share information
Teamwork
Address skill shortage
4) Business plan
community involvement
needs driven – market
quality standard
milestones – achievable
SMART (Exciting Recorded) SMARTER
5) Fundraising
get to know the funders – have funding markets that bring VCS and funders together
really understand what their needs are and what they are interested in
Training in Stafford July 2007
Find all the notes taken from the training day here. Add your own thoughts and comments and keep building the resource. The training was delivered by Hilary Hughes and Ben McManus from BArts. email info@pandaemonium.biz
Many thanks to SCVYS and the Staffordshire Young Farmers for hosting the event. Thanks too to everybody who participated to make it the day it was.
People who came on the day:
Steve Wilson, Stafford District Voluntary Services
Claire Nail, Voluntary Action Stoke
Karen Sullivan, Staffordshire County Council
Beverley Molley, Chase CVS
Brian Heathcote, Community Council of Staffordshire
Jordan Thompson NCVCCO
Sue Fox SCVYS
Questions and Answers:
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Identifying appropriate funding
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Google for “Fit for funding”, “grant finder” and “grant net”.
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Helping groups to complete applications and understand their core business
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Training opportunities through learnability/ skills base. Learning the difference between outputs and outcomes. SMART outcomes. Work with local CVS in partnership to support groups. Get 1 to 1 development support
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What do you do to sustain projects that have proved their value?
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Evidence your worth and what you have delivered and prove that there is still a need. Investigate statutory bodies and see what their priorities are and how you meet them. Show the added value of the VCS – ‘greater than profit’.
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How do you get apathy out of organisations?
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It’s hard and takes a lot of work! Need to encourage people to recognise problems on the horizon before it’s too late.
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Isn’t there an easy guide to funding
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Stoke does training on grant net – why not in Staffordshire too?
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Struggling private provider of child care
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Look at social enterprise or CIC. Show as a model. VAST has packs about starting a social enterprise. Claire will post these out to people.
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How to make authorities comply with compact
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Paul Barasi – compact advocacy group – a set of legal experts who will provide free advice. See NCVO. Compact Ombudsman. Local Compact Voice hold regular meetings nationally (expenses paid) to feed back info to the compact commissioner and the office of the third sector.
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How do we get the most out of this resource?
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Finding different partners to put in a funding bid for training.
Looking for partners e.g. within LAs that have training budgets. Work through VCS Engage in other regions. Work to deliver training for trainers where there is existing capacity.
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How do groups access £150k plus, but not through the lottery?
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Working together collaboratively. Putting in joint bids.
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Quality – up to commissioning standards
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“Quality First” – from BVSC based on pqasso but for organisations without paid staff. We need to get groups fit for contract. In Staffs looking for LA to accept and recognise set standards. Can we make this happen locally or regionally? But how do we get organisations to this standard? It must not be expensive to or too high to achieve.
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There is a gulf between our work of supporting communities and the surroundings we have to operate in. a huge energy goes into understanding all the hoops and regulations. The tail seems to be wagging the dog.
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We need to build capacity of development officers and support bigger organisations to win contracts and sub-contract in a manageable way to small organisations.
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Contact details to share on the website:
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Steve Wilson, Stafford district voluntary services
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development@sdvs.org.uk
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Claire Nail, Voluntary Action Stoke on Trent
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cnail@vast.org.uk
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Karen Sullivan, Staffordshire County Council
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Karen.sullivan@staffordshire.gov.uk
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Beverley Molloy, Chase CVS
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development@chase-cvs.org.uk
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Brian Heathcote, Community Council of Staffordshire
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brianstaffs@yahoo.co.uk
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Jordan Thompson, NCVCCO
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jordan@ncvcco.org
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Sue Fox, SCVYS Junior Youth Work Project
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sue.fox@staffordshire.gov.uk
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Sustain means:
Hold on
Continue and develop
Remain
Stability
Keep going
Consistency
Nourish
Nurture
Protection for future generations
Strength
Security – it’s always there
A feeling of safety
Protection
Reliability
Flexibility
Constant
Suffer
Resilience
Absorption
Change
Develop
Hard work
Overcoming challenges in delivery:
Decide who to target
Project evaluation summary of available toolkits in community development
More training opportunities for development workers
Allocation of reading time
Tailor it to suit organisations
Break it down into bite sized pieces
Different methods of delivery: Peer support group, e-learning group, one to one support
Bring groups together
Provide networking opportunities
Make space for exchanging ideas
Action planning to identify gaps
Share resources
Added value
Communicate by:
- Word of mouth
- Inevitability of falling first and learning from the experience – picking people up when it’s gone wrong
- Luxury of outreach
- Neutral territory – don’t expect people to come to you. Give them security.
