Derek McAuley has written a piece in the Unitarian about trustees and I think that he's got his wires a little crossed. I have sent Yvonne Arburrow the following, which others may find useful
Derek McAuley’s explanation of trusteeship was a little confusing so I will try to clarify matters. First we need to understand who and what has a legal identity - people do and incorporated bodies (companies) do. Most congregations are unincorporated associations. Therefore a congregational body does not have a legal identity itself but the individual members hold the rights and duties associated with that congregation. So as an unincorporated association a congregation cannot own anything – as it has no legal identity. Hold these thoughts!
There are two types of trustees that individual people can be –
1. Charity (or managing) trustees; and
2. Holding trustees.
All charities have charity (or managing) trustees but only those who (a) have property; and (b) are unincorporated (that is they are not a company) also need to have either holding trustees and/or custodian trustees. I will describe custodian trustees later but they are similar to holding trustees.
Holding trustees (I suspect that this is what Derek means by building trustees) hold the legal title to the property. They may have other duties which will be found in the governing document – but they may not. Without additional duties their only role is to be owners of the property – it is not their responsibility to maintain or improve it. And if they have no other duties then they have nothing to delegate. Indeed it is the charity (or managing) trustees who can instruct the holding trustees to do things, for example, sell the property.
Best practice suggests that those who are the holding trustees should not also be charity (or managing) trustees but this is not legally binding unless stated in the governing document. However I suspect that many of us carry these dual roles – the main issue is that we always act with integrity.
I would guess that most of our communities have a (managing/congregational) committee rather than a board of trustees. Charity (or managing) trustees are the people on these committees. They have the general control and management of the administration of a charity, regardless of what they are called. In reality anyone who takes an active part in making decisions about the organisation and its property is a trustee whether they have an official title as charity trustee or not. Essentially if you have some power in decision-making then you have to carry some responsibility.
Therefore if you are someone who thinks that they may be a trustee first find out what sort of trustee you are – holding trustee and or charity (or managing) trustee. Look at the governing document and see what responsibilities charity (or managing) and holding trustees have – if holding trustees are not mentioned then they will only own the building and have no additional duties. Then look at the title deed and see who owns your building.
Because ownership is recorded in the title deeds, if holding trustees change there will be a cost involved in changing the deeds. Also if holding trustees do not meet at all there may come a time when there are no holding trustees left or they have moved away and cannot be contacted. You do not want to be in that situation. Therefore many organisations appoint a custodian trustee as well as or instead of holding trustees. A custodian trustee is an incorporated body (a company) - in all but a few specialised cases. For Unitarian congregations this may be a District (if incorporated) or the British and Foreign Unitarian Association (B&FUA). It is less likely that a company will cease to exist so there will always be a least one legal entity which holds title to the building. Some organisations use the Official Custodian, based with the Charity Commission, to hold the title to their property. A custodian trustee has no say in the administration of the charity.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Monday, January 31, 2011
Money, money, money
Stephen Lingwood commented on one of my posts about budgeting last year
... But the key point is that most congregations (need) to increase live giving significantly. Most people are happy to put a few coins in the plate when they're there, but it costs thousands to run a congregation if you have a building and/or a Minister. Why do we expect other people to pay for this?
Members should pledge how much they are going to give, so the leadership can budget accordingly. This process should be as open as possible.
Couldn't agree more! So how do we encourage generous giving?
First I think we need to break down annual figures to monthly or even weekly figures. And then need to divide that by congregation numbers. So for arguments sake if it costs £52,000 p.a. to run a local congregation that's £1,000 per week and if there are 20 people in the congregation that's £50 per week each. These are simple figures but serve to illustrate the point that we all carry a financial commitment and what sort of commitment that might be. You might also do this having taken off all usual income e.g. from investments and rental income. This then gives a figure say £20 per week if investments work and rental income remains constant - and a worse case scenario of £50 if all income ceases.
Most people could not pay £20/week so there would need to be ongoing discussions about how to raise the money - commitment and responsibility are not just about giving money but also about giving time and energy - these too are resources.
