Funding Commission Secretary highlights professional skills can boost income generation
What are the skills that are needed to meet the funding challenges and opportunities ahead? That is the key question that Richard Gutch believes voluntary organisations must address in order to survive and thrive. Richard is an associate at not-for-profit recruitment specialists Prospectus, Secretary of the National Council for Voluntary Organisation’s Funding Commission and a former Chair of the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations. In the wake of Reach research highlighting the skills gap in income generation, he provides some pointers to the type of skills that the third sector needs to harness.
"Broadly speaking, modern charities have four major potential sources of income: fundraising, public service delivery, trading and enterprise, and finance and investment. I would suggest that every organisation has the potential to exploit at least one of these areas more effectively than they are doing at present and take their income generation efforts to another level.
"What often holds them back from doing this is a lack of confidence, capability or capacity … or a combination of all three. As Reach’s recent survey has shown, the skills necessary to take advantage of new funding opportunities are all too often in short supply, especially among smaller organisations.
"Reach has seen a steady growth in the number of charities crying out for more hands-on fundraising support.
"There are certainly potential volunteers out there with skills that are directly transferable to the business of planning and making the ask. For example, a corporate client account manager might make a great corporate fundraising advisor.
"But, with charitable donors becoming ever more sophisticated, there are fundamental issues that must be addressed in order to underpin the fundraising effort. These entail enlisting a broad range of business skills to drive income generation forward. Fortunately, these skills are highly transferable. And I would suggest that many voluntary organisations could access them by enlisting the support of volunteers with the right kind of professional backgrounds. For example:
- A clear and compelling strategy and vision to engage funders – a volunteer management consultant could help crystallize this for you.
- Using social media and new technology to engage new donor audiences – a digital marketer could help an organisation reach a younger audience and avoid being ‘left behind’ by technological developments.
- Demonstrating and articulating impact – a social researcher could help you get the numbers and a marketing or communications specialist might help you tell your story.
- Starting or scaling up trading activity – skilled volunteers from the business world could help research and develop a business model which might open up new markets.
- Obtaining social finance – recruiting a finance director as a trustee or advisor might help an organisation improve its financial literacy and consider options that it was unaware of or perhaps too risk averse to consider.
"Any foray into developing new income streams will need to involve trustees, which is why it is important that organisations ensure their boards are equipped with the skills to make complex strategic decisions. For example, collaborative working with private and public sector providers is becoming more common, especially when tendering for large contracts. Recruiting highly skilled volunteers on to the board with commercial experience of negotiating joint ventures or strategic business partnerships is one way to ensure that such challenges are tackled effectively.
"I am firmly convinced that there is a world of new opportunities out there for the voluntary sector when it comes to income generation. But an organisation’s ability to flourish will depend on its ability to access essential skills every bit as much as the quality of the frontline services it provides."
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