Keep a register of who has packs – get feedback and evaluate
Break into bite-sized sections
Formalise the pack for some groups who work like that. Give it to them in their style.
Make use of your resources
4 priority actions to help groups become sustainable
1) Instil confidence and reassurance
breaking down/removing barriers
changing perceptions – challenging negative ideas
sounding board
listening
focus/guidance
increasing skills
encouragement
confirmation
praise
positive attitude – but don’t set people up to fail or give unrealistic expectations.
good communication – you sometimes need to drive it. Keep it open.
establish ‘ground rules’
tell people what they don’t want to hear
2) Identify sources of support and advice
Support and advice structures
Second formative stage
Keep project going ‘sustainability’
Review/monitoring part of the process too
Mentors phone/email/121 – what suits?
Ask questions
Learn from others (best practice)
Research internet
IT skills
Networks
Peer support groups
Community Councils and CVSs and CVYSs
3) Know the group and the roles of individuals
Who, what, why, where, when, how
Skills audit/SWOT identify outstanding needs/skills – what skills do you have and what will you have to find or buy in? Can you delegate jobs based on this? This identifies training needs too.
Conflicts of interest – what other committees are they on? Register of conflict of interest
Group dynamics
Diversity/mix – reflective of the community
Reflective of the community/service user involvement
4) Aims, objectives, roles and responsibilities
clarity of purpose determine agreed aims and objectives which underpins project progression
allocation of roles
understanding of committees and officers’ responsibilities
working within the objectives – keeping focussed
legal status – understand your legal obligations
focus on the job in hand – effective, productive and recorded meetings.
Things I will go away and do
Write a flyer about this training and how we could do it in other places
I would like to see more people sharing their information as happened today
I’m going to take the pack and view it externally and think about how I can apply it in what I do
I think it would be nice if people here kept in contact
Have a good look through the pack and how I can best use it with the type of groups I am supporting
I hope other will be as enthusiastic as me
Through the Development Workers Network meeting on 1st August – I found tremendous benefit from working with other workers and sharing issues and want to make the network more like that. Not so much faffing.
Take the pack back and share with colleagues to support groups – there are 8 of us. I would like to see more multi-agency working. Together everyone can achieve more
I think the pack has lots of potential I will try and disseminate with my boss and others
This session could have spent more time looking at the pack – did it do what it said on the tin?
Get it out to development officers
I will champion for the sector and go to the compact ombudsman
I’ve got some ideas I will start in the North East. I hope people will come
Take it home and read it
Like to ask some of the groups I work with for their opinions.
It’s brought me right back to grass roots.
Training in Telford October 2007
We managed to rearrange this training after floods held things up in July...
Attending:
Peter Beer
Neil McKinnon
Natalie Spence
Michelle Harrison
Alison Straker
Trainers:
Hilary Hughes and Ben McManus from B Arts.
Questions?
How can we help groups to plan properly for their long-term future and look beyond the next twelve months?
It’s problematic because people only want to look at change at the 11th hour.
How do I get steering group/trustees fully engaged with the sustainability agenda?
What do you do when your existence depends on your members but you compete for funding with them?
Where do I learn about how to look for funds?
How do I change an old organisation?
The issues are getting the org to:
Look beyond and look at the bigger picture and power in size.
Overcome ignorance and bureaucracy
Face the challenges of keeping up with safeguarding agenda and other policy areas
Sense of threat from paid staff.
Overcoming the divide between paid staff and volunteers
Paid staff blocking engagement with membership. They have power because they are more static than the trustees.
Don’t see themselves as a region. They are very competitive.
Suggestions include:
Quick wins, publicised wins, impress people with the buying power
Social audit? Revisit missions? Seems the block is the staff not the organisation. Replace staff?
Remit for change and then give a vision and see if people choose to be with it or not.
Do some reading on managing change.
How to support individual organisations to become a network and then to build a corporate identity?
15-20 groups working with a variety of age ranges and doing different activities.
Training has started to bring people together – staff.
What is the benefit? – need to support people to overcome isolation. Efficiency in coming together. Added value – group lobby.
Have a tournament between groups?
Give people an immediate result every time they meet.
How often?
Make it a pleasurable experience.
Make it what groups want. But even then there are huge barriers.
