Useful information – w/c 05/01/26
January 5, 2026
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: 06/01/26 – 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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If you’ve seen something you think we should be sharing, let us know! Email us: info@cumbriacvs.org.uk
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.
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.
Operational Plans
Tuesday 27th January, online. Operational plans are often called many things, but it’s the plan that lasts for about a year and is often in-depth. This is perhaps one of the most important documents an organisation has.
It should set out what you are going to do for the coming year and often forms the basis of how you report your progress to trustees and stakeholders. The workshop will look at ways to create this document to make your life easy.
Free Charity Trading Essentials webinar
Wednesday 28th January, online. This practical session, delivered in partnership with Withers LLP, explores charity trading and when to consider a trading subsidiary. It’s designed for charity leaders, trustees, finance teams, and anyone involved in income generation.
Charity trading is increasingly on the agenda for organisations exploring income diversification and financial sustainability. This session is a useful opportunity to understand the key considerations, hear real-world examples, and get up to date guidance – whether you’re advising groups on trading or considering it for your own organisation.
Attendees will learn:
- What trading means and the different types of trading activity
- When it’s appropriate to set up a trading subsidiary and key considerations
- Where to find guidance to ensure trading activities comply with charity law
- Real-life insights from a charity already trading
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.
Digital Exclusion Workshop
Wednesday 28th January, Whitehaven. Digital Unite is running a free 2 hour workshop on on the topic of Digital Exclusion.
It is open to representatives of voluntary and community groups throughout Cumbria.
Click on the thumbnail image to view a flyer with more information.
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, 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 administration 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.
How to manage charity finances – CPD Accredited
10th February, online. This course aims, in just three hours, to help you make sense of your finances. It provides a simple, straightforward, plain-English introduction, covering budgeting, reporting, governance, sustainability, futureproofing, and so much more.
In two back-to-back sessions, each lasting approximately 80 minutes, the course offers key insights into the essential elements of charity finance.
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.
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.
Exercise Impassible
11th March 2026, This Table Top Exercise is a training opportunity being led by Counter Terrorism Police North West – there is an opportunity for Voluntary Organisations to participate. All expressions of interest should be directed in the first instance to Alison Love alison.love@cumbria.gov.uk from the Cumbria LRF team who is collating responses prior to submission.
This exercise will explore the Local, Regional and UK’s readiness to respond to a Maritime Terrorism incident on Lake Windermere. It aims to improve multi-agency coordination, strengthen Local Resilience Forum (LRF) capabilities, and support the development of inland maritime contingency plans in line with JESIP and developing MMER Joint Operating Procedures (JOPS).
Growing reliance on inland waterways for recreation, logistics, business and infrastructure makes them potential targets for hostile acts. Lake Windermere’s geographic location, coupled with a high volume of international tourism makes it a potential target for such an act.
Where Are Your Next Generation of Volunteers
Tuesday 24th March, online. Volunteer numbers have been falling since 2020. Considerable changes have occurred in how the public wants to volunteer. There has also been a rise in younger people wanting to give back to their communities, contribute to their environment, and make a difference in their neighbourhoods.
It is important for any group to start thinking about how it can adapt and remove the barriers so that younger people can get involved in volunteering. This session will offer you some practical ways to make volunteering for your organisation more appealing to younger people.
Reserves: What They Are and How to Calculate Them
Thursday 21st April, online. Reserves are a critical element when building small charity resilience. However, they are often, for very valid reasons, miscalculated.
The session will look at Why we hold reserves, how to calculate reserves, what a good reserves policy looks like and how to report on reserves.
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.
How to Make Your Social Media More Engaging
Thurs 30th April, online. Do you get the most engagement from your Facebook, Instagram or X (Twitter) posts? Why do some posts get more clicks than others?
How to increase engagement.
Impact Reporting for Charities
Tuesday 16th June, online. Funders want proof of the difference your organisation makes. They want to understand your charity’s impact across services and locations, and what the benefit is of the services they have agreed to fund.
Amongst other things this session looks at ‘what is impact and how do you measure it’, ‘what does impact look like’ and how do you engage with your stakeholders to maximise impact.
[NEW] Sector experts sought for government’s Civil Society Covenant implementation body
The government has asked sector experts to apply for membership of an advisory body it has set up to drive implementation of this year’s Civil Society Covenant.
When the government published the covenant, a set of principles designed to “reset” the relationship between the state and the sector, in July, it included plans for a “joint civil society covenant council” to provide “strategic oversight” of the agreement’s delivery.
Now, the government has revealed that the Civil Society Council will be chaired by NCVO chief executive Kate Lee and meet quarterly in Downing Street over two years.
Flexible volunteering: Offer better opportunities to volunteers
Charity Digital explore huge changes in the volunteering landscape, the unique challenges facing youth-focussed charities, and the need for digital volunteer management software.
Commission urged to offer swift guidance to charities mulling trans policy changes
The Charity Commission has been encouraged to issue immediate guidance following recent decisions by Girlguiding and the Women’s Institute to exclude trans women and girls from their memberships.
Governance consultant Penny Wilson wrote to commission chief executive David Holdsworth last month, expressing concern that other charities might now “rush to exclude trans people even when this runs counter to what they think is the best way of delivering their charitable objects”.
She suggested the commission could issue immediate interim guidance, or a regulatory alert, to “wait for forthcoming legal announcements before they exclude trans service users”.
Wellbeing: The secret to sustainable fundraising
Explore why wellbeing is fundamental to sustainable fundraising and practical steps charities can take to support their people, with insight from Sheffield Mind and Breathe HR.
Charity staff, volunteers and beneficiaries feeling ‘increasingly unsafe’, report warns
Charities’ employees, volunteers and beneficiaries are feeling “increasingly unsafe” against a backdrop of growing hostility, fear and operational disruption linked to growing social and political division around the UK, a new report has warned.
The report, published last month by sector umbrella body NCVO, draws from five listening sessions held in October with representatives from 46 voluntary organisations.
Across the sessions, four major areas of concern were identified: “a pervasive climate of fear”, “operational disruption and forced invisibility”, “direct targeting and abuse” and “increasing internal tensions within organisations”.
Volunteering rates rise to 17% but trail pre-pandemic levels
Regular formal volunteering rates in England have risen but remain below pre-pandemic levels, according to government research published in December.
The latest Community Life Survey shows that 17% of adults reported partaking in formal volunteering, “giving unpaid help to groups or clubs”, every month in 2024-25, compared to 2023-24’s figure of 16%.
Despite being a 1 percentage point increase on 2023-24’s stats, regular volunteering rates have failed to fully recover since the last pre-pandemic year in 2019-20, when the rate was 23%.
Festive donations expected to fall by £300m with children’s charities hardest hit
Donations over the Christmas period are expected to be £300m less than last year, with children and young people’s charities set to be hardest hit by “substantial” decreases.
The Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), analysing YouGov survey data of more than 1,000 UK adults, has predicted festive donations this year will fall to £2.9bn from £3.2bn in 2024.
This amounts to £300m less going to charities over November and December, usually the peak giving months of the year.
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.
