Category: Chairs, Boards & Governance

Back in June, we shared an update on Our Shared Future, the project to coproduce a new Network Agreement and Shared Strategy for all of our organisations. Please click here to view that original message to find out all about the programme.

First Consultation Document released to CEOs and Chairs

This week, CEOs and Chairs of all Partners received the first Our Shared Future consultation document, titled: “Summary of Key Proposals for Consultation”. This document outlines the key points that could be included in both the upcoming Shared Strategy and the Network Agreement, following several years of consultation across the Network.

All Partner Boards have been invited to submit their feedback on this Summary of Key Proposals by Friday 10 November. After which a full draft of both the Shared Strategy and the Network Agreement will be produced for further feedback from Partner Boards.

This is an important first step towards finalising a new Shared Strategy and Network Agreement for all of our organisations, so we wanted to give this short update to colleagues across the Network who may not be involved in the programme itself. We will continue to provide updates on Our Shared Future over the coming months.

If you have any questions about your organisation’s role in the process, please speak to your CEO, or get in touch with the OSF Strategy Group: sharedfuture@ageuk.org.uk.

This is an update from Age UK’s Service and Business Improvement Team to let you know about the Salesforce Network Partner CRM System. Over the last 3 years, 14 Local Partners have been working with Age UK to build and create a bespoke system to help Partners to store, manage and report effectively on your stakeholder information. Find out all about the system below, including how to request a demo if you are interested in finding out more.

What is the Salesforce Network Partner CRM System?

The Salesforce Network Partner CRM System is a Customer Relation Management (CRM) platform, designed and built in collaboration with Partners. Salesforce provides a single platform to store, manage and report effectively on your stakeholder information.

The System can support you to deliver services effectively, track volunteering activity, plan in and implement communication / influencing campaigns and more, helping you to more easily demonstrate the impact of your organisation locally.

A single bespoke platform, built with Partners

The platform offers the ability to manage the following work, all in one place:

• Rostering services / community work
• Case work, such as Information and Advice, Hospital Services and Care Navigation
• Group activity management
• Fundraising tracking
• Marketing
• Volunteer management
• Enhanced ability to report in insightful, flexible, and visual ways.
• Collaborative working between internal and external teams, including the opportunity to interact and work collaboratively with other Partners on the platform.

This means that Salesforce provides a 360-degree view of the individuals we support, and those that support us – a single space where you can maintain current and accurate data and collaborate with anyone in your organisation who has access to the system.

Salesforce is a great tool to capture the data that matters, with flexible and powerful reporting capabilities available to support you to better demonstrate outputs, outcomes, and impact.

Support available for using Salesforce

Continuous development of the platform is planned, including an upcoming ‘Community Site’, which  service users and their delegated representatives can access to see the support being provided and interact with their records.

Support is also available to help with the transition from legacy systems if you wish to do so, including:

• Data migration
• Initial set up assistance and support understanding the organisational requirements
• Training
• And ongoing support and troubleshooting

Find out more!

To find out more about Salesforce, including what Partners are saying about the platform, and more on how the system can best support your organisations aims, click below:

You can also get in touch or book in a demo with Hayley Ross, National Manager for Network Partner CRM Systems by emailing Hayley.ross@ageuk.org.uk.

A quick reminder that, following two successful pilot events, Age UK’s Financial Governance Team have organised a new series of webinars for all Partner colleagues who want to improve their charity finance understanding. All non-finance staff and managers, and trustees with a non–finance background are welcome to attend. Find out how to book your place below.

Charity Finance for Non-Finance Managers and Trustees – What are the essentials you need to know?

Age UK’s Financial Governance Team recognises that not everyone who works for or volunteers at a charity necessarily has an understanding of, or grounding in, charity finance. To that end, having run two very successful pilot events, the team is scheduling a series of briefing sessions delivered online, lasting just one hour to include an opportunity for questions. Some will take place during working hours but, recognising that not all trustees are available during the day, we have scheduled some sessions to be delivered in the evening.

These sessions will explain charity finances at a headline level for those from a non-financial background. You will learn why an understanding of financial governance and management is important for both trustees and staff; understanding different types of funds and income; primary financial statements; budgets and cashflows; monitoring and reporting, and more.

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Who should attend?

These sessions are open to all Partner colleagues who want to improve their understanding of charity finance, in particular, all non-finance staff and managers, and trustees with a non-finance background. So please do share this with colleagues – staff and trustees – who you feel would be interested in attending, and encourage them to do so.

