Useful Sector Resources

Where to start?

There is a huge amount of free or low cost advice, resources, training and consultancy available to charities, social enterprises and not-for-profits. Below are links to a few we find useful and relevant.

Cost of living:

  • Charity Excellence - help and resources including links to available crisis grant funding
  • ACEVO - information from across the sector about the cost of living crisis
  • Charity Finance Group - cost of living knowledge hub
  • NCVO - information, guidance and available training and events on the cost of living crisis
  • Centre for Sustainable Energy - resources for communities to take action on energy from setting up a community energy project to making community-wide energy savings

Mental health and wellbeing:

  • BeWell provides a wellbeing toolkit and directory of experts, organisations, products and services to support people working in the migration sector.

People:

  • The Association of Chairs* - supports Chairs of charities and non-profit organisations to lead their boards effectively
  • Charity Commission have launched a free practical guide for recruiting trustees
  • Trustee Recruitment Cycle - Guidance, tools and tips to help you recruit trustees and diversify your board from Reach Volunteering
  • Clore Social Leadership Programme* - develops future leaders in the social sector
  • The Confidence Framework - a free interactive tool designed by Realising Ambition to support sector leaders and individual organisations to identify areas of strength and areas for improvement.
  • Cranfield Trust* - matches charities up with pro bono business expertise from management consultants
  • Directory of Social Change – provide leadership training through both public courses and in-house consultancy.
  • HRNet - free Human Resources advice and information from Cranfield Trust for charities and social enterprises based in England and Wales
  • North East Skills Sharing- encourages and promotes skills sharing between local businesses and not-for-profit organisations in Northumberland, Tyne & Wear, Durham and Tees Valley.
  • Pilotlight * - free tailored strategic planning support for charities and social enterprises from senior business people
  • RadHR - practically applys anti-oppressive ideas to how social change organisations and workplaces organise internally. It offers alternatives to off-the-shelf HR policies and processes, which tend to replicate the very oppressions that our organisations strive to challenge.
  • Reach Volunteering* - provides a free service for charities, recruiting skilled volunteers and trustees
  • Skillsbridge * - supports voluntary and community sector organisations with a coordinated programme of professional volunteering
  • Getting on Board - a list of free trustee recruitment resources including sample adverts, job descriptions, interview questions and induction packs.

Safeguarding:

There are several resources which may be helpful to learn more about safeguarding:

Evaluation, impact and learning:

Finance:

Start-ups:

  • Directory of Social Change - provide a toolkit and resources to help new charities get off the ground
  • UnLtd* - has a guide to choosing a legal structure for new social enterprises
  • Nesta - offer a guide to nine of the main crowdfunding platforms supporting good causes in the UK
  • Social Enterprise UK * - offer an essential guide to creating a social enterprise
  • UnLtd* and School for Social Entrepreneurs - offer programmes and resources to help social enterprise ventures get up and running

Social Enterprise:

  • Social Enterprise UK * - from building markets to large scale public facing campaigns, SEUK the membership body for social enterprise, exists to amplify the voice of their members and get social enterprise on the radars of decision makers across sectors
  • Inspire to Enterprise- offers free-to-access social enterprise support, information and advice
  • Spring Impact - provides an open-source toolkit giving mission-driven organisations and individuals the resources to identify, design, and implement the right strategies, models, and processes for scaling impact
  • School for Social Entrepreneurs - offers courses to help individuals start, sustain, and scale social enterprises, charities and community projects
  • UnLtd * - supports social entrepreneurs with awards, events and resources. They also have a guide on choosing a legal structure for new social enterprises.

Communication and Campaigning:

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Data and Digital:

  • The Catalyst*- free services and funding to transform social impact through digital.
  • Cast - supports social technology ventures to grow and access finance and talent.
  • Charity Digital (formerly Tech Trust) - offers donated and discounted software, email marketing and foreign exchange services for UK charities.
  • Datakind UK * - links data scientists with not-for-profits to help them use data in support of their mission. DataKind also runs Office Hours where you can ask specific questions about a project or your data, or can pick a data expert's brain about what's possible.
  • Data Orchard* - provide a free tool to help you assess how data savvy your organisation is and identify areas for improvement. You can choose between a short 5 minute survey or the full assessment, which takes about 20 minutes to complete.
  • Dovetail, a directory of tech for good partners, funded by The Catalyst*, has a range of 'how to guides' to help non-profits find a digital partner that fits
    Media Trust* - run a UK-wide digital skills training programme delivered through local masterclasses, mentoring and online learning.
  • Google - provide a range of free digital skills training courses
  • Reach Volunteering* - run a training programme to increase digital expertise on charity boards.
  • How to understand web users’ needs and building a Digital Workforce toolkit from NCVO Knowhow Nonprofit.
  • Superhighways* - Helping small charities do more digital; has a useful cheat sheet on applications for digital Comms.
  • Guide to choosing and implementing the right CRM from Datawise London.

