Useful information – w/c 22/12/25
December 22, 2025
Events, training, charity news, surveys, research, feedback, reports, services and much more – in one handy place!
This page will be updated with new information as we receive it during the week. Please check back regularly. (Last update: 22/12/25 – items added on this date are marked as [NEW])
You’ll also find the latest Health and Wellbeing news, events and opportunities in the current post on our News page here.
You can view previous Useful Information posts here to catch up on our archive of information.
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Looking for funding information and news? Check out Focus on Funding here
Introduction to Google Analytics 4
13th January 2026, online. Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is a powerful tool that can supercharge your charity. It provides an accurate and insight-rich understanding of your supporters and donors.
It provides a complete view of user journeys and enables you to make effective data-driven decisions. And, perhaps most importantly, it can drastically improve your marketing and fundraising.
This course aims, in just three hours, to help you get to grips with GA4. It explores recent changes to the platform, how to ensure you have the best data, the metric that you must know, and a general run-through of the interface, dipping into ‘realtime’ reports.
Faith-Based Governance Training
13th January 2026, online. Good governance is often seen as a burden – but it can be one of a charity’s greatest assets.
This faith-friendly course helps senior leaders and trustees understand what good governance really looks like and how to make it work in a faith context. It explores how to clarify roles, strengthen decision-making, and build confidence around risk. Scenarios and case studies help participants develop skills in practical, relevant ways.
[NEW] Design high-impact emails to increase donations
14th January 2026, online. Join Charity Digital for a one-hour intensive masterclass on the fundamentals of exceptional email marketing. Attendees will learn exactly how to craft inclusive, beautiful, and high-impact emails from one of the charity sector’s experts.
Elizabeth Carter, Email Marketing Manager at Charity Digital, will show you how to design email campaigns that are not only visually engaging but also accessible to all audiences – including people with visual disabilities. You’ll explore how to increase email open and click-through rates with better email design.
Advanced Excel – tips and tricks
15th January, online. Join this 3 hour session to find out how to optimise your spreadsheets so they can do what they’re meant to be doing – saving you time, facilitating effective service delivery and enabling you and your team to get insight into the bigger picture.
This hands-on workshop will guide you through demos and practical exercises using a sample spreadsheet.
Understanding Governance Stage 1: The Trustee Role
15th–16th January 2026, online. If you are new to the role of being a charity trustee, this course will provide the perfect introduction, while experienced trustees will also benefit from a refresher of their responsibilities and comprehensive updates on evolving elements of the trustee role.
Brand Reputation Training for Charities
20th January 2026, online. In today’s fast-moving digital landscape, a charity’s reputation is one of its most valuable assets.
Trust, public perception, and the ability to raise funds or deliver services can be significantly impacted by how well a charity manages its brand. From copyright and trade marks to online abuse and data breaches, reputation management is essential. This practical, expert-led training will help you understand the legal and strategic tools needed to safeguard your charity’s identity and uphold public trust.
Supercharge your use of social media
20th January 2026, online. This course aims, in just three hours, to supercharge your use of social media. We’ll explore how you can pick the right platforms for your charity and how to know whether you should invest, or divest, in other platforms.
We’ll show you how to increase social media engagement, how to extend your reach, and how to ensure you target the most rewarding demographics.
Getting started with Google for Nonprofits
21st January 2026, online. This course provides an introduction to the Google for Nonprofits program, which offers eligible UK charities free access to a suite of Google tools, including Google Workspace, Google Ad Grants, the YouTube Nonprofit Program, and Google Earth and Maps.
We will explore these tools and highlight how UK charities are already using them to enhance their operations and impact.
Data Protection Training for Charities
27th January 2026, online. It is important for every charity leader to ensure their organisation is fully compliant with the latest data protection regulations.
This half-day course will guide you through the key points to consider and what measures you should have in place. You will also learn how to avoid some common data protection pitfalls.
[NEW] How to master bid-writing
28th January 2026, online. Join Charity Digital for a one-hour intensive masterclass on the fundamentals of bid-writing. Attendee will learn exactly how to craft successful bids from one of the charity sector’s experts.
Grant expert and Director of Get Grants, John Ellery, will explore the process of grant-funding, focussing on the core challenges faced by charities. John will cover, among other things, the importance of ‘being fundable’, the right funders for you to approach, how to make an application stand out, and tips to increase your chance of success.
