Useful information – w/c 05/10/26
October 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: 07/10/26 – 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.
For useful resources, information, news and events, updates on our climate commitment, blog posts from colleagues about what they’re doing (in a work capacity and privately) to minimise environmental impact and more take a look at Cumbria CVS Green
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
Every Life Matters – Training
Every Life Matters offer a range of suicide prevention and mental health training, including Suicide Alertness, Safety Planning, Mental Health First Aid and Mental Health Awareness in the Workplace.
There are dates for sessions from now until December in this leaflet, online and around the county in-person: Cumbria Training 2026
AI powered search for charities: becoming discoverable in the age of agentic search
Tuesday 6th October, Online. Around a quarter of all online search results are now AI-generated, meaning that how people find your charity’s services is rapidly changing. Is your website ready for the transition?
Join Third Sector Lab for this expert-led workshop which meets the moment for charities and non-profit organisations. Digital product specialist Wotjek Kutyla will share his own professional learning and insights, supporting our sector in responding to this current shift in search behaviour.
Creating an interactive dashboard using Power BI
Tuesday 6th October, online. As brilliant as it is, sometimes Microsoft Excel can’t deliver everything you need when it comes to data analysis, visualisation and publication.
This is where Microsoft’s Power BI steps in, enabling you to take your data analysis to the next level creating and sharing powerful, interactive and secure dashboards which can be shared privately or published and embedded in your website.
In these 3 hours you’ll learn:
- To get to grips with Power BI’s basic building blocks
- Getting data from Microsoft Excel
- Creating & customising charts and visualisations
- Printing, sharing & publishing reports
Strategic Plans
Tuesday 6th October, online. Strategic plans are one of the key documents as an organisation starts to grow, especially in the current climate where organisations have to search wider for funding.
A good strategic plan helps keep an organisation grounded in its work and should help prevent mission drift.
Preventing Charity Fraud
Tuesday 6th October, 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.
DBS Annual Conference
Tuesday 6th & Wednesday 7th October, online.
Registration is now open for the Disclosure and Barring Service’s (DBS) annual conference – a FREE event bringing together the safeguarding community to share expertise and drive better protection outcomes. This two-day virtual conference will offer insights from leading safeguarding experts through keynote speeches, interactive workshops, panel discussions, fireside chats and live Q&A sessions.
Day one explores safeguarding, legislative change and partnership working, including mandatory reporting, safer recruitment, barring decision-making and the role of effective partnerships in protecting children and vulnerable adults.
Day two explores information sharing, digital transformation and public protection, with sessions covering safeguarding adults, the DBS Strategy, customer experience and the role of regulators in supporting safer recruitment and safeguarding.
Get Grants FREE Virtual Conference
Tuesday 6th & Wednesday 7th October, online. Join Get Grants for two days of expert fundraising advice, top tips, Q&As, networking, peer-support, and lots of chat!
The Conference is a celebration of fundraisers, with a programme designed around the topics you want to talk about.
Bringing together thousands of fundraisers from across the UK every year, this fun and heart-warming event with lots of practical advice is not your typical fundraising conference!
How to master email marketing
Wednesday 7th October, online. Email marketing is one of the best ways to attract donors, raise funds, raise awareness, and highlight the impact of your charity. It is, in the simplest terms, an indispensable part of your marketing toolkit. There are 4.5 billion email users worldwide and research suggest two-thirds of marketers believe email provides the best ROI.
This course aims, in just three hours, to boost your email marketing. The course provides a hands-on approach, showing charities the basics of email marketing, the best platforms, strategies for effective list-building, the importance of segmentation, tips and tricks for crafting effective emails, the best way to write a subject line, the virtues of personalisation, and so much more.
The session explores barriers and boundaries that charities face. It shows you how to avoid email marketing traps such as spam filter, the various legal considerations and the best routes to compliance, the tedious tasks that are ripe for automation, how exactly you can start email automating, and more. Basically, in three hours, you’ll learn to be a whizz at email marketing.
