18 January 2024

The relentless rise of the CIC

A CIC should be seeking to generate the bulk of its income from trading, but a common finding was that grant income was the main source for many CICs we had worked with.

19 October 2023

Pro bono or no-no?

Text messages at 8am on a Saturday are an absolute no-no so make sure that you set clear boundaries with your pro bono clients

20 June 2023

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence can be a tricky subject to wrap our heads around. This blog by member Dave Jarrold aims to help us both to understand and to use it.

3 October 2022

Of Queens, Kings and AGMs

Whatever you think of the monarchy, the way the accession of King Charles III was announced holds lessons for good practice in charity (and CIC) governance.

 

22 March 2022

Yin-Yang Leadership for a Better World

Before reading any further, take a minute to go to Google Images and enter “Leader” in the search box. Take a few minutes to scroll down through the images: What do you notice? What impressions of leadership do the images give?

17 November 2021

Feast, famine and feeling the fear

Aye, we’ve all been there, hovering over a draft email, fearful of firing it off into other folks’ inboxes. But as the saying goes, feel the fear and do it anyway.

21 October 2021

Pitch perfect

Pitching for work can be a stressful, time consuming and lonely business for specialist consultants like us. How do we strike that elusive balance to become pitch perfect?

22 September 2021

Charity Finances – Walking the Tightrope

It often feels like charities need to engage in a finely tuned balancing act – being able to demonstrate a compelling enough need for funding whilst presenting a sufficiently reassuring picture to convince funders to commit their money. Is this a contradiction?

13 April 2021

Consultancy – Personal and Political

I’m one of those annoying people who love life in lockdown. No more walking into organisations that don’t get it. My Shack at the bottom of the garden is a multiverse, interacting with hundreds of people. Webinars, workshops, book readings, yoga, Zumba, cocktail parties, everything is possible online!

19 March 2021

Stuff and nonsense

Look, I’m all about words, not numbers. But recent dire warnings about the 10% slump in the UK’s economy have been sending my thoughts into unchartered fiscal waters.

4 February 2021

Working together to tackle the climate crisis

Coronavirus has overshadowed the environment and climate crisis for the last twelve months. But unlike the virus, which we now have a fix for, our enormous environmental problems still need to be tackled, and with urgency.

28 November 2020

Devolution

It is twenty-one years since I played a small part in the celebrations surrounding the opening of what was then called the Welsh Assembly.  I project-managed the event at Cardiff Castle when Wales’s youth welcomed a new era of government.

12 October 2020

A remarkable response

As the Covid crisis unfolded, I have listened, shared, supported and watched as a range of small, community-based Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) charities across the UK faced illness and crisis within their own ranks.

21 September 2020

The New Abnormal

September – autumn breezes begin to blow in and the leaves start to redden. For many of us, this is a time to refresh our thinking, tackle the To Do list and to start planning for the winter months.