Localgiving ambassador, Bright Light Bright Light has announced that he will be supporting seven Localgiving groups during his tour of the UK in September. Welsh born electro-pop musician, Rod Thomas (AKA Bright Light Bright Light), known for his work with Elton John, Erasure and his stunning performance on the Graham Norton Show, has always been passionate about supporting small, local charities. As an independent artist, Rod feels a real affinity with grassroots organisations. He sees his tour as an excellent opportunity both to bring in funds and raise the profile of his chosen causes. As Rod explained: “The best thing about touring is engaging with local communities and the people who try to make a difference within them. I worked with Lewis Garland of Localgiving to find charities in each city on the tour so that I could raise awareness of their fantastic work and help them out with donation collections at each of the shows. These charities are working hard to address issues where they live and make a real difference, and I want to do everything I can to help them.” Rod has chosen one Localgiving member to support for each of his upcoming tour dates. 20th Leeds : RETAS 23rd Bristol : Borderlands 24th Cardiff: Pride Cymru 25th Manchester: The Proud Trust 27th Glasgow : Theatre Nemo 28th Birmingham : Aston Performing Arts Academy  29th London: Gendered Intelligence For each date, Rod handpicked Localgiving causes that were both close to the venue and close to his heart – these include LGBTQI+ groups, refugee focussed charities and arts organisations.  There are two ways you can donate to his causes: Donate online by clicking on the charity name listed above (this will also give you the option of adding GiftAid). Remember to let us the group know you're a Bright Light Bright Light fan in the comments box! Make a cash donation at one of Bright Light Bright Light’s tour dates (Book tickets here) In the clip below Bright Light Bright Light explains why he feels supporting local charities is so important.  Found this blog interesting? You may also enjoy: Shining a Bright Light on Local Charities Fight for the right of LGBTQI asylum seekers

On October 12th the Open University Business School launched its new Centre for Voluntary Sector Leadership in London, where they launched two new free, flexible and open learning courses on voluntary sector leadership. Full details of the launch conference and the courses are here, and some clips of the day will soon be posted on Open University Business School’s Youtube channel. What follows is a brief overview of the themes that emerged on the day, how CVSL is responding, and how people in the sector can get further involved in the debate. These are tough times for the sector – but there is a need to fight back An obvious theme of the day was that these are intimidating, tough times for the voluntary sector. Both our keynote speakers spoke eloquently about the ‘rise and (partial) fall’ of the sector in recent times, at least as far as its place within public policy. Sir Stuart Etherington argued forcefully that the sector is operating under much greater scrutiny on a wide number of fronts: over fundraising, governance, and high salaries. One audience member spoke eloquently about their organisation being almost at ‘breaking point’ due to funding reductions and lack of supports in the local environment. On the other hand, a contrasting theme reflected the sense that times have always been tough and that the sector shouldn’t necessarily accept this dominant ‘crisis’ narrative. It certainly shouldn’t become resigned to it, and should “come out fighting’. As Debra Allcock Tyler cautioned, “everyone is busy complaining there is not enough money but the voluntary sector has stopped asking for money: fewer people are asking for money and they’re asking for less. It’s a negative narrative”. She made a passionate plea for the sector to rediscover its confidence, its spark and campaigning nouse. There was a clear sense at the event that how leaders respond is important. And CVSL’s research and educational resources provide one forum for some of these discussions. But researchers need to recognise the real difficulties at ground level, particularly for the smaller organisations that CVSL is seeking to engage with. Collaboration is part of the answer, but is not a silver bullet Austerity and cuts have been widely seen as increasing the drive for greater collaboration. The voluntary sector is often a sought after partner for collaboration because of their local knowledge and connectedness; although there also be many hidden agendas at play. There is something of a consensus around that collaboration is now the name of the game; linked to doing more for less, reducing duplicative activity, and putting egos to one side. However, Siv Vangen and colleagues’ research strikes a note of caution because it demonstrates that collaboration needs energy: it has to take account of the different partners’ aims, cultures, trust and power imbalances, especially in terms of the leadership challenges and the associated anxiety and rewards. This is explored in more depth in an accompanying Guardian blog that coincided with the event. A ‘realist’ approach to collaboration acknowledges that behind the scenes you may need to: Use stealthy manipulative methods to get consensus Understand the political undercurrents and who needs to be involved But! Collaboration is by nature inefficient. Collaboration needs compromise, energy, commitment and care. Leaders need to nurture collaboration. CVSL thinks of leadership at it’s very simplest as ‘making things happen’, and the first course in particular explores this in depth. The second of the courses explores the dynamics, contexts and practices of collaborative leadership, drawing on a range of contemporary issues and case studies from the voluntary sector, so that learning takes place in an intimate relationship with lived practice. The role of trustees and the importance of diversity A clear theme of the day was the crucial role of trustees and the need to include them in dialogue about leadership development. The issue is undoubtedly complex but includes the difficulties of smaller organizations attracting trustees with a broad enough range of skills,  and the crucial role of chairs. There is a tendency to equate ‘leadership’ only with chief executives or senior managers and CVSL will be developing more work on this in the near future. CVSL is also very interested in the idea that there is a cohort of younger or less experienced leaders who need support and development. This chimes with crucial idea explored in the new courses that leadership happens at different levels of organisations. Closely related, a message that came through loud and clear was the need to work towards greater representativeness of voluntary sector leaderships at all different levels. The panel were pressed on this issue by members of the audience, and there was recognition that in some cases the sector had gone backwards on issues of gender and the presence of ethnic minority leaders at senior levels. Sir Stuart acknowledged that it was difficult to point to leaders from BME leading big charities How CVSL is responding to these issues and engaging with the sector One part of CVSL’s mission is experimenting with how online teaching and learning can be improved and done in a way that benefits the sector in these challenging times. Accessibility, flexibility and responsiveness is part of the answer but we also want to explore through dialogue with the sector the appropriate way to blend more ‘challenging’ and abstract debates around leadership with the practical, ‘day to day’ needs that organisations have for instance on governance, finance and sustainability. Also, as researchers we need to keep tabs about what is going on at ground level, over time; and that is why we are doing grounded research that explores different issues affecting the voluntary sector more broadly – eg on mental health or migration – as well as researching the leadership issues that are specific to the sector. We see this as a great opportunity to explore what works and try out new approaches to leadership development through online learning. So as participants rightly said, academic researchers need to “get out there and speak to the sector and do face to face stuff”, but also to sometimes ensure that the variety of learning resources to be broken down into ‘bite-size chunks’ so that learners can choose what is most useful to them. And we need to keep spreading the message. If you have found the issues discussed here useful and interesting there are a number of ways you can get involved. In particular, CVSL announced at the launch that it is now recruiting a Leadership Panel as a core part of its research activity. They would be delighted if you were willing to take part – the panel is designed to help the sector as well as individual leaders. Please complete this short survey to join the Panel. Found this blog post useful? You may also like:    The Power of Storytelling: Six Top Tips by Mike Zywina   Storytelling Tips for Charities by Becky Slack  5 free tools to share your organisation's story by Nisha Kotecha