Training good practice and opportunity to network is not enough!
Creative Partnerships – puts an agent in each school to look at how the teachers can change practices. Help promote a network and a culture of change.
Pollination – not seen as training but it is. Cross-pollination. Possibly funded through a playful ideas bid?
‘force’ collaboration through funding.
Solutions to using the toolkit with groups
Familiarise yourself with the document so you can feed it out to others
Finding the key people who will benefit and identifying the key bits that will be useful
Make it member friendly
Distil the info from the pack
Mapping people’s needs and interests – link cards to problems
Buy into it yourself
One bite at a time to eat the elephant
Try it with a small group first and identify hurdles and improve what you do with the next group
Time management – working backwards.
Action learning set – building in network development with this
We work so hard for a cake we’re not going to get! That’s the voluntary sector.
Sustain is:
ringing on to the future
Ever lasting
Food
Sustenance
Staying on top
Robust
Healthy
Nurture
Survival
Withstand
Hang on
Endure
Keep alive
Growth
More than hand to mouth
Change
Keep on
Scale of 1-10 how important is sustain to you?
Scores ranged from 4 to 9
Priorities for actions to make something sustainable
- Funding/resources
- The right people with the right skills
- A business plan with an agreed vision and objectives
A business plan with agreed vision and objectives
At an early stage need vision of where project is going. This should reflect needs/skills/wants. Business plan aims and objectives can come later.
It must be owned by the people involved and used as the basis for involving new people – the branding of the organisation- important to keep it simple in order to re-visit and re-evaluate the process and progress
A business plan can be quite simple
How do you get these skills into your organisation? How do you empower the people already in your organisation? - link to right people with right skills.
Must be practical and achievable
Needs to be understood and owned throughout the organisation.
Borrow somebody else’s to have a look and get some ideas.
Funding
People don’t give enough time for this.
What funding is available and for what?
What are the funders’ outcomes? – talk to the funders in advance
How much do you need?
Who is going to write the bid?
When do you want it and how long for?
Is there anyone else applying for the same pot in the same area for similar projects? - join up to make the application.
What have you done to prove the need for this funding? Consultation. But look at what info you already have?
When do you apply – deadlines – do they meet your org’s deadlines?
Your usp – world map of who’s in your area
Does the bid cover the costs of the work you propose to do? Full-cost recovery.
The right people with the right skills
Not a skills audit – skills can be acquired. The right attitude is what matters most. BUT if people don’t have something to offer then they have to go/ be redirected to where they can be useful.
Analysis – determine what the right skills would be
Advertising – the map of the world who else is in it?
Need to have clear agreed ethos of the organisation – right attitude can be identified from this.
Make use of the skills people already have!
Evaluation
What I learned:
A lot about Young Farmers
READ the ‘Slice’
Something about Young Farmers
Other voluntary workers encounter similar issues
What I loved:
Energy
The openness of the group
Open Space
Not going through the toolkit page by page but looking at ways to use it
Small group, more focussed
What I’ll take away:
The whole cake
A learning tool
To read the tool kit
A toolkit that looks fab
What I’ll throw away:
Nothing!
Training in Wolverhampton July 2007
Find all the notes taken from the training day here. Add your own thoughts and comments and keep building the resource. The training was delivered by Hilary Hughes and Ben McManus from BArts. email info@pandaemonium.biz. Many thanks to Black Country Change Up Consortium, DVYO and Wolverhampton Volunteer Centre for your help in getting the event on! Thanks too to everybody who came along on the day and made their contribution.
Wolverhampton was a our first training day on this toolkit. Part way through the day we had the idea of recording the training outcomes and information gathered in the sessions on this website as an extension of the toolkit and a learning resource. The consequence is that the notes from this session are a little less ordered than on subsequent days when we were able to write things up as the day went on, rather than retrospectively from old flip carts!
If you have any changes to suggest to what follows then please make them...
People who came on the day:
Diane Mansell, Brierley Hill CF
Stuart Chapman, Brierley Hill CF
Suffia Perveen ,BME Forum
Gail Mattocks, DVYO
Arnie Troxler, DCVS
Kevin Priest, DCVS
Kate Green, DCVS
Tony Kemshall, Walsall Endeavours
Sue Priest , WNC
Cathy Pemberton, Zip Theatre
Irene Walker, Black Country Change Up Consortium
Udai Patel, Wolverhampton Volunteer Centre
Kate Bartlett, The Haven Wolverhampton
Vicky Burre, Sandwell Forum for Voluntary Youth Organisations
Derrick Gordon, Sandwell Forum for Voluntary Youth Organisations
Questions and answers:
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How can I get my steering group to help me take responsibility for sustainability?