All congregations have to have monthly giving directly from people's bank accounts and Gift Aid claims. I wrote this in a fund-raising guide that I wrote when I was on the Funding Development Panel (it may be a bit out of date but if you would like a copy do email me)
Why monthly giving?: Because it is an easy way for people to donate money – many people are used to do this for their favourite charities. An amount like £5 per month might seem a small amount but it amounts to £60 per year. For someone on a reasonable wage £20/month might not seem too bad but ask someone for £240 and they might look a Iittle shocked. It is also a way that people who do not attend services can give on a regular basis e.g. children of congregation members who have grown up and moved away or young families who whilst committed to the chapel have commitments to their children’s sporting activities at weekends. At the end of the day, there’s no harm in asking. Some chapels have been surprised that having instituted monthly giving the amounts received through the collection plate has not reduced by the same amount as some still put money in the plate.
The other benefits of monthly giving are
• Once people start giving they tend not to stop;
• It is relatively easy for people to increase their monthly giving; and
• It provides a steady stream of income rather than peaks and troughs of income. The steady stream tends to match much of a group’s expenditure.
I think that the other thing is how you involve people in the business of the community. Locally we have business meetings every two months after a service - we have increased attendance at business meetings from single figures to about 20 which is most of our regular attendees. This encourages openness and commitment.
And of course there's modelling - we have to act generously. Whilst giving monthly most of us also give to the plate - indeed locally giving to the plate has not reduced in the longer term since monthly giving was introduced. And giving a note rather than change can set a benchmark for expected giving. Although we must always be aware of those with little money to give and reassure them that whatever they give is very welcome and much appreciated. We may need to constantly remind ourselves that money is not the end of our giving - it is just the beginning.
... But the key point is that most congregations (need) to increase live giving significantly. Most people are happy to put a few coins in the plate when they're there, but it costs thousands to run a congregation if you have a building and/or a Minister. Why do we expect other people to pay for this?
Members should pledge how much they are going to give, so the leadership can budget accordingly. This process should be as open as possible.
Couldn't agree more! So how do we encourage generous giving?
First I think we need to break down annual figures to monthly or even weekly figures. And then need to divide that by congregation numbers. So for arguments sake if it costs £52,000 p.a. to run a local congregation that's £1,000 per week and if there are 20 people in the congregation that's £50 per week each. These are simple figures but serve to illustrate the point that we all carry a financial commitment and what sort of commitment that might be. You might also do this having taken off all usual income e.g. from investments and rental income. This then gives a figure say £20 per week if investments work and rental income remains constant - and a worse case scenario of £50 if all income ceases.
Most people could not pay £20/week so there would need to be ongoing discussions about how to raise the money - commitment and responsibility are not just about giving money but also about giving time and energy - these too are resources.
All congregations have to have monthly giving directly from people's bank accounts and Gift Aid claims. I wrote this in a fund-raising guide that I wrote when I was on the Funding Development Panel (it may be a bit out of date but if you would like a copy do email me)
Why monthly giving?: Because it is an easy way for people to donate money – many people are used to do this for their favourite charities. An amount like £5 per month might seem a small amount but it amounts to £60 per year. For someone on a reasonable wage £20/month might not seem too bad but ask someone for £240 and they might look a Iittle shocked. It is also a way that people who do not attend services can give on a regular basis e.g. children of congregation members who have grown up and moved away or young families who whilst committed to the chapel have commitments to their children’s sporting activities at weekends. At the end of the day, there’s no harm in asking. Some chapels have been surprised that having instituted monthly giving the amounts received through the collection plate has not reduced by the same amount as some still put money in the plate.
The other benefits of monthly giving are
• Once people start giving they tend not to stop;
• It is relatively easy for people to increase their monthly giving; and
• It provides a steady stream of income rather than peaks and troughs of income. The steady stream tends to match much of a group’s expenditure.
I think that the other thing is how you involve people in the business of the community. Locally we have business meetings every two months after a service - we have increased attendance at business meetings from single figures to about 20 which is most of our regular attendees. This encourages openness and commitment.
