Small charities, donor joy and fundraising readiness - with Emma-Louise Singh and Emma Low, Nova Fundraising

And let's talk a little bit about from your own experience, uh, chairing Citizens Advice Lewisham, what are the things that keep you up at night as a small charity leader? What are the real sort of day-to-day pressures that perhaps people on the outside of that world might not necessarily fully appreciate?

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's a great question.

I think that, that taking on a role such as chair, first of all, you get a real sense of how hard the team work.

They are incredibly dedicated.

You know, and, uh, a- and I think there's no doubt that they, they are absolutely mission-driven to the point where you think, you know, I was at a board meeting last n- night, and m- one of my key questions to the team was, you know, "Are you looking after yourself?" Because they spend so long caringly thinking about the people they're serving, there is always a risk that they don't actually think and take care of themselves.

So no doubt that, you know, that, that a part of the chair's role is obviously to build that relationship with the CEO.

And the CEO of Citizens Advice L- uh, uh, L- Lewisham, Fiona, is absolutely awesome.

She's amazing, and the whole team are brilliant.

They all work incredibly hard.

It's also been, uh, you know, we've just had the, the, the, um, local elections of, of which we've seen a complete change in the, in, in the mayor of Lewisham and most of the, uh, councilors also.

So the, the, obviously, the funding environment then automatically, you know, is, it puts, is put into question because we, we're dealing with new people within the council, and so then those new relationships are having to be built and, um, you know, just like anything else, it's, it's building those relationships.

Funding is clearly a challenge.

It's a challenge for any, any organization, but I think for smaller charities, it's even more challenging because, you know, it's fewer staff having to put, you know, even more time and effort into an increasingly competitive market, whether that, you know, in terms of funding, uh, bids and so forth, main grants and so on.

So, you know, a lot of those issues that, that charities and people working in the charity sector would identify with.

But then there is also that, that further pressure, I think, if you're a smaller organization because you're relying on a far fewer, there's far less-Capacity within that as well.

But, but, but I think on the, on the plus side, in terms of what...

That's why you absolutely need a great board, and you need great people around you.

And, and, you know, I'm really, really lucky.

The, the board we have g- got is incredibly, incredibly skilled, and hugely experienced.

And I think it's understanding as well, the importance of it, of, of leading a charity like that, is to understand the things you're good at and the things that you, you aren't as good at.

And so, for example, having a really strong treasurer, having someone who's really good with, uh, with people skills, and to be able to support the staff team in terms of supporting on HR issues, for example, or digital transformation.

That's a huge thing in the advice space now.

So a lot of those things, you need to be able to think wider than the immediate staff team as well.

I think once...

It's like anything in life, once you get the right team around you, it becomes, things become a lot easier because, um, you are, and you're all swimming in the right direction, the same direction.