This is where we’ll post third sector news and important updates that are useful for your organisation.
Volunteer Essex are looking to understand how volunteering involving organisations have been affected by the COVID pandemic, what they predict for the next 6-12months challenges and opportunities as well as how Volunteer Essex can help as an infrastructure network.
Please complete the survey and circulate it to others.
We have a vision to develop Sustainable Communities with people in Essex. Our vision is “to transition the council from service-led to a citizen-led approach to improve Health and Wellbeing, with sustainable shared approaches led by communities themselves.”
Please continue to circulate the paper and invite your membership so that we can ensure we broaden the discussion into our VCS colleagues, which is imperative to ensure this reflects the system as a whole.
You can read the full paper, here.
Please see below the updated Life East Project for Southchurch, you can read it in full here.
We had proposed the introduction of 2 news outlets in the form of newspaper and spoken word, no longer feasible so scrapped. We had an initiative called SWAT, which has been rebranded Community Ambassadors. Connected Vision has a 2 level strategy now. Our SoHo initiative, regarding housing strategy, has been scrapped. We had a meeting with the company concerned and the concept is not transferrable and wouldn’t work, it would create issues we weren’t looking for.
New to Life East 2 are Carries Outreach, Get Together, Integrity, Concept Southchurch, which is our most ambitious plan, Village Square Deals, Twenty Minute Neighbourhood, Human CoOperative and FrostBite. Space @ The Beach has been rethought.
We have continued to work on our initiatives since August, but have been bound by restrictions. Please email us if you have any specific concerns you would like us to help with. We are currently in dialogue with the council regarding fly-tipping issues along Southchurch Road and continue to work with Community Police teams over a number of concerns.
We await funding for our website to be created and are working with the Essex Chambers of Commerce to achieve this aim. We still are scheduled for our AGM next March or April but once we have a clearer picture as to the situation we will confirm dates. We are looking for people to join us as part of the Foundation and Development Committee as Divisional Secretaries and Co-Ordinators.
A recent Third Sector survey focusing on Giving Tuesday revealed that over half of the respondents thought it was ‘a date we need to make more of’.
To inspire our readers to make more of the date, we have jam-packed our latest industry report, How to get the most from Giving Tuesday, with:
Content from Third Sector
As you are painfully aware, 2020 has affected the Third Sector catastrophically. According to the Institute of Fundraising, charities report that they are expecting a 24% reduction in total income for the year, which equates to a £12.4 billion loss in total.
The collapse of face-to-face and live fundraising events has meant a huge number of organisations have been driven to rapidly adapt and evolve their services and income streams. At Third Sector we wanted to provide a space for fundraisers and charitable organisations alike to access the insights and support that will help them transform their current offerings to thrive in this new world.
The Third Sector Digital Fundraising Forum will take place across the mornings of the 15 & 16 December. Apply to attend as a delegate to book meetings with leading suppliers* and participate in a packed programme of educational and inspiring content sessions. If you have any questions or queries about the forum, feel free to contact the Event Manager sam.mcintyre@haymarket.com.
*Please be aware that as places are limited to 40 delegates for the forum, our delegates are required to attend their booked meetings with suppliers as well as benefiting from the content sessions
Content from Third Sector
A discussion paper from the think tank Rogare says common ground can be found between different approaches to fundraising
Fundraising needs to be prepared to reinvent itself and work with critics to avoid perpetuating injustices, according to a paper from fundraising think tank Rogare.
The discussion paper, The donor-centred baby and the community-centric bathwater, argues that it is possible for donor-centric fundraising and community-centred fundraising philosophies to find common ground and work together.
The report argues that donor-centred fundraising, which prioritises the donor’s needs and making them feel good about their giving, to ensure they continue to donate for as long as possible, is the dominant philosophy of fundraising and many fundraisers consider it “heresy” to criticise it.
But a newer model, community-centred fundraising, argues that putting the donor at the centre perpetuates white saviourism, marginalises the voices of the communities charities claim to serve, gets in the way of having honest conversations with donors and building true partnerships, and fuels systematic injustice.
Instead, community-centred fundraisers believe beneficiaries should be treated as equal partners, and that both fundraising and philanthropy as a whole should be grounded in racial and economic justice.
Ian MacQuillin, director of Rogare, says in his foreword to the report:
“Donor-centred fundraising is more than just professional best practice. It goes to the heart of how many fundraisers identify themselves professionally: they are not just fundraisers who do donor-centred fundraising; they are donor-centred fundraisers.
“That’s why criticism of how they do fundraising is perceived as more than this; it is criticism of who they are and the choices they have made.”
However, the report says, “there is plenty of common ground between the two philosophies”.
For example, it says, community-centred fundraising believes donors make an important contribution and wants to build meaningful relationships with them, but rejects the idea that donors’ needs should come first.
The paper suggests fundraising models that create a shared identity between donors and the communities they want to support, or integrate donors more into the mission of the organisation, would allow the two philosophies to co-exist.
“The question is whether donor-centred fundraisers are prepared to genuinely think about the different types of relationships they could have with donors,” it says.
The report also calls for donor-centric fundraisers to “bite the bullet” and engage in the conversation about white saviourism.
It says there may have to be compromises from the proponents of community-centred fundraising too.