And of course there's modelling - we have to act generously. Whilst giving monthly most of us also give to the plate - indeed locally giving to the plate has not reduced in the longer term since monthly giving was introduced. And giving a note rather than change can set a benchmark for expected giving. Although we must always be aware of those with little money to give and reassure them that whatever they give is very welcome and much appreciated. We may need to constantly remind ourselves that money is not the end of our giving - it is just the beginning.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Measuring change
I was reading the notes of the November Executive Committee meeting and came across one of the GA's objectives for the next five years which is to "increase our recorded membership by 20%".
The problem with this is that we don't have recorded membership - we have quota paying numbers but there's a £27 cost to increasing the number of recorded members for each fellowship and congregation. There was a suggestion possibly a year before that the quota fee should be doubled which I thought might have the effect of halving our national membership.
This post is not about the quota payment but about the problems with measuring change. There is an associated issue with measuring things that we, as organisations, have no control over. The General Assembly's own membership is congregations and fellowships rather than individual members (apart from ministers) and therefore has no control over membership numbers - although if it reduced the quota fee it may see a raise in membership numbers - but this would be a recorded increase rather than a real increase. It may be argued that the GA by doing more promotion and marketing helps to increase numbers - it may help to bring people to Unitarianism but I suspect that the impact that the GA has on maintaining people's attendance at their nearest community is small to none.
So how do we set our targets? Indeed should we have targets at all?
I like targets - at a very simple level this can be action plans and budgets for the year ahead. Then it is simple to see if what was set out to be achieved has been achieved. Most of our communities will not get further than this.
For larger organisations there are usually targets which cover
1. Finance, administration & organisational
Depends on the object of the organisation - for a local Unitarian community it may be about the variety of worship offered; training opportunities for worship leaders; building improvements; social events; other activities such as walking and craft groups.
3. Communications - both internal and external - who are we trying to communicate with and what it the most effective way? So a target may be about a new campaign aimed at say a local university campus or making links with local websites.
4. Partnerships - exploring the value of partnerships and working on those. No organisation stands alone and a healthy organisation will have links both within the Unitarian community and within the locality. A target may be for example about inter-faith activities or attending voluntary sector meetings.
5. Quality - certainly the public sector is now encouraged to measure the quality of their services and people's satisfaction with that on an annual basis. And I guess that the private sector also does this. How an organisation does this is down to them but it is worth thinking about - negative feedback is often more useful than positive because it usually leads to some change and improvement.
It must be remembered that targets should be for things that an organisation can directly influence; for things which can be fairly accurately measured; and for things that reflect the object of the organisation.
The problem with this is that we don't have recorded membership - we have quota paying numbers but there's a £27 cost to increasing the number of recorded members for each fellowship and congregation. There was a suggestion possibly a year before that the quota fee should be doubled which I thought might have the effect of halving our national membership.
This post is not about the quota payment but about the problems with measuring change. There is an associated issue with measuring things that we, as organisations, have no control over. The General Assembly's own membership is congregations and fellowships rather than individual members (apart from ministers) and therefore has no control over membership numbers - although if it reduced the quota fee it may see a raise in membership numbers - but this would be a recorded increase rather than a real increase. It may be argued that the GA by doing more promotion and marketing helps to increase numbers - it may help to bring people to Unitarianism but I suspect that the impact that the GA has on maintaining people's attendance at their nearest community is small to none.
So how do we set our targets? Indeed should we have targets at all?
I like targets - at a very simple level this can be action plans and budgets for the year ahead. Then it is simple to see if what was set out to be achieved has been achieved. Most of our communities will not get further than this.
For larger organisations there are usually targets which cover
1. Finance, administration & organisational
- Finance - set income & expenditure targets; decide what to spend any surplus on for example investing in staff training, equipment and/or buildings;
- Staff & volunteers - ensuring job descriptions are accurate; structures are helpful; staff are adequately trained and work-plans reflect the targets that the organisation wants to achieve; and
- Organisational development and governance - for example reviewing policies, developing and updating business plans; reviewing efficiency of operations;
Depends on the object of the organisation - for a local Unitarian community it may be about the variety of worship offered; training opportunities for worship leaders; building improvements; social events; other activities such as walking and craft groups.