Feedback from the pilot sessions has been extremely positive. One attendee said:

‘This has been reassuring and pitched at the level I needed. I’m a new trustee and when I read the finance papers, I just see numbers and find it quite overwhelming. Our CFO is great at explaining but this has been super helpful’. 

Another attendee reported:

‘Thanks so much. This has been really accessible, and very very useful. Would absolutely recommend to colleagues.’

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When are these sessions taking place?

• Wednesday 27 September – 12:00 to 13:00
• Thursday 19 October – 19:00 to 20:00 (evening session)
• Tuesday 14 November –  12:00 to 13:00
• Thursday 25 January 2024 – 12:00 to 13:00
• Wednesday 14 February – 19:00 to 20:00 (evening session)
• Thursday 21 March – 12:00 to 13:00  

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When, where, and how to book your place

The sessions will be delivered online through Microsoft Teams. Registration will be via Microsoft Forms and below are the links for the first two sessions – September and October.  We will circulate registration links for the November and January sessions during October, and for the February and March sessions at the beginning of January.

Please note we will not be recording these sessions and places are limited. We will confirm your place asap after receiving the completed registration form.

Click below to book your place at one of the first two sessions:

• Wednesday 27 September – 12:00 to 13:00

• Thursday 19 October – 19:00 to 20:00

You will see a brief confirmation on screen once you have submitted your registration form. You will not receive a confirmation email. So, please fill in the form using the relevant link, ensuring your contact details are correct, book out the time in your diary and watch out for further information via the email address supplied.

If you would like any further information or guidance on this or other Financial Governance related matters, please do not hesitate to contact a member of the team David Chenery or John Fox.

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Below is a message from Age UK’s CEO Paul Farmer following the announcement of a new Cost of Living Fund from the National Lottery Community Fund. Grants of up to £75,000 per Partner in England are available and Paul has met with senior staff at The National Lottery Community Fund to confirm that they are extremely keen to receive applications from Local Age UKs. Please read on for full details.

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The Community Organisations Cost of Living Fund is now live!

Dear Colleagues,

How the fund can support Local Age UKs

As part of my ongoing conversations with senior staff at The National Lottery Community Fund, I’ve been discussing how this fund can support Local Age UKs in England and I can confirm the following:

• They are extremely keen to receive applications from Local Age UKs for cost of living response activities.

• While they will focus first and foremost on supporting charities with turnovers under £1m, English Partners with larger turnovers should not be discouraged from applying as there is a large amount of funding to discharge imminently and they want to ensure it supports those most in need in communities across the country.

• Although grants have to be spent by Sunday March 31 2024, charities can apply for ongoing work (no requirement for bids to be for ‘new projects’). Critically, funding can also be applied retrospectively to work organisations have from 24 July onwards.

More information, including how to apply, can be found here. The deadline for applications is 12 noon on Monday 16 October.

Recent webinar with National Lottery Grant Giving Team

A big thank you to everyone who attended our inhouse webinar alongside the National Lottery Community Fund on Tuesday 22 August.

As promised, please find a link to a recording of the webinar below for anyone who was unable to join the event live, or who would like to listen again to Ruth’s insights – including responses to many helpful questions from attendees on the day.

Can Age UK support your application?

Also please let us know what other support you would like to help you access this funding from the team here at Age UK . We want to help as many Local Age UKs as possible to secure this extra government support, so please send any questions to sarah.connal@ageuk.org.uk.

Wishing you luck with your applications,

Paul Farmer, CEO, Age UK

In December 2022, we announced the Cost of Living Response Fund Programme, which saw just under £5m awarded to the 126 partners that applied. Thank you to everyone who has been involved in the programme, below is an update and statistics on progress so far, using data that you have shared with us during the first quarter of the programme.

The Interventions Covered by the Cost of Living Response Fund

The Cost of Living Response Fund Programme provides grants to Network Partners (including nations) to help sustain and extend the reach of your vital service provision during the crisis through delivering one or more of up to five interventions.

The initial application data, shows that the five interventions are being delivered as follows:

• 72 Network Partners are delivering Information & Advice on Cost of Living.
• 70 Network Partners are using the funding to increase attendance at physical activity sessions or social groups.
• 67 Network Partners are using the funding to increase attendance at day centres or day clubs.
• 47 Network Partners are delivering home support.
• 33 Network Partners are delivering meal provision.

