Empower Blog: Offering guidance on issues affecting the Voluntary, Public and Private Sectors
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I finished the last blog with a quote and have started this one with another. The ‘title’ of this piece is a quote from the film 13th Warrior, described by Time Out in the following terms:
“At its best, this achieves the beauty and grandeur of a Kurosawa epic - at its worst, however, it feels like a Python remake of The Vikings.”
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Accountants within charities are important ... well I would say that wouldn’t I! But realistically they have to be important. I have heard service departments of charities grumbling that “finance rules this organisation” and whilst finance shouldn’t rule they should certainly have a hand in ruling.
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Damn it, load already! What it means to be mobile.
I’ll start with a short scenario ... You’re running 10 minutes late for a meeting, it’s raining and you’re not quite sure where you need to go. The details for the meeting are printed, but on your desk ten miles away and buried in your smartphone’s inbox. You know the company name, so you Google them and open their website to get directions or a telephone number. The only trouble is their contact page is two or three clicks from the homepage and you are frustratingly waiting for some large images to load before you can move a step closer. ..
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“I’m lonely, isolated, depressed, grieving, alone and my family are miles away” are words and phrases regularly heard from people that come through the door and visit our centres and take part in activities since we started the Ageing Well projects in 2008.
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This week may well prove to be one of the busiest on record for yours truly - in terms of VAT speaking engagements and events – and the charity sector looms large in it!
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In the Third Sector, efficiency, focus and accountability are always important. Organisations need to demonstrate the value they deliver to stakeholders, partners, and beneficiaries. And they often need to be wiser with their finances than private or public sector organisations. So making sure staff are working on the right things, and supporting organisational goals is vitally important.
But how do you do this in practical terms?
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Writing can be an immensely pleasurable and rewarding experience but, as with any such hobby, start to make it something that others rely upon and it swiftly loses its lustre. Take Julie for example … (please someone take her) … she loves quilting and has often thought how brilliant it would be if she could sell her quilts for enough money for it to be her source of income. Then someone asked her to make a quilt; not for money but for a favour, this hobby rapidly became a bit onerous. Every stitch now had to be perfect; every fabric choice became agonisingly difficult; suddenly she felt she was to be judged on what had previously been done solely for her enjoyment - and there wasn’t even any cash involved!
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As an enterprise/business advisor, a graduate of two university degrees in business, a member of various professional bodies, and published by peer review on business support, I've had a lot of time to think about business plans.
And there's a lot of stuff about them out there: courses, books, templates, on-line tools and programmes, consultants offering to write yours for you …
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The future is bright for organisations in the third sector, but they have to adapt to a brave new world of funding if they are to remain financially stable.
That was the conclusion of a major debate that we recently held with charities in south Wales. We wanted to identify some of the key issues concerning charities across the country in an era in which reducing public sector expenditure is combining with increasing scrutiny of charity accountancy practices in the wake of some high-prolife scandals.
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Do I really need a website? Wow, now that’s a blast from the past: it wasn’t that long ago when many businesses and organisations were asking themselves that very question. These days it’s expected; after all, everyone’s online these days...
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