Faith-Based Governance Training
Wednesday 7th – Thursday 8th October, online. Faith-Friendly Governance: Making good governance work for you.
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.
NIHR ARC North East and North Cumbria: Launching our next phase of work
Thursday 8th October, Newcastle. This event will bring together our key partners to celebrate the start of our new programme of work (2026 until 2031).
We will share details of our refreshed research themes, new priorities, and opportunities for collaboration across the region. There will also be opportunities for networking and conversation, and light refreshments will be available.
A full agenda will be shared ahead of the event.
Please complete this short form to register
Emergencies Partnership: LIVE
Thursday 8th October, Leeds. Bringing together partners from across the voluntary sector, local authorities, Local Resilience Forums, faith groups, government and community organisations, EP:LIVE is all about strengthening connections, sharing learning and exploring what effective community-led resilience looks like in practice. The programme covers trust, social cohesion, bridging divides, the next generation, harnessing volunteers and empowering action – with plenty of opportunities to build new relationships across the sector.
CharityComms Seminar: Demonstrating Comms Impact
Thursday 8th October, Online. Join CharityComms for this online seminar which will give you the ways to measure, prove and maximise your impact. You’ll join expert speakers from NSPCC, Few and Far and freelance consultant, Alex Scott, who will be talking about how to demonstrate the value of comms.
This event will explore practical ways to connect communications activity to meaningful outcomes, whatever the size or structure of your organisation. You’ll hear how charities are moving beyond vanity metrics to show how comms supports organisational goals, from building understanding and trust, to influencing behaviour and generating income.
[NEW] The role of board minutes in good governance
Tuesday 13th October, Online. Board meeting minutes provide evidence of decision-making, support accountability and help organisations maintain a clear governance history.
Join NCVO for this free webinar to explore why board meeting minutes matter. You will learn practical techniques for producing effective records and discover how better minute-taking can strengthen governance and accountability across your organisation.
[NEW] Turning corporate giving trends into partnership opportunities
Tuesday 13th October, Online. Only a quarter of businesses support charities in any way. Yet two-thirds of employees would like their employer to give to charity, and three-quarters of consumers feel more positive about businesses that make a difference in their local communities.
The latest Corporate Giving Report 2026 examines the changing landscape of corporate giving, the factors influencing business support for charities, and the opportunities this creates for the voluntary sector. This webinar from Charities Aid Foundation is aimed at small and medium-sized charities and will explore the latest trends shaping corporate giving, and what they mean for charities looking to grow and strengthen corporate support.
Practical uses of AI for your charity
Tuesday 13th October, online. Artificial intelligence (AI) offers huge potential for charities. AI can revolutionise the everyday. It provides significant benefits, saving you time, cutting costs, reducing human error, supercharging operations, streamlining processes, and so much more. But such benefits are more often talked about than realised. Charities face a problem: putting AI into practice.
This course aims, in just three hours, to boost your everyday use of AI. The course takes a hands-on, practical approach, showing charities how to use AI to improve meetings, boost email marketing, smash data analytics, enhance workflow efficiency, and so much more.
DBS VCSE Barring and the legal duty to refer workshop with National Outreach Advisor
Tuesday 13th October, online. Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) are delivering a free workshop on Barring for recruiters, employers and those who are dealing with safeguarding, welfare, disciplinary, HR staff etc.
Individual Giving Conference
Thursday 15th October, online. Join us at the Individual Giving Conference for the vital tools and insights you need to supercharge donor acquisition, boost retention, and gain clarity on the future of individual giving.
Individual giving is under pressure. Targets are up, budgets are tight, and the donors you worked hard to recruit aren’t staying as long as they used to. You already know what needs to change – but knowing and doing are two very different things when you’re stretched thin and pulled in every direction.
This is the conference that closes that gap.
