Charity Health Check

CHARITY HEALTH CHECK

What is a Charity Health Check?

Our Charity Health Check is a comprehensive and practical organisational review for small-to-medium charities that will help you address the undetected issues that may be draining your charity’s resources, limiting its expansion and putting it at risk.

By reviewing 9 key areas of charity functioning, the Charity Health Check identifies where your charity will benefit from making specific changes. We bring together charity rules, guidelines and best practice to identify your charity’s next steps. Recommendations will be highlighted in order of priority, allowing you to allocate resources over time to put new measures in place without putting a strain on your charitable works.

Our Charity Health Check has been designed to be cost-effective and cause minimal disruption to the day-to-day workings of your charity.

For more information, or to book your Health Check, get in touch.

Why would my charity need a Health Check?

Through our extensive work with small-to-medium charities, we have found three common themes:
(i) most of the people involved in the charity are hard working, passionate and dedicated
(ii) the charity’s governance and organisational effectiveness are often not up to Charity Commission standards, and
(iii) charities are typically unaware of how damaging these oversights can be.

The work that small-to-medium charities do is impressive and inspiring, but resources are always limited and operational priorities and lack of specialist knowledge can push ‘governance, planning and organisational effectiveness’ to the bottom of the in-tray. It’s time to call in the experts to identify and resolve the hidden problems that are costing your charity dearly.

Keep reading for more information on our Charity Health Check or head to:

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More information

• Low fundraising success rate
• Inefficient use of funds
• Inability to increase beneficiary numbers
• Staff management concerns
• Risk of liability
• Risk of fraud
• Risk of corruption
• Dissatisfaction and lack of motivation among staff
• Conflict between the Board and staff
• Difficulties retaining or attracting volunteer staff
• Difficulties achieving or managing expansion of your charity
• Planning concerns
• Risks to reputation that decrease public and donor confidence in your charity.

• Improved performance
• Significant increase in number of beneficiaries
• Increased fundraising success
• Enhanced professionalism
• Robust financial systems that protect against misuse and fraud
• Greater appeal to donors and the public through increased perceived professionalism, brand recognition and protection of your investment
• Greater respect from other charities and sponsors
• Trustees who are confident of their role and responsibilities
• Greater potential for expansion or development of your charity
• Improved partnership working
• Happier, more productive staff and volunteers
• Excellent volunteer retention
• Improved reporting on spending, potentially leading to greater future funding
• Improved risk management
• Annual reports that enhance opportunities
• Improved Board functioning
• and more.

We assess the following 8 key aspects of organisational effectiveness:

1. Organisational Systems and Standards – e.g. strategic planning, monitoring and evaluations, and office policies.

2. Staff Management and Performance – e.g. human resources policies and contracts, role descriptions, performance management and the charity’s structure.

3. Governance and the Board of Trustees – e.g. board functioning, Charity Commission standards, the constitution, meetings and members.

4. Finances – e.g. reserves, budget forecasting, payment systems, reports to the Board and bank accounts.

5. Fundraising – e.g. planning, meeting regulations, cash management and effectiveness.

6. Communications and Information Management – e.g. social media, marketing, brand, data protection and use of digital.

7. Partnership Working – e.g. partner checking, merging and collaboration.

8. Volunteers – e.g. attracting, retaining and managing volunteers, and distinguishing volunteer from staff roles.

An add-on section on Monitoring and Evaluation is available where required.