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Clear focus and purpose
Engage people in specific tasks
Clear vision and realistic work plan
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How do we stop project hopping and look ahead to the long-term?
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Look for possible partnerships across country
Good staff morale
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How do we get people to support our organisation and not just each project?
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Don’t waste time fighting what you can’t change. Focus on what you can!
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What do we mean by sustainability?
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More than one income stream
Balance of incomes
Good governance
Clear mission and boundaries
Holding social objectives while participating in new markets and responding to change
Keep informed of the external environment
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Why do the goal posts keep moving?
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Political arena outside of our control– making sure we know about change before hand. Research gaps and drivers.
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Ways of motivating workers – employed/volunteers – to ensure that they keep engaged and work with project to develop strands of other work. Enthusiasm = finishing.
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Assessing what volunteer wants to do in a project through communication.
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Finding ways of challenging people in power to not sabotage community projects – equalities complaints procedure.
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How can groups attract more committee members?
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How can two VCOs offering similar services, but not economically sustainable amalgamate into one VCO which is economically sustainable
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Consider/focus on areas you can “trade”/ supply
CSR – not always money
Flexible ways of buying in e.g. £1 per week
“sell” why you should be supported
join up – co-op federation etc.
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How to provide sustainable child care to parents that can’t afford fees?
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Sustain is:
Holding on
Keep it going
Development and progression
Nourishment
What sustains me:
Food/ a slice of cake
Sharing with other people
Adapatability/flexibility
Roots
Money
Enjoyment/ fun
Optimism
Treats
Overcoming challenges when working with the toolkit:
Create a training plan and break it down into bite-sized bits
Do pre-training questionnaires
Use the pack with the workers first
Tailor the pack for the target group
Have an understanding of where the ‘change’ of funding is going
Update the pack online
Include more things in future packs
6 Priority actions for organisational sustainability:
- Research what people want (that fits your vision)
- Good governance
- Collaborate constantly with whole team
- A clear focus
- The right people
- Meet agreed outcomes
Five of these were discussed further, but interestingly nobody wanted to talk about meeting agreed outcomes!
Research what people want (that fits your vision)
When do we want the information?
Consult with all stakeholders
Agree an agenda/ data framework and priorities
Evaluate the data and give feedback – identify the need/capacity (allow engagement)
Collect date using a variety of methods – questionnaires, the arts, drama, music…
Sometimes people tell you what you want to hear – be aware
What are the isssues that affect them?
How do they feel?
Good governance:
Recruitment – job specs and split the roles
Diversity – life skills and professional skills
Invest in people –nobody should be paid the minimum, training is a right for all staff, hold the board accountable if staff if it isn’t offered. Value staff development and report on it at board level.
Report, record, accountability and review.
Collaborate constantly with whole team:
Shared vision/values understand and revisit
Regular programmed time – different frameworks suit different individuals and teams. Information sharing is vital
Bring people in from the outside to challenge the norm, refresh and nourish
A clear focus
A business plan – everybody knows about it – people involved in writing it, presented at a stakeholder day, make it really visible, a creative day on the plan, role play, impact on your team.
Evaluating/ feedback – possible social accounting.
Revise/review in a timescale – how will they deliver to plan. Use it as a live document.
The right people
Audit of skills/abilities/experience
Identify what is lacking/ what we need
Recruitment/invest in people
Things I will go away and do
take it to the board
work it through with our organisations
read it
email info re webdesign courses to Derrick
email more info
read it
get together with somebody for doing Dudley training
look at it with colleagues
get a group to look at each section and how we can deliver it
talk about it with other development officers and see how it works with different organisations
go through it with development workers and see how/if/why to use it
think about being 'greater than profit'
take away and look at the pack and how it could be broken down into training sessions
i'll incorporate it into my thinking
I'll take the pack and spread it throughout
I'll give it to volunteers and attend further training
Cake Training Evaluation July 2007
We used an evaluation person to gather some feedback from participants under four headings:
- What I learned
- What I loved
- What I will take away
- what I will throw away
This is what people said:
What I learned
Some good discussion, but not sure how much was relevant to Slice of the Cake.
I have learned that information sharing is important for sharing ideas and good practice
Other people’s views
Focus/prioritise
Different perspectives on delivering common goals
Different values/ideas around what I thought were basic concepts
The [Wolverhampton] one way system is more than I can manage in a morning.