An Introduction to Canva and Affinity for posters and flyers
Thursday 15th October, online. This session is an introduction to the online Canva graphics design program. It will cover the basics and have a few tips for experienced users.
Affinity is owned by Canva and is a more advanced graphic design desktop program. The session will contain a brief description of what Affinity is and how to download it for free.
Conscious AI Summit
Thursday 15th October, Online. How can charities build an ethical future? This FREE event focuses on helping charities to use AI ethically.
Together, explore how charities can champion fairness, inclusion and awareness while navigating the risks and challenges associated with AI. The event will examine the vital role the sector can play in shaping the future of a technology that is too powerful to be defined by a select few alone.
Through thought-provoking discussion and practical insight, attendees will be encouraged to adopt AI with intention, purpose and creativity, leaving with the confidence to harness its potential responsibly and effectively within their organisations.
Building financial resilience through investment when donations fall
Friday 16th October, Online. Voluntary donations are at historically low levels, public sector funding is under pressure, and charities should be looking to maximise cashflow from their investments without penalising future beneficiaries. Writing or reviewing your investment policy, in light of The Charity Investment Governance Principles, with consideration to maximising your returns and preserving your investments for the future is part of bridging this funding gap.
Join Evelyn Partners for this online session, which will also consider how charities that had previously invested for income might benefit from a total return investment approach.
[NEW] Comms Clinic: Cut through with clearer messaging
Tuesday 20th October, Online. Explore how your charity can simplify complex ideas and make sure your audience understands what matters most.
Join Media Trust for this free practical session with expert volunteer Graham Bednash, Co-founder of Unstuck and former Director of Marketing at Google, and focus on your charity’s messaging challenges.
We’ll explore how to:
- Identify the key message you want your audience to take away
- Cut through jargon and make complex ideas easier to understand
- Find the human story or insight at the heart of your message
- Make your messaging clearer and more consistent across different channels
Practical AI for small charities
Tuesday 20th October, online. Whether you are already using AI, are planning to or don’t yet know how your charity could use it, this short session will help trustees of small charities get to grips with;
- What tools you could use (focusing on the free!)
- What tasks you can – and can’t – use it for
- Advantages, risks and how you could manage those
- What skills your team needs and how you might develop those
Association of Volunteer Managers (AVM) Conference
Wednesday 21st and Thursday 22nd October, online. As the landscape of volunteering continues to shift, staying ahead of the curve is more important than ever and at this year’s conference, delegates will gain exclusive insights from leading industry voices and discover innovative best practices, alongside over 200 volunteer professionals.
Both days of this online event will feature:
- An inspiring keynote
- a selection of interactive workshops
- a thought-provoking panel discussion.
More information about the conference can be found on AVM’s website
[NEW] Engaging younger audiences on social media – arts and culture
Tuesday 27th October, Online. Join HdK for this free online session on engaging younger audiences online.
The panel will bring together thought leaders from across the culture sector to discuss practical steps to develop a social media strategy with specific audiences, platforms and trends and examples of successful campaigns.
How to manage charity finances – CPD Accredited
Tuesday 27th October, online. Finance can feel daunting, with the confusing terminology and frustrating processes. Charities of all shapes and sizes find themselves struggling with finances, which can cause myriad problems: lack of transparency, absent accountability, reduced efficiency, inaccurate reporting, and so on.
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
Wednesday 28th – Thursday 29th October, 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] Canva Get Together
Thurs 29th October, online. This is a free, casual online get-together of people working in the charity sector who are interested in using Canva for visual design.
This get-together has no agenda and is governed entirely by what people want to know and/or share. These include tips and questions about using Canva to create: graphics, animations, posts, videos etc. either for social media, online or print formats.
The Autumn Budget: What it means for charities
Thursday 29th October, online. The Chancellor’s Budget could have far-reaching implications for charities. What should your organisation be preparing for?
