As a fresh graduate with a Master of Arts in Social Research, I face a similar predicament to other graduates in this tough economic climate; no experience=no job. Having no experience in the research field makes it difficult to get a job and in particular in the sector that I am most passionate about, namely the third sector.
When it comes to sharing the results of our research at nfpSynergy with the wider sector, we know that there is one topic that will always attract attention; trust. It’s easy to see why this matters so much for the charitable sector.
World Mental Health Day was on the 10th of October, so here is a topical tour of the way mental health charities are tackling stigma and battling some misleading media stories.
A charity board will usually monitor finances. But measuring just finances is a bit like measuring just the heart rate of an athlete; it’s important, but it’s just one of a range of ways of knowing whether an athlete is healthy.
Over a quarter of UK adults say they have volunteered in the last three months"It’s particularly good that young people are finally becoming more involved in volunteering. Charities have to make sure the idea appeals to a variety of ages and isn’t just stereotyped as elderly people staffing charity shops and tombolas.
We’ve been talking a lot about lobbying and politicisation lately as the maelstrom around the Lobbying and Transparency Bill continues in a political and media environment.
“Dog’s breakfast”“A chilling effect on freedom of expression”“Entirely unworkable”“Swimming against the technological tide”“Neither liberal nor democratic”
In 2010, the think tank Demos published a report entitled ‘Dying for Change’ highlighting some of the challenges facing hospices in the future. Help the Hospices responded to this by setting up the Commission into the Future of Hospice Care to provide guidance, information and options for hospices to inform their strategic position and offerings in the next 10 to 20 years.
Much has been written about how charities should communicate impact. How to communicate with donors, how to thank them and, perhaps most importantly, how to explain what you did with their money are undoubtedly tough nuts to crack.
Recently I had the privilege of interviewing mothers with disabled children on behalf of Scope, to inform an evaluation of their Face 2 Face befriending service. Face 2 Face schemes provide trained parent befrienders to offer emotional support for other parents of disabled children.
Indulge me in an imaginary scenario if you will. Given nfpSynergy’s vast range of facts, figures and foraging in the world of charity research, I’ve been wondering if there’s a simple way to interpret some of it.
It is easy to focus on that warm satisfying feeling when you have a fresh team of new volunteers, all trained up and raring to go with bundles of passion and enthusiasm. After all the hard work you put into recruiting and training them, it is tempting to sit back and watch them blossom.
The public really do care about charity CEO salariesIn our research with the public through our awareness monitor CAM, we see that how charities spend their money really matters.
This is a presentation of our data on the public's opinion about charity spending. We also have a video of this presentation here, presented by Joe Saxton, with some great insight and explanation of what the data means for charities.