Finance for Trustees
29th January 2026, online. How confident are you that you really understand your charity’s finances?
It’s a complicated business, what with managing different types of funds and income, the accounting and reporting rules, as well as dealing with tax and VAT. This course, lead by the team from leading accountancy firm BDO, will give you the tools to get to grips with how all that works in your own organisation, and includes time to chat with fellow trustees over the practicalities and challenges you face.
Protecting your Legacy Income
3rd February 2026, online. Managing your charity’s legacy income can be a lengthy and complex process.
From the various tax considerations (Inheritance, Capital Gains), to dealing with contested legacies and all of the adminstration in between, there are many factors that can delay legacy income reaching your charity.
Led by the legacy protection team at VWV, this course has been designed to give clear and practical legal advice for breaking down these obstacles as well as tools for recognising legacy risks early on in the process.
The Digitally Informed Trustee
4th February 2026, online. Trustees play a vital role in providing strategic leadership, financial oversight, risk management, and ensuring legal and regulatory compliance. Yet many trustees feel underprepared, especially when it comes to digital tools and technology, from managing cybersecurity risks to interpreting data dashboards or understanding AI-driven systems.
This series is designed to equip trustees with the confidence and competence to navigate the digital tools and technologies essential for modern governance. Through interactive sessions led by expert facilitators, respected organisations, and thought leaders, you’ll gain the skills, insights, and support needed to be an effective, ethical, and digitally-savvy trustee.
Preventing Charity Fraud
5th February 2026, online. Combining 25 years’ expertise as a charity lawyer and governance trainer with frontline experience from various voluntary leadership sector roles, Claris D’cruz will lead this half-day training course to help your charity prevent and deal with fraud or suspected fraud.
This training is relevant to charity trustees, CEOs, finance directors, finance managers, charity advisors and anyone with responsibility for dealing with fraud in their charity.
Throughout the morning we will explore the types of fraud and financial crime to be aware of, the controls and procedures to prevent fraud and how to handle a fraudulent incident.
Charities SORP Training Series
Starting Tuesday 10th February 2026, online. Are you ready for the changes to the 2026 Charities SORP?
The Charities SORP 2026 comes into effect for accounting periods starting from 1 January 2026.
It contains a number of important updates, including on lease accounting and revenue recognition. It also introduces a three-tier reporting system based on income. In addition, refreshed trustees annual report requirements, with further guidance added on how to report financial reserves and plans about the future. Areas of particular public and donor interest – including impact reporting, and environmental, social and governance issues – now have dedicated sections, with guidance on reporting.
[NEW] Working smarter with AI: A practical introduction
11th February 2026, online. This one-hour in-depth masterclass shows you how to effectively and ethically use artificial intelligence (AI). Attendees will gain practical advice, using real-world examples, showing you how to actually implement AI from one of the charity sector’s experts.
AI Innovation Lead at Twinkl, James Shamsi, will introduce the basics of generative AI, explore the opportunities and risks, and show you exactly how AI can save you time, reduce costs, and unlock new capacity. You will see real-world use cases from fundraising, marketing, operations, and service delivery, along with frameworks that you can simply copy and adapt. Attendees will leave with a checklist to start using AI effectively the moment the masterclass ends.
The Art of Being an Effective Chair
12th–13th February 2026, online. The role of the chair of the board or a committee is more demanding and can be more complex than most people realise.
This course will help you to chair well and to ensure that board governs effectively and that board committees add value to the governance process. Scenarios and case studies help develop skills in practical ways.
[NEW] Use data to grow your impact
25th February, online. Marketing analytics expert, Dr Simon (Seongsoo) Jang, Associate Professor at Cardiff University, will cover the importance of intuitive- and data-driven decision-making, practical tips for maximising impact, real-life examples of successful marketing and analytics campaigns, and so much more.
Jang will introduce four core marketing principles that will revolutionise your charity’s approach to data. By the end of the hour-long session, you’ll be able to integrate the principles directly into your charity.
Contract Training for Charities – Managing Contracts with Confidence
26th February 2026, online. For a charity entering into a contract with any other party, there are a number of key factors to consider.
In this half-day session Ed Rimmell, partner at VWV, will share his expertise on managing charity contracts effectively to ensure risks are mitigated, all parties fully understand what has been agreed and what to do if a dispute arises. Ed will also guide you through some common and important contract clauses which are often poorly understood.