Join Rathbones and Charity Finance Group for a timely discussion on the impact of the Autumn Budget on the charity sector.
The expert panel will examine:
- Key Budget announcements affecting charities
- The outlook for public spending and the economy
- Potential implications for charity funding and operations
- Planning for uncertainty around public spending and policy change
- What charity leaders should be considering in the months ahead
Excel essentials – level up your skills
Tuesday 3rd November, online. Excel is an incredibly useful tool to help you store, analyse and present your data. Even with basic skills there’s a lot you can do to help with your organisation’s monitoring and evaluation practice – but how do you get started?
Join this practical session to navigate the Excel ribbon and create, format, sort and filter your spreadsheets. We’ll introduce basic auto and manual formulae and why you should be using Tables. We’ll also cover splitting and joining columns and inserting basic charts.
Best Practice Reporting
Tuesday 3rd November, online. In the current economic climate where fundraising from funders and the public alike is a tough ask, it is important that you sell your charity in the best possible light. We all know that funders will look at your statutory accounts and therefore they need to reflect well on your organisation to provide key messages in a way that encourages them to fund you.
Our half day online course will give the tips on best practice reporting in the sector and show you how to think about your Trustees report differently. It is much more than a compliance document and an opportunity to ‘tell your story’ in an engaging way.
Social Media Training for Charities
Wednesday 4th & Wednesday 18th November, online. Learn how to use social media more strategically.
This practical two-part online training course is designed to help charities make better use of social media by focusing on what really matters: understanding performance, reaching the right audiences and creating content that supports organisational goals.
Across two interactive half-day sessions, participants will gain a clear understanding of how social media platforms work today, how to measure success using meaningful data and how to turn insights into more effective strategies.
Festival of Trusteeship
Monday 9th – Friday 13th November, online. The Eastside People Festival of Trusteeship’s week-long series of online events is full of exciting discussions and debates, thought leadership, best practices, learned experience, educational topics and breakout sessions.
Sessions in the programme include:
- Festival Launch with Dame Julia Unwin, Chair of the Charity Commission for England and Wales
- Building board chemistry: What makes boards click?
- Trustees Like Us: Where are all the working class trustees?
- When boards turn toxic
- Show me the money: a trustee’s guide to fundraising
- The Joy of Trusteeship
- Brave boards in an age of hostility
- Goldilocks Governance: Big, small or just right?
Plus another 10 sessions covering everything from finance and fundraising to mergers, board diversity, AI and the future of trusteeship.
Introduction to Google Analytics 4
Tuesday 10th November, 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.
Google Ad Grants for beginners
Tuesday 17th November, Online. This 2-hour course is specifically for nonprofit staff who have been awarded the $10,000/month Google Ad Grant, but do not know the basics for setting up their first campaign.
What will be covered:
- What is a Google Ad Grant?
- How to structure your charity’s account
- Google Ads & Keywords
- Setting up a conversion with Google Analytics
- Google Ad Grants compliance and maintenance
Fit for Funding
Tuesday 17th November, 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.
Making the most of M365 apps – tips and tricks
Wednesday 18th November, online. Microsoft 365 offers huge possibilities. It helps charities with email, file storage, and provides plenty of productivity applications that can streamlines your charity. Registered charities in the UK are eligible for discounted licenses and this session aims to help you make the most of your M365 subscription.
This three-hour session shows you how to master 365 apps. The first section will cover an overview of the apps available. It will explore web vs desktop applications, the joys of Copilot, the best way to use Microsoft Forms, and the secrets of Sway. The second section is dedicated to Teams, exploring meeting and channel management, file storage, whiteboards and polls, and so much more.
Supercharge your use of social media
Tuesday 24th November, online. The landscape of social media is growing increasingly complex. Legacy platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and X seem to constantly change their offerings and shift functionality. New platforms arrive every week, perpetually touted as the next big thing, perhaps even commanding time and resources, then fade into irrelevance. It can prove difficult to navigate the social landscape, to find the platforms that suit your organisation, to identify the best demographics, to maximise return on investment.