3. Communications - both internal and external - who are we trying to communicate with and what it the most effective way? So a target may be about a new campaign aimed at say a local university campus or making links with local websites.
4. Partnerships - exploring the value of partnerships and working on those. No organisation stands alone and a healthy organisation will have links both within the Unitarian community and within the locality. A target may be for example about inter-faith activities or attending voluntary sector meetings.
5. Quality - certainly the public sector is now encouraged to measure the quality of their services and people's satisfaction with that on an annual basis. And I guess that the private sector also does this. How an organisation does this is down to them but it is worth thinking about - negative feedback is often more useful than positive because it usually leads to some change and improvement.
It must be remembered that targets should be for things that an organisation can directly influence; for things which can be fairly accurately measured; and for things that reflect the object of the organisation.
Friday, January 14, 2011
The heart of organisational support
Happy New Year!
What is it that I love about organisations and governance? I love helping organisations develop and flourish – which usually means helping people to feel that they are making a difference in an effective and efficient way. Sometimes it’s about reining in people’s enthusiasm and providing a structured approach. Often this isn’t seen as very exciting but the results can be as people take carefully planned steps to the achievement of their goals.
I have done some mentoring in the past, some on governance issues. I was helping to write a tender the other day for some work mentoring chief executives and boards in organisational development and capacity building and one question was about the relationship between mentor and mentee – which I think is the key issue to successful mentoring. I wrote this ..
A mentoring relationship has both personal and professional aspects. The one-to-one nature of mentoring means that there needs to be a good personal relationship but the provision of mentoring to a senior manager must ensure that the time used is productive and positive. Therefore it is key for mentors to establish their professionalism early on and bring a focus to the task of capacity building.
All third sector managers are busy and change management can be daunting – the mentor has to respect the manager and their skills and expertise whilst supporting learning and change. Organisations may ask for support to change but that change is not always welcome by everyone in the organisation. Our mentors are skilled at working towards positive change, clarifying steps to be taken and being supportive to those with the responsibility for change.
Developing a good relationship comes with clarification about the purpose of the relationship; with agreed roles and responsibilities; with setting goals, timescales and milestones; agreeing meeting frequency and communication means: and ensuring that the mentee has access to sufficient support outside of the mentoring relationship.
A mentoring relationship is judged on its usefulness and whether agreed outcomes have been achieved.
Whilst I have skills and experience from a variety of jobs and training, it is often the personal skills and psychological knowledge gained as a social worker and a manager (and a human being, daughter, mother, sister, friend ....) that are most important.
We can give our communities and congregations knowledge but if people are struggling then we also need to provide a relationship which recognises the human needs that will support and hinder change and development.
What is it that I love about organisations and governance? I love helping organisations develop and flourish – which usually means helping people to feel that they are making a difference in an effective and efficient way. Sometimes it’s about reining in people’s enthusiasm and providing a structured approach. Often this isn’t seen as very exciting but the results can be as people take carefully planned steps to the achievement of their goals.
I have done some mentoring in the past, some on governance issues. I was helping to write a tender the other day for some work mentoring chief executives and boards in organisational development and capacity building and one question was about the relationship between mentor and mentee – which I think is the key issue to successful mentoring. I wrote this ..
A mentoring relationship has both personal and professional aspects. The one-to-one nature of mentoring means that there needs to be a good personal relationship but the provision of mentoring to a senior manager must ensure that the time used is productive and positive. Therefore it is key for mentors to establish their professionalism early on and bring a focus to the task of capacity building.
All third sector managers are busy and change management can be daunting – the mentor has to respect the manager and their skills and expertise whilst supporting learning and change. Organisations may ask for support to change but that change is not always welcome by everyone in the organisation. Our mentors are skilled at working towards positive change, clarifying steps to be taken and being supportive to those with the responsibility for change.
Developing a good relationship comes with clarification about the purpose of the relationship; with agreed roles and responsibilities; with setting goals, timescales and milestones; agreeing meeting frequency and communication means: and ensuring that the mentee has access to sufficient support outside of the mentoring relationship.