To tell other volunteers in starting up business about your org
The need for structure.
A linear approach to figuring out sustainable development
Interesting training techniques
Help to consolidate thoughts/plans already in place
Encouragement of volunteers
What are the new realities to voluntary organizations
Importance of having a good toolkit that can be filtered down to other organizations
I have learned to go back and utilize current resources, i.e. trustees/volunteers
Information on where I can access additional resources
I have learned what wider organizations are on the doorstep and how we could interlink
Different methods of working with organizations to support them along the road towards sustainable funding
Another tool that can be used with groups that may suit some organizations better than existing tools
Open space idea to obtain ideas
Excellent networking
Opportunity to interact
Good informal atmosphere
Better knowledge of CVSs and voluntary organizations issues regarding sustainability.
Methods in using the toolkit
Different approaches to working with groups
Open space technology – not sure I used it to the best in the session, but a lot of potential.
Info on Compact – where to raise issues etc.
Outline of work packs – maybe spend more time on these? A short summary outline of each section. Relevance of first session in context of day.
Shared issues/agendas
Thinking about full-cost recovery
Shared info
Packs!!
Always take people’s contact details
Useful packs, useful contacts
Plan to succeed
Not to be narrow viewed – think about what others are doing and use their ideas. Use contacts.
Leant that as a sector we are well resourced with quality people
I am thinking on the right wave length.
What I loved
Meeting people involved in similar work
Role playing and team building, to come out of own comfort zones and meeting and networking with other professionals
Interaction between people
Meeting/talking frankly with different people
Sitting next to Tony and Udai
Sharing of issues with other organizations
Meeting others and sharing ideas
Practical exercises
The networking
Meeting others and sharing experience of sector
I loved meeting other worker in the voluntary and community sector and sharing knowledge and experiences
Networking opportunity
Vibrant, interactive and communicative course
Networking
Thinking ‘outside the box’
Opportunities for discussion, meeting people
1) knowledge of trainers 2) networking 3) toolkit 4) awareness to other areas of sustainability.
The weather and the setting and it was a good group
The group dynamics
Opportunity to share ideas
Networking – other people’s ideas
Location, atmosphere, food
Gave me concrete easy-to-understand ideas of how to use the toolkit
The Q and A session at start of session
The group of people/trainers
The pack (and multiple packs)
Sharing experiences and information
Good information pack
The style of delivery – trainers were friendly
Looking through the pack
Sharing ideas and networking
Meeting new people, creating new networks
Exercises – made me think. Style of delivery – sharing ideas/meeting
What I will take away
Toolkit
The pack of information
The toolkit to read
Toolkit and thinking of different ways of using it
The toolkit pack and some of the discussions of guidance within the voluntary sector
I will talk thru with our development worker
Toolkit
Ethics of community interest company – flows throughout every org activity
Opportunity to replicate tools
Toolkit – very useful – A-Z /guide – good step by step
Toolkit – ideas – new contacts. Access to other resources
That I will go back and do my filing and check that things e.g. policies are still relevant
Excellent pack for future use
Packs/ideas to take away
Smarties cake
Enthusiasm to use the content of the toolkit
A slice of the cake resource pack, new ideas, new contacts, increased confidence in supporting small groups
More development potential
1) Toolkit session 2) headlines 3) what I need to take sustainability forward
A lovely toolkit. Networking opportunity establishing new links. Strong refresher on capacity building skills. Enjoyable day’s activities.
I will take away a valuable tool to use with organizations along with knowledge gained today to help me put the tool into practice.
I will take away a more thorough approach to my role – with a greater emphasis on continuous evaluation and meeting real needs, not what we may think is the need.
Ideas to engage groups to write funding bids
The pack and use it to support groups
The packs and hopefully use them in the near future.
New contacts, New tools
Brainstorming about barriers/difficulties and then solutions to using toolkit. Makes it all seem possible,
My slice of the cake, the packs, contacts
The pack and contact details
Looking forward to using the new pack and sharing it with others in my organisation
What I will throw away
Perhaps the day needs to focus more on toolkit
I will possibly throw away photocopies if the pack does not photocopy well.
My parking ticket if I get one – got to go!
The phrase ‘not for profit’
The food
My post-it notes
What I would throw away – Nothing
The outer cover? – separate into bit sized pieces?
Hopefully some of the older toolkits I haven’t used in a while!
The nutty chocolates
Open space
The weather
Post it notes
Nothing!