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.
Understanding Governance: The Trustee Role
Wednesday 25th – Thursday 26th November, online. Governance fundamentals for new and experienced trustees.
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.
Advanced Excel – tips and tricks
Tuesday 1st December, 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. Key features covered include:
- Smarter formulas that save you time
- Conditional formatting, data validation, and other techniques to keep your data tidy
- Using Pivot Tables to summarise and rearrange data
- Connect, clean & organise data from different sources using Power Query
Safeguarding for Trustees and Community Buildings
Tuesday 1st December, online. This session will look at the legislation, and what trustees need to know and do.
It will also look at how best to apply it in a community building setting where you may be hiring space but have little direct interaction with the vulnerable people attending the activities.
Developing a Fundraising Strategy
Tuesday 8th & Wednesday 9th December, online. This popular two day course will walk you through Lime Green Consulting’s tried-and-tested framework for developing a fundraising strategy, enabling you to evaluate and prioritise the most valuable fundraising activities for your organisation and make the best use of your limited resources.
We’ll show you how to analyse your current fundraising performance, explore future opportunities and challenges, and identify key fundraising audiences – then scope out and prioritise a range of different types of fundraising, identify key building blocks to put in place for long-term success, and accurately forecast the likely financial return. Finally, we’ll explain how to get everyone in your organisation behind a shared fundraising vision and ensure they understand their role in successful fundraising.
[NEW] Charities telling clearest story in accounts most ready for new filing rules, experts say
Charities producing annual reports that clearly explain how they deliver public benefit are best prepared for new filing rules, according to analysis by an accountancy firm.
Published last October, the Charities SORP 2026 applies to charities filing accounts for reporting periods starting on or after 1 January 2026.
One of the key changes is the introduction of a tiered reporting structure based on income (tier one for charities with total income below £500,000, tier two for charities with income between £500,000 and £15m, and tier three for charities with revenues over £15m).
[NEW] Financial thresholds for charities
Changes to financial thresholds in charity law came into force on 30th September 2026. Charities can now take advantage of reduced accounting and reporting requirements. Changes, including changes to the audit threshold and the option to prepare a receipts and payments accounts threshold, are available to charities with financial years ending on or after 30 September 2026.
Full guidance from the Charity Commission is available here
[NEW] Blog writing guide for charities
There are so many aspects of digital marketing for charities that it can be difficult to know where to start. Charity blogs are often underutilised in the third sector but are a great way to flex your creative muscles and show your organisation’s personality.
This free blog writing guide and template for charities from Few and Far includes an exact structure you can copy to help your content rank higher, get read, and drive action.
Read the guide and download the template
[NEW] Clinks’ voluntary sector-led manifesto to reform the criminal justice system
Clinks have launched a manifesto which brings together policy recommendations developed with the voluntary sector to set out a vision for a more effective and humane criminal justice system.
It focuses on six key areas for reform, including investment in community justice, local approaches to probation, reducing remand and recall, community provision, resettlement, and a Whole Systems Approach for women.
[NEW] A Question of Balance – a free guide to the crucial Chair – CEO relationship
The Chair – CEO relationship is vital. Your working relationship has an impact on the board and your wider organisation – you want it to be effective, positive, and productive. So how do you build the best partnership possible?
Association of Chairs have published a free guide, A Question of Balance, exploring this crucial relationship from the Chair’s perspective. Drawing on research by themselves, ACEVO, and nfpResearch in 2026, it contains insights from chairs and CEOs and covers all aspects of your partnership. The guide explores ten areas for your working partnership where you and your CEO can reflect on your approach and find the best balance. It also covers the factors that impact your relationship, and what to do when things go wrong.
[NEW] How can civil society help unite and empower communities?
