The weekly roundup from VANEL on good governance, charity trusteeship and non-profit leadership. News, information, resources and ideas. Complemented by our monthly “View from the Top” e-newsletter (Trustee Network members only), our “aboutgovernance” online discussion space for leaders and trustees and our @aboutgovernance Twitter feed.
Just a couple of quick governance related news items this week.
What part do Trustees play in the Quality of their organisation? This article on the NCVO website explores the important role the board and trustees have to play in the quality of the charity overall and it’s worth a quick read. It advocates a quality scheme such as PQASSO but there are many ways to assess your organisational quality. Related to this theme is the new Supporting Volunteers Award (SVAg) that VANEL is introducing to help you assess and demonstrate your governance quality. If you are interested in SVAg keep watching this space or get in touch directly (karl@vanel.org.uk)
The winners of the Governance Awards 2017 have been announced (and you can read the list on their website in full here). The winning charities in the five categories demonstrate clearly the way good governance should and does work in challenging situations. It’s worth a read to see what was so good about these organisations, but particularly to shine a spotlight on our own organisations. How well do we think our own charity boards and committees would deal with these same issues or how well do we match up to these categories? Should we be doing something to improve in these areas?
The annual NCVO Charity Trustee Conference is on 14th November 2017 in London and is now open for bookings. It’s always a significant event in the governance calendar and worth going to if you can manage it. All the details, agenda and booking information is here.
An interesting new initiative has been launched by Frazer Jones HR firm. They are looking to connect HR professionals with smaller charities (<£1m turnover) to support their boards with free, voluntary HR support. All the details and information is here and if it’s of interest it will be worth getting in touch with them. As is so often the case this one might well be very London centric so I don’t know how much support charities in North East Lincolnshire are going to be able to tap into, but if it’s relevant to you it might be worth a look.
One to watch: On 1 June the new Charity Futures independent think tank launched. Led by charity veteran Sir Stephen Bubb, Charity Future will focus on research, debate and thought-provoking interventions to advance third sector governance, collaboration, and public reputation. Its board includes Sir Stuart Etherington (NCVO), Dr Ann Limb (The Scout Association), Othman Moqbel (Human Appeal International & ACEVO), Jonathan Smith (Woodford Investment) and Stephen Barclay (Oxford Centre for the Study of Philanthropy). See www.charityfutures.org for details and I’m sure I’ll be reporting back what the think thank shares over the coming months.
And finally for this week a reminder of our upcoming “Induction and Refresher Training for Trustees” training session on Tuesday 13th June from 3pm-5pm at VANEL offices in Grimsby. £10 per person (or £15 per person for non-VANEL members) or free to younger people (aged 18-30) who are connected to a charity board or committee. As usual, this is a quick, two hour look at what you should know and do as a trustee or committee member, what you shouldn’t do, what you could do, how to behave, how to improve and much more besides. Contact me to book a place or for more information.
Karl Elliott, Development Manager
www.vanel.org.uk/governance – for resources and information
www.theviewfromthetop.org.uk
www.youngleadersmatter.org.uk
@aboutgovernance