Suicide Prevention Conference
Thursday 23rd April, Rheged, Penrith. This year’s theme, “Take action. Prevent suicide.”, focuses on the practical steps we can all take to save lives and support those affected by suicide across Cumbria.
This full-day event brings together inspirational speakers, interactive workshops, and hands-on training to equip individuals, organisations, and community groups with the skills and confidence to help create a Suicide Safer Cumbria.
Whether you work in a school, a workplace, health or public services, the third or faith sectors, a sports club, or are attending as an individual – join us in our mission.
[NEW] Authenticity in action – embedding lived experience in charities
Embedding lived experience is key to entrenching equity of representation, beneficiary voices and ensuring you remain engaged with the right stakeholders in fulfilling your charity’s mission.
This guest blog by Suneet Sharma was written for the Association of Chairs and offers their reflections on embedding lived experience. A charity trustee with It Gets Better from 2021-24, Suneet shares some of the learnings from their process of growing engagement and voice in the LGBTQ+ community, and reflects on how this relates to good governance.
[NEW] The meaning of charity at Christmas
Charity Digital explore what compels people to donate during the festive season and how charities can replicate that good will in future fundraising.
[NEW] Julia Unwin confirmed as next Charity Commission chair
The government’s choice for the next Charity Commission chair has been confirmed in post.
Julia Unwin was appointed to a three-year term as Charity Commission chair by culture secretary Lisa Nandy earlier this month.
Unwin was backed by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee to become chair on 28 November after a pre-appointment hearing on 25 November.
[NEW] Ex-charities minister warns government to learn from Big Society ‘political failure’
A former civil society minister has urged the government to learn from the “political failure” of David Cameron’s Big Society as it aims to grow the “impact economy”.
Nick Hurd, the longest serving charity minister in history who served under Cameron from 2010 to 2014, said the Big Society programme overall failed because it “did not lay strong enough foundations of trust and understanding in the sectors and communities we wanted to inspire”.
“Like Big Society, the impact economy is an expression that can mean different things to different people,” Hurd said as part of a new essay collection from New Philanthropy Capital (NPC).
[NEW] December 12th is most popular day for festive giving, report finds
The latest report on Christmas Giving insights has been published by Enthuse, and highlights which days are the most common for charitable giving in the month.
Findings show that online giving to charities has changed to the first half of the month over the past two years, in contrast to the two years prior, in which top donation days came only from the second half of the month. It was revealed that in 2024, 12th December saw the highest number of gifts in a day, accounting for 5.5% of the month’s total giving via Enthuse.com. The daily average for the month was 3.2%.
[NEW] How charities are coping one year after the Employer’s National Insurance Contributions rise
A Charity Finance Group survey conducted one year on from the announcement of a rise in Employer National Insurance Contributions finds that many charities are struggling with their finances.
CFG’s new survey reveals that 77% of those who responded to the survey reported a worse financial position than a year ago, 62% are running deficits, and organisations are being forced to make difficult choices between maintaining services and keeping staff.
[NEW] Face-to-face fundraising ‘resilient’ despite ongoing challenges, says report
Face-to-face fundraising (F2F) has remained “resilient”, according to a new report, which found a similar number of overall sign-ups since before the Covid-19 pandemic.
The F2F Fundraising Benchmarking Report, produced by the Chartered Institute of Fundraising (CIOF), estimated that £50m will be raised through donors signed up across 2024 in their first 12 months of giving.
Using data from 60 charities and 16 agencies, researchers found the total number of sign-ups in 2024 was over 685,000, comparable to 2019’s figure of over 696,000.
[NEW] Small charities most affected by declines in trustee and volunteer numbers, research finds
New research has identified “substantive” declines in the number of trustees and volunteers at small charities.
The latest Third Sector Trends report, which received more than 8,680 responses, found that most voluntary organisations with annual incomes of less than £50,000 reported a falling number of trustees over the past two years.
Declines in trustee numbers were most common among the smallest third sector organisations (TSOs), with incomes below £2,000, while most of those with incomes over £50,000 reported net increases.
Disclaimer
The information above is provided in good faith. Whilst every care is taken to ensure that it is correct, Cumbria CVS cannot accept liability for any omissions or inaccuracies and does not take responsibility for the quality for any services or products mentioned.