Fundraising:

  • The Edge Fund - provide a helpful list of fundraising resources including links to toolkits, guides, training and funder databases
  • nfp Synergy - a comprehensive beginner's guide to fundraising for small organisations
  • Charities Aid Foundation - 'Fundraising Fundamentals' a free toolkit for small to medium sized charities
  • Directory of Social Change – provide a range of directories, including the Directory of Grant Making Trusts, and how-to fundraising publications and courses. Also provide the Funds Online (previously trustfunding) database.
  • Fundraising for first timers - a beginner's guide produced by Arts Council Wales aimed at organisations or charities that are starting out on their fundraising journey

We also list useful links to help you find other sources of funding.

Legal advice and support:

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI):

  • Centring Lived Experience: A strategic approach for leaders - a guide created by NPC
  • DEI Data Standard - a framework and taxonomy to help organisations monitor equity considerations developed by 360Giving and The Social Investment Consultancy.
  • Diversity, Equity and Inclusion monitoring tool - a free tool by Big Issue Invest, which organisations can use to input information about their Board, staff and communities they serve to generate an overview of their diversity split as well as their gender and ethnicity pay gaps.
  • D5 - D5 is a five-year coalition to advance philanthropy’s diversity, equity, and inclusion. They have very helpful resources including pointers on how to talk about DEI.
  • Free resources from UK charity Glitch on what to do when experiencing online abuse
  • Inc Arts Unlock - an anti-racism toolkit that gives arts organisations practical steps to take anti-racist action.
  • Museums Association's guidance on Communicating Decolonisation - a starting point for museums and galleries to build a robust communication strategy to support decolonisation work.
  • NCBI - the National Coalition Building Institute - delivers equalities leadership programmes.
  • Socio-economic inclusion and diversity in the arts - a free toolkit for employers created by Jerwood Arts and Bridge Group.
  • Stagetext* - provides captioning and live subtitling services to theatres and other arts venues.
  • Race for Nature's Recovery - an initiative that uses the Government's Kickstart scheme to tackle the longstanding lack of racial diversity in the environment movement. Organisations can sign up for support to offer a paid placement for a young person.
  • RadHR - practically applys anti-oppressive ideas to how social change organisations and workplaces organise internally. It offers alternatives to off-the-shelf HR policies and processes, which tend to replicate the very oppressions that our organisations strive to challenge.

You can also find a detailed list of helpful resources and articles about inclusion and diversity and can listen to recordings from from our event on Recruiting for Diversity.

Environment and Food sustainability:

  • Julie's Bicycle - working with arts organisations to help them measure, manage and reduce their environmental impacts
  • Good Food at Work * - guidance from Sustain on how to ask your organisation to sign up to a healthy and sustainable food policy
  • Food Systems Academy * - an open education resource for sharing knowledge and increase the public’s understanding of our food system

Community and user engagement:

How to. . .

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For more tools and resources for charities, social enterprises and community groups, check out NCVO's KnowHow knowledge and e-learning hub.

Sector supporters:

  • Arts Council England - funding, advice and tools for the arts sector in England
  • Arts Council of Northern Ireland- the funding and development agency for the arts in Northern Ireland
  • Arts Council of Wales - Wales' funding and development organisation for the arts
  • Association of Independent Museums* - connects, supports and represents independent museums and galleries
  • Clinks *- supports, represents and campaigns for the voluntary sector working with offenders
  • Creative Scotland- the public body that supports the arts in Scotland
  • Directory of Social Change- provides training courses, publications, online funding databases and research for the charity sector
  • Locality* - national network for community-led organisations. Its Lifeboat programme supports member organisations in financial or organisational difficulty.
  • Museums Association* - the membership organisation for everyone working museums, galleries and heritage
  • NAVCA- national membership charity for local infrastructure
  • NCVO- research, resources and training for voluntary sector organisations in England
  • NICVA- support for voluntary sector organisations in Northern Ireland
  • SCVO- support for voluntary sector organistions in Scotland
  • Small Charities Coalition* - support for UK charities with income below £1m
  • WCVA- support for voluntary sector organisations in Wales

*these organisations have been funded by a grant from Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.