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Disability LIB Capacity Building Assessment Tool

The capacity building assessment tool is for DPOs. It gathers information about the organisational structure, performance and helps identify areas of development. This includes contact details of the organisation/group, as well as more in depth information about the structure, setup, challenges and opportunities.

The tool is divided into three parts. Firstly, we gather basic information about your organisation. Secondly, we ask you to fill in a DPO capacity building support survey. Thirdly, we ask more detailed information about the organisation so as to identify capacity building areas of work. The information gathered is used to access support from Disability LIB and help us build up a picture and understand issues of concern to DPOs.

Using the Capacity Building Assessment Tool

1) To start, please Register and then Add your Organisation details on the website - this completes the first part of the process.

2) Complete the Support Survey

3) Complete the Capacity Building Assessment Tool

Basics of Fundraising

“Basics of fundraising” is an information pack created as a follow – up to the series of income generation workshops we had last year. The pack is a compilation of the power points and presentations delivered by the trainers.

Section 1(intro and overview) – is the section on why we created the pack. The section also gives an overview of the funding situation for most DPOs and what readers should generally expect from the pack. Section 1 is basically an introduction to the information pack

Section 2 (let’s get to the basics) – this section defines briefly what fundraising is; fundraising is the process of soliciting and gathering contributions as money or other resources, by requesting donations from individuals, businesses, charitable foundations, or governmental agencies. The section also touched on what legal backing you need as an organisation to start soliciting for funds. In this section you will read about developing the right ways for your fundraising activities, and looking at the topics you need to discuss with your management committees; topics like, financial planning, identifying potential supporters/partners and networks. The section also covers other strategies of fundraising like, direct marketing, events and major donors. The rules of “do’s” and “don’ts” of fundraising are also listed in this section and the final topic covered are tips on your fundraising plan.

Section 3 ( introduction to trust fundraising) – covers all you need to know about charitable trusts, how much they have given for the past ten years and roughly the number of trusts operating in the country. The section also describes the link between trustees of trusts, the administrative staff and the applying organisation. The section covers projects and other things a trust will fund, things like, start ups, new ways of doing things, unpopular causes etc. The section looks at why might a trust fund your organisation. The section emphasises the importance of researching before you start writing your applications, and indeed asks you to think about five issues before you apply. What is a case for support? The section describes what this means and what the statement should contain. When you are finally ready to apply the section lists those things you should pay attention to. The contents of your application are important and the section gives you ideas of what these should be. The section concludes by looking at documents that should be attached to the application.

Section 4 (The Big Lottery and Other Statutory Bodies) – the Big Lottery Fund gives out millions of pounds from the National Lottery to good causes, this can include different causes from disability to the environment. This section describes the 7 values that underpin their work and also gives a link to their website. Awards for all is a popular grants programme that the BigLottery administers regularly to community groups including DPOs. The Section mentions points you need to remember when you are applying for Awards for All, and then concludes with the “do’s” and “don’ts” of applying to Big Lottery.

Section 5 (follow-up and house keeping) - this section gives a review of What you need to do after you have successfully been funded by either the Big Lottery or any trust. Some relations don’t end just by receiving your cheque. The Big Lottery for instance usually reserves the right to end the relationship and there have been some instances where they have requested for documents months after the organisation has received funding from them. The follow-up process is also about your book keeping and ensuring you can show the trust or funder your outputs and outcomes. The sections also explains those basic things you need to do including asking again even where your experience had been negative.

Section 6(budgets) – the final section on budgets contains definitions of various accounting terms, terms that are commonly used in relation to fundraising. The section suggests that you should always ensure that you know and understand what costs a particular funder will fund or accommodate. For example though it is good practice to factor in your full cost recovery not all funders will fund it. The section defines terms like overhead costs; direct project costs, revenue costs and dedicated a whole paragraph to full cost recovery.

You can download the entire toolkit by clicking on Fundraising_Training_Toolkit_.pdf

Would we be better together?

Thinking about working collaboratively or mergers

There is a lot of very useful information available for any organisation thinking about the possibility of a merger. The list below is by no means exhaustive but will signpost you to some of those resources freely available on the internet.

Charity Commission

Making Mergers Work – Helping you succeed (2009)

http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/Library/mergetoolkit.pdf

Checklist for mergers - http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/Library/chkmerge.pdf

Dissolution and removal from the register of charities – Guidance note CSD-1077

http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/library/guidance/csd1077a.pdf

Collaborative working and mergers CC34 (2009)

http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/publications/cc34.aspx

Collaborative working and mergers RS4 (2003)

http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/publications/rs4.aspx

Notifying the Charity Commission of a merger or dissolution

http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/Manage_your_charity/Merge_or_close_index.aspx