“Community-centred fundraisers may need to accept that they may not succeed in replacing the paradigm but can succeed in changing and adapting it,” the report says.
If a compromise could be reached, the report says: “Rather than being an existential challenge to donor-centred fundraising that is sounding its death-knell, community-centric fundraising may actually provide the impetus and incentive for donor-centred fundraising to reinvent itself.”
Content from Third Sector
Danny Kruger says more private philanthropy is needed to help charities through the pandemic
The MP in charge of reviewing the sector’s role in the UK’s recovery from the coronavirus pandemic has said that business has a big role to play, and that more must be done to encourage giving among the super-rich who “give peanuts”.
Danny Kruger, the Conservative MP for Devizes and former charity leader, was being interviewed on Times Radio about the role of business, and how to encourage more giving.
Kruger said the sector was facing a huge crisis in charity fundraising as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and more needed to be done to encourage giving.
“The answer is encourage more private philanthropy, I think the wealthy could give a lot more,” he said. “The super-rich, I’m afraid to say, give peanuts if you spread it out.”
On whether the wealthy should be just taxed more to fund public services, Kruger said:
“By all means but that’s not my responsibility.
“I’m interested in how we can get people directly supporting their own neighbourhoods, and projects close to their heart… and I don’t think it’s appropriate to say the only resource for communities must come through the Treasury.”
Kruger said he thought it was appropriate for people to give directly to their communities and people who wanted to, super rich or not, should be helped to do so.
“Increasingly we are looking at more innovative models, crowdfunding for civic projects, getting people to buy community shares in a local asset that is then owned by the community, match funding or match trading, where if you support your social enterprise there is a scheme where the government will back it with money as well.
“So there are ways public policy can support both philanthropy, and a more entrepreneurial social enterprise approach to supporting the sector.”
The role of business will also be crucial in the post Covid-19 recovery, said Kruger, who called for a much greater emphasis in corporate life on how companies could support local communities, and in a way that was more than just lip service.
“[Businesses should] become proper parts of their community, both through giving in their philanthropy budgets but also by procuring and getting their supplies from small business and charities, and making sure their employees can play a proper role in local communities.”
Kruger spoke of a new theme of purpose that is running through the business world and of the need to back that up with financial action.
“Businesses are recognising they don’t just exist to pass profits up to shareholders, or remote investors, but they should be embedded in their communities, and the prosperity and future success of the company depends on being responsible for their environmental and social impact”.
Content from Third Sector
Almost 60,000 voluntary sector jobs could be lost by the end of the year because of the Covid-19 crisis, new figures show.
Latest results from Pro Bono Economics’ Charity Sector Tracker, which involves research with more than 450 voluntary sector organisations, found that 19 per cent of respondents had already made job cuts and that 23 per cent expected to make further redundancies when the government’s furlough scheme was withdrawn at the end of October.
Pro Bono Economics said 5,400 job losses had already been announced in the charity sector since the start of the pandemic, but it believed the true figure was closer to 25,600 and that a further 34,100 charity sector employees might lose their jobs by the end of the year.
The research, which was conducted in partnership with the Charity Finance Group and the Institute of Fundraising earlier this month, found that while slightly more than two-thirds of charities expected demand for their support to increase over the next six months, 58 per cent said they would be forced to reduce the services they offered over the same period.
PBE has already predicted a £10bn income shortfall for UK voluntary sector organisations this year because of the pandemic.
More than 70 per cent of respondents think it will take more than a year for income to return to pre-crisis levels and about a quarter said it would take more than two years.
Matt Whittaker, chief executive of Pro Bono Economics, said:
“With the recession biting and unemployment rising, the social sector has never been more needed.
“But an alarming proportion of jobs in the sector are now at risk. That means many of the charity workers who have provided vital support to millions across the country since the start of the Covid-19 crisis are facing a very uncertain future.
“Navigating this period rests in part on getting more resources into the sector, from government, from existing funders and from members of the public.
“But it also rests on reversing the public policy neglect the sector has suffered from over many years.”
As a member of The Essex Alliance, you are invited to add our logo to your website and show that you are working with us to ensure that the residents of Essex are well cared for. We’re aiming to strengthen our brand across the county and encourage more organisations to join us in the coming months as we begin some exciting opportunities for joint working.
Please download our logo below and add them to your website, linking the image back to this site. If you need help linking the image, please contact us, using communications@essexalliance.org.uk
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As you know; in 2019 we created The Essex Map to help residents discover the groups, services, and activities in their area which focus on community instead of profit. During the coronavirus outbreak we have widened our listings to include organisations which are offering home deliveries of goods and services to people self-isolating in Essex.
We’re asking you to share posts similar to the below to help us increase awareness of The Essex Map – if you’ve not yet added/claimed your listing, perhaps do that before sharing!
Have you heard of The Essex Map? It’s a free tool designed to help you to find the services, groups, and activities in your area that focus on benefiting the community rather than on making profit. www.EssexMap.co.uk
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We are aware of an issue with our email address where we are currently unable to send or receive emails to communications@essexalliance.org.uk – we are working to correct this issue. In the meantime, if you have any comments or queries, please contact one of our steering group members or our Project Lead, Emma Wardall, at ewardall@mindinwestessex.org.uk.
Thank you for your patience.