How the Age UK Network has supported older people with the Cost of Living February – March 2023

We would like to say a huge thank you to all Partners involved in the Programme for your unwavering dedication to supporting older people during these extremely challenging times – your impactful work is invaluable.

The data you have shared with us has further highlighted this and we really appreciate the time and effort in getting this to us.

Thank you for taking the time to complete the reporting covering delivery between February and March 2023. During this first quarter of delivery, the Cost of Living Response Fund Programme has directly supported 6054 older people across 8445 interventions (as defined above).

The statistics below show just a snapshot of the essential support the network has provided during this time: 

Next Steps

The next reporting deadline is Monday 31 July for Quarter 2, and this will cover data for delivery from 1 April – 30 June 2023.

We look forward to receiving the Q2 data from all partners and continuing to build a bigger picture of the great work being done. Thank you again for all your hard work.

Please contact Anna, Project Manager, on costofliving@ageuk.org.uk if you have any questions or queries about the Programme.    

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[1] Age UK: ‘Tackling the cost-of-living crisis for older people: What the Government must do’ (July 2023)

[2] Intervention Areas refers to one of the five interventions Network Partners could apply for funding to cover (Home Support, Information and Advice, Meal provision, Maintain/increase attendance at day centres/clubs, and Maintain/ increase attendance at physical activity sessions or social groups). Partners could apply for funding to cover one or multiple interventions.

Following two successful pilot events, Age UK’s Financial Governance Team have organised a new series of webinars for all colleagues in the Age UK Network who want to improve their charity finance understanding. All non-finance staff and managers, and trustees with a non–finance background are welcome to attend. Find out how to book your place below.

Charity Finance for Non-Finance Managers and Trustees – What are the essentials you need to know?

Age UK’s Financial Governance Team recognises that not everyone who works for or volunteers at a charity necessarily has an understanding of, or grounding in, charity finance. To that end, having run two very successful pilot events, the team is scheduling a series of briefing sessions delivered online, lasting just one hour to include an opportunity for questions. Some will take place during working hours but, recognising that not all trustees are available during the day, we have scheduled some sessions to be delivered in the evening.

These sessions will explain charity finances at a headline level for those from a non-financial background. You will learn why an understanding of financial governance and management is important for both trustees and staff; understanding different types of funds and income; primary financial statements; budgets and cashflows; monitoring and reporting, and more.

---

Who should attend?

These sessions are open to all colleagues in the Age UK Network who want to improve their understanding of charity finance, in particular, all non-finance staff and managers, and trustees with a non-finance background. So please do share this with colleagues – staff and trustees – who you feel would be interested in attending, and encourage them to do so.

Feedback from the pilot sessions has been extremely positive. One attendee said:

‘This has been reassuring and pitched at the level I needed. I’m a new trustee and when I read the finance papers, I just see numbers and find it quite overwhelming. Our CFO is great at explaining but this has been super helpful’. 

Another attendee reported:

‘Thanks so much. This has been really accessible, and very very useful. Would absolutely recommend to colleagues.’

---

When are these sessions taking place?

• Wednesday 27 September – 12:00 to 13:00
• Thursday 19 October – 19:00 to 20:00 (evening session)
• Tuesday 14 November –  12:00 to 13:00
• Thursday 25 January 2024 – 12:00 to 13:00
• Wednesday 14 February – 19:00 to 20:00 (evening session)
• Thursday 21 March – 12:00 to 13:00  

---

When, where, and how to book your place

The sessions will be delivered online through Microsoft Teams. Registration will be via Microsoft Forms and below are the links for the first two sessions – September and October.  We will circulate registration links for the November and January sessions during October, and for the February and March sessions at the beginning of January.

Please note we will not be recording these sessions and places are limited. We will confirm your place asap after receiving the completed registration form.

Click below to book your place at one of the first two sessions:

• Wednesday 27 September – 12:00 to 13:00

• Thursday 19 October – 19:00 to 20:00

You will see a brief confirmation on screen once you have submitted your registration form. You will not receive a confirmation email. So, please fill in the form using the relevant link, ensuring your contact details are correct, book out the time in your diary and watch out for further information via the email address supplied.

If you would like any further information or guidance on this or other Financial Governance related matters, please do not hesitate to contact a member of the team David Chenery or John Fox.

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