A mentoring relationship is judged on its usefulness and whether agreed outcomes have been achieved.
Whilst I have skills and experience from a variety of jobs and training, it is often the personal skills and psychological knowledge gained as a social worker and a manager (and a human being, daughter, mother, sister, friend ....) that are most important.
We can give our communities and congregations knowledge but if people are struggling then we also need to provide a relationship which recognises the human needs that will support and hinder change and development.
Friday, November 19, 2010
Derek McAuley (Chief Officer for the General Assembly) and I have been asked to run a 40-minute session the the Annual Meetings next year on governance based on information found in the Help is at Hand handbook. Does anyone have any thoughts about the priorities for a session such as this.
All suggestions welcome.
All suggestions welcome.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Good Governance: a Code for the Voluntary and Community sector
'Good Governance: a Code for the Voluntary and Community sector' has been published, setting out best practice for governing a voluntary organisation. It builds on the original version from 2005, and should be clearer with less jargon. The Code Steering Group is now working on a version for small, unstaffed organisations, due spring 2011, plus a new supporting website.
The summary and full version may be found here for downloading.
The summary and full version may be found here for downloading.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Managing money
Apologies if I am teaching 'granny to suck eggs' but it is important to ask how boards manage their organisation's money. The term manage implies an active approach rather than monitoring which is reviewing what has gone on. My experience is that many organisations monitor their finances rather than manage them. Managing actively does not mean not spending money but it does mean understanding what money is being spent, when and on what and similarly with income - what is coming in, when and from where.
It is not so important in times of low interest rates but one of the things to manage is how much money is needed in the current account and how much can stay in an interest-bearing account. To do this you need to know when bills come in - many of us spread bills through the use of direct debits - this often gets us a better deal and helps us to spread spend - it also means that it is paid automatically from our banks. Which means that it is vital that bank accounts are reconciled with cash-books - at least quarterly or as often as bank statements are received.
Patterns of expenditure are useful to observe - the use of Excel or other spreadsheet software helps to plot spend over a year and then to compare year on year. You can then start to make links - for example if you rent out your building, do your utility costs go up the more you rent out the building. Can you therefore work out the additional cost of utilities for renting out the building and build that into lettings' charges? How vulnerable is your organisation to stock market fluctuations and do you need to build some contingency into your reserves for this? Are there times of the year when giving to the collection is less - do you need to find additional income at this time of year e.g. by having a stall at a car-boot sale or running a raffle?
Understanding your finances will help you to feel more secure - reporting this in simple terms to community members will provide transparency and help people to feel involved. It may also provoke some to offer to help out with fund-raising or money management - for example finding a better deal for your utilities or insurances. The more people are involved with finances the more likely they are to feel a responsibility for them which makes the treasurer's job a lot easier.
It is not so important in times of low interest rates but one of the things to manage is how much money is needed in the current account and how much can stay in an interest-bearing account. To do this you need to know when bills come in - many of us spread bills through the use of direct debits - this often gets us a better deal and helps us to spread spend - it also means that it is paid automatically from our banks. Which means that it is vital that bank accounts are reconciled with cash-books - at least quarterly or as often as bank statements are received.
Patterns of expenditure are useful to observe - the use of Excel or other spreadsheet software helps to plot spend over a year and then to compare year on year. You can then start to make links - for example if you rent out your building, do your utility costs go up the more you rent out the building. Can you therefore work out the additional cost of utilities for renting out the building and build that into lettings' charges? How vulnerable is your organisation to stock market fluctuations and do you need to build some contingency into your reserves for this? Are there times of the year when giving to the collection is less - do you need to find additional income at this time of year e.g. by having a stall at a car-boot sale or running a raffle?
Understanding your finances will help you to feel more secure - reporting this in simple terms to community members will provide transparency and help people to feel involved. It may also provoke some to offer to help out with fund-raising or money management - for example finding a better deal for your utilities or insurances. The more people are involved with finances the more likely they are to feel a responsibility for them which makes the treasurer's job a lot easier.
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