BULLETIN No. 99: May 2011

This is a monthly bulletin going out to around 10,000 clients, contacts, friends, friends of friends so forth, to keep them in touch with what's going on in the world of charities. Tip: if like me you have a low attention span or this came to you by mistake, scroll down to the …And Finally.

Daryl Martin

CIOs
Scotland recently registered their first CIO. We are seeing slow progress and will brief you as soon as we have something solid to report. If you haven't yet incorporated you need to bear in mind that only new charities will be able to set up as CIOs in phase one. It will be some time after that before existing companies can switch over. The CC has not yet decided whether an unincorporated charity wanting to incorporate would be considered a 'new charity'. All very speculative at present.

FUNDRAISING
This is at a time when all of us who are involved in raising funds for charity need to be at the top of our game. Clive Price, media consultant, writer, editor, author, teaboy (no, that's another Clive, possibly), has turned my notes on fundraising into a very nice booklet, packed full of helpful tips and advice. I particularly like the section on typefaces which is very important. It's yours for £3.50 including postage. (Money back if you don't find enough worthwhile material to make a difference.) Printers permitting, there'll be hundreds of copies at the CRE stand if you are planning to go (10th - 13th May, Esher.) If there's enough interest, Clive wants to look at some of our other material and attempt to turn it into the racier sort of novel. On the subject of fundraising, don't forget the Healthcheck we offered last month.

TAINTED DONATIONS
The new arrangements, effective from 1st April, replace the existing Substantial Donor rules. The main change is that it's not just big donations, but all donations come under scrutiny. Put simply, it means that any donation which someone makes to a charity, that is made to obtain an advantage or a benefit to the donor, or a connected person, may be regarded as 'tainted', and not entitled to gift aid tax relief. A lot of donations could fall into this bracket, even quite innocently. I can think of some already and we may need a steer from HMRC. We'll have to see how this plays out and I will post more on this as I get my head around it. Please let me know if you have any helpful advice.

CHARITY COMMISSION
Keeping a watch on how their restructuring is going, I came across a lovely quote from Chief Exec. Sam Younger. 'The internal structure will change significantly. We will encourage flexible, multi-skilled teams and cut down on the levels of management. The Commission will become leaner, fitter, better able to respond to changing demands and priorities.' Can you apply this to your organisation? He talks a lot about transparency. Rings my bells. Good stuff.

FRAUD
A client wrote to tell me of a fraud that took time to resolve. The charity bank statement had about 10 direct debits which weren't recognised, and hadn't been authorised. Payments for pet insurance, house insurance, subscriptions, smallish sums which might so easily have got under the radar. Bank told them to go to the police. Police told them they weren't interested and told them to get the bank to sort it. Eventually they found someone kind at the bank who got involved. Apparently, it's easy enough once you know the bank details to make internet purchases. Knowing the people this charity works with, I can see how it might have happened. The point I want to make is, make sure your bank and credit card statements are carefully reviewed each month. I found 2 small payments that had been going through my credit card for some months, and saved myself a few hundred. Take care who you give your bank details to. (Last time my wife's credit card was stolen I didn't report it for some weeks, as the spending was so much lower and I was saving money (please forgive, couldn't resist)).

DATA PROTECTION
Recently, Ealing and Hounslow Councils were hit by fines totalling £150,000 after 2 laptops were stolen from an employee's home. Staff work from home using council laptops. Although they were password protected, the data stored was not encrypted. There was no indication that the information on about 17,000 people was accessed, however, there was a significant risk to the individuals' privacy. I don't even know what encryption means; if you're in the same boat and need some guidance contact Tony, who is a world expert on anything to do with IT.

BIG SOCIETY NEWS
This is becoming a regular feature. Greg Clark, minister for decentralisation (what a title!) wrote to all council leaders asking them to reveal the details of their voluntary spending, including all grants, payments, contracts, and tenders to civil society organisations. The aim is increased transparency, to highlight efficiency and open up services. This will enable local charities (and small businesses) to challenge existing contracts if they can do it better and/ or cheaper. What exciting times we live in.

EMPLOYERS LIABILITY INSURANCE
Having told the building society I plan to work 'until I'm 82, when the mortgage will be paid off. I learn that most insurers will only cover staff in charity shops until they are 70, although staff in the office are ok for another 10 years. We were approached for help on this and were able to steer the charity towards a company that will happily cover shop staff until they are 80. Which reminds me, a good friend M. runs a rest home; last week she had 2 residents on disciplinary, one for entertaining male residents in her room until far too late at night, and the other for wearing a very skimpy bikini in the recent hot weather. It's not the yoof you should worry about; it's the oldies.

INSOLVENCY
Recently I was invited into a charity whose trustees feared they might be insolvent. We had a good look at the issue which is nicely covered in my manual. It's true they were teetering on the edge, and this was inhibiting their development plans (making promises they couldn't keep etc). They weren't in the best of spirits understandably, and I felt it right to spend time helping them recover their vision, remember what tremendous work they were doing, albeit on a shoestring, and what were the possibilities of sitting down and preparing a business plan to get cash flow back on track, and growth going again. I'm so pleased they decided to go for it. Not through the woods yet, but there's a positive mood and first signs are encouraging.

DARYL'S BLOG
Been a good month. Over 2300 hits one day, plus FB readers. I got one past the censor which surprised me. I hope she's not beginning to take the, 'well if he wants to hang himself that's up to him' view!

An encouragement to walk in humility (10/4)
Overcoming Self Doubt (23/4)

AND FINALLY...

Well, what with Love being in the air and all that, I discovered a writer I hadn't ever come across. His books are making a very slow transatlantic journey, but here are some quotes from Leo Buscaglia to impress you:

What love we have given, we'll have forever. What love we fail to give will be lost for all eternity.

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment or the smallest act of caring. All of these have the power to turn a life around.

Death is a challenge. It tells us not to waste time ... it tells us to tell each other right now that we love each other.

Don't brood: get on with living and loving. You don't have forever.

Love always creates; it never destroys. In this lies mans only promise.

If your boss is getting you down, look at him through the prongs of a fork and imagine him in jail.

Remember the 3 golden rules:

Love is always open arms. If you close your arms about love you will find you are only left holding yourself.

1 - Never idealize others; they will never live up to your expectations.

2 - Only the weak are cruel. Gentleness can only be expected from the strong.

3 - The easiest person in the world to be is you; the most difficult person to be is what other people want you to be. Don't let them put you into that position.

And a nice story to finish: Leo once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The contest was to find the most caring child. The winner was a 4 year old whose next door neighbour was an old man who had recently lost his wife. Seeing him in his garden crying, the little boy went over, climbed onto his lap and just sat there. His mother later asked him what he had said to the old man. 'Nothing, I just helped him cry'. Sometimes that's all you have to do. When I lost my wife, the people I valued above all others were those who just climbed onto my lap and helped me cry. (Thanks to MyDailyInsights.com for leading me to LB)

YOUR HELP NEEDED!
We took on 65 new clients last year. This is fantastic. But we lost 15, through mergers, closures etc. We can take good care of another 100 clients this year. If we've given you good service could you tell a friend? If we didn't, please tell us.