Last week, NCVO and More in Common UK hosted a fringe event at the Labour Party Conference exploring how civil society can help unite and empower communities.
The panel discussed how government and civil society can work together to build trust, tackle social divisions and give communities a stronger voice. More in Common also shared new polling on how connected people feel to their local communities.
NCVO’s Chief Influencing Officer, Leigh Brimicombe, highlighted the pressures facing small charities, the knowledge they bring from their communities and the need for longer-term, sustainable funding. He also spoke about the hostility and threats some charities face, and the importance of ensuring they can continue to support their communities.
[NEW] Why Your Next Impact Report Should Include a Live Map
Beyond telling people what your nonprofit has accomplished, an impact report should also help them see the scale, reach, and meaning of that work. One of the simplest ways to do that? Put your impact on a map.
A live, interactive map can answer a question that is often difficult to communicate through statistics alone: What did our organization’s reach look like this year, and what does that tell us about our impact?
[NEW] Temporary VAT reduction announced for some electricity supplies
The Government has announced a temporary reduction in VAT on certain electricity supplies, reducing the rate from 5% to 0% from 1 October 2026 for a period of six months.
Your charity pays 5% VAT on fuel and power if they’re for (amongst other things):
- charitable non-business activities (for example, free daycare for disabled people)
- small-scale use (up to 1,000 kilowatt hours of electricity a month or a delivery of 2,300 litres of gas oil)
Find out about the conditions you must meet so that your charity pays no VAT (the zero rate) in this article
[NEW] DBS has now reduced the fees for checks and Update Service
Disclosure and Barring Service has reduced the admin fee for DBS checks, and this change is now reflected in your uCheck pricing. All checks submitted to DBS from today, 5th October, will reflect the new prices.
As a reminder:
- Basic DBS Checks: admin fee reduced by £1.50, from £21.50 to £20.00, with your uCheck price remaining the same.
- Standard DBS Checks: admin fee reduced by £1.50, from £21.50 to £20.00, with your uCheck price remaining the same.
- Enhanced DBS Checks: admin fee reduced by £8.50, from £49.50 to £41.00, with your uCheck price remaining the same.
There is no change to volunteer pricing.
How to reduce your use of AI
Artificial intelligence has its uses, but it also raises significant concerns. Charity Digital explore how charities can find the balance and ensure they are using it proportionately.
Cumberland Council newsletter
You can view Cumberland Council’s newsletter from 04/10/26 here, including:
- New Chief Executive appointed for Cumberland Council
- Cleator Moor Community Hub Update
- Beacon Museum unveils packed programme of autumn events and half-term fun
Westmorland & Furness Council newsletter
You can view Westmorland & Furness Council’s newsletter from 02/10/26 here, including:
- Have your say on the future of bus services in Cumbria
- First look at emerging vision for Barrow town centre
- Best Start Family Hubs celebrate Impact Award at national event
Charity retailers’ Vinted accounts frozen amid ‘flawed’ onboarding process
Some charity retailers have had their business accounts with Vinted and other online marketplaces frozen amid what the Charity Retail Association (CRA) has described as “flawed onboarding and verification processes”.
The membership body told Civil Society that helping some of its members resolve such issues had been “much more complicated than it needs to be due to poor customer support and a lack of communication on what documents are required”.
“With charity retailers experiencing significant online sales growth, it’s hugely frustrating when flawed onboarding and verification processes bring sales to a halt,” a CRA spokesperson said.
[NEW] Insights from the Frontline: survey reveals the emotional toll of frontline charity work
The Association of Charitable Organisations (ACO), in partnership with workplace mental health specialists Rightsteps, have recently published the findings from their 2026 Frontline Worker Survey. Gathering 122 anonymous responses from frontline practitioners, advisers, operational staff, managers, senior leaders and CEOs across ACO member organisations, the new report explores the emotional experiences of staff and volunteers working directly with beneficiaries across