WHAT'S NEW
A new campaign has been launched encouraging Black and Minority Ethnic (BME)
third sector organisations to evidence the value and benefits of their work. Launched
by Voice4Change England (V4CE) and Charities Evaluation Services (CES), the
Promote Performance campaign is the result of performance support project with
10 organisations from the BME third sector across England.
The campaign comes at a crucial time when cuts in public spending and an
increased expectation of accountability from stakeholders means that BME third
sector organisations need to better demonstrate what they do and think about the
most effective way to deliver to increase their chances of survival and
sustainability.
Jemma Grieve, policy & research officer at Voice4Change England leading the
campaign, said: "This campaign recognises that for most BME organisations
improving performance is not about starting from scratch but about recognising
and building on what they already do to make sure their work is effective."
The campaign will help organisations recognise the importance of performance
improvement as an effective tool to deliver better services, communicate their
impact and keep trustees and key stakeholders better informed, as well increase
their chances of creating a more successful funding application.
It will be a short-term campaign concluding in June 2010 but will lead to
provide additional support to BME third sector organisations in the future.
As part of the campaign, four factsheets have been produced on different methods
of performance improvement. The
factsheets outline scenarios on strategic planning, monitoring and evaluation,
benchmarking and quality assurance to inspire new ways of thinking about
performance management.
The Campaign Factsheets can be found at
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The government's commissioning of services poses a major threat to the independence of advice and advocacy services, according to a new report published by the Baring Foundation. In its report, Rights with Meaning, the Baring Foundation, which has funded a number of organisations through one of its grants programme in order to increase the sector's independence, suggests that the independence of organisations is under threat as a result of the increase in commissioning which the report claims:
 | increase the government's control over service providers; |
| reduces an organisation's ability to set their own priorities |
| impacts on an organisation's ability to meet their users needs; and |
| reduces dissent. |
The report also highlights what are considered the main threats to the independence of advice organisations, which is says are:
| the introduction of fixed fees for organisations working on legal aid; |
| the use of CLACs, CLANs and integrated social welfare centres to deliver local advice services; and |
| the rise of commissioning. |
In addition the report identifies a number of unique challenges facing advocacy services that include increased scrutiny as a result of the introduction of the statutory entitlement to advocacy, difficulties providing wider forms of advocacy and the impact of the introduction of the personalisation.
The full report Rights with Meaning is available on the Baring Foundation website - click here.
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__________________________________Advice Network Small Groups Fund
The Advice Network project, which began in July 2009, is funded for three and a half years to develop an advice network across Bristol, South Gloucestershire and North Somerset. As part of the Advice Network funding bid the Baring Foundation awarded an additional £40,000 to be used to support small advice-giving agencies over the three years of the Project. Click here to see if you are eligible to apply
Contact details are Ben Sansum, Ellen Cheshire or Jane Emanuel at the Advice Network project (ben@advicenetwork.org.uk, ellen@advicenetwork.org.uk, or jane@advicenetwork.org.uk), or telephone 0117 929 2153