Over the summer, we sent out a survey to representatives from local charities and community groups asking for their viewpoints on the current issues affecting their organisations. Our aim was to gather perspectives from as many different cause areas, locations and types of group as possible, so as to gain an extensive overview of the local voluntary sector in the UK. Report findings Today, to coincide with the launch of Grow Your Tenner, we have released the findings of this study in our first Local Charity and Community Group Sustainability Report. Its results will help to better inform the work Localgiving does to support its members and advocate for local charities and community groups. Our hope is that it will also serve as a catalyst to inspire other key stakeholders across society to engage with the sector and work together to tackle the problems it faces. The report showcases some of the fantastic attributes that local voluntary organisations share, which make them such valuable assets to the communities they serve. However, it also serves to highlight some of the pressing issues facing many groups around the country. Whilst an increase in demand for services shows no sign of slowing, many organisations are left struggling to cover core costs and unable to plan for the future. At the same time, many feel much of the general public are unaware of their work, making it all the more difficult to build connections with new supporters. Grow Your Tenner This is where initiatives like Grow Your Tenner come in. Our hope is that this year’s campaign will help to further raise awareness and support for the sector, whilst also enabling groups to develop practical fundraising skills and build lasting connections with new supporters. Over the past three years we have seen some amazing results and heard some incredible stories from groups taking part. Now in it’s fourth year, we hope that Grow Your Tenner 2015 will engage more new people with the work of the local voluntary sector and serve as a beacon for our future plans to support these vital organisations and their work. How you can get involved: Double your donation Click here to find a local charity and donate now. We’ll match your donation pound-for-pound by up to £10. Or, choose to set up a monthly donation and we’ll match it by up to £10 a month for the first 3 months. Register your organisation If you’re a local charity or community group that is not currently a member of Localgiving, there’s still plenty of time to take part in this year’s Grow Your Tenner and benefit from up to £10,000 of match funding. Simply click here to join us now. We’ll aim to get you online and accepting donations within 1 working day of receiving your completed documents, with many groups up and running the same day! For more information about Grow Your Tenner, including FAQs, please click here.  

On 16th December, to coincide with Local Charities Day, we released our second annual Local Charity and Community Group Sustainability Report. Using data from a survey of 598 local charity representatives carried out of the summer, this report provides a fascinating insight into the state of the local voluntary sector as we approach 2017. The last year has seen a continued escalation in demand for the services of local charities. Coupled with ongoing volatility in the funding landscape, this has left many groups fearful for their long term survival. The report finds that: Just 46% of local charities are confident they will be able to sustain themselves over the next five years. 67% of groups were still predicting stagnation or a downturn in their financial position over the coming year. 78% of groups predict an increase in demand over the coming year, of these groups just 18% feel that they are sufficiently resourced to meet this demand. Reductions in staff numbers pose a  serious problem, impacting on the continuity of services and affecting overall skill levels. 76% of respondents had seen a reduction of staff over the last year. 60% of respondents know of one or more local groups that have been forced to close in the last year. 77% of charities do not believe that they have the skills to run a successful fundraising campaign. Download the Full Report Here We conclude our report by laying out a number of recommendations for the coming year and beyond. We are particularly concerned about the urgent need to bring sustainable funding sources in the sector and to address the continued overreliance on under or unskilled staff. We hope that the results of this report will not only inform our own work over the coming year but also inspire other stakeholders in government, business and civil society to tackle the challenges facing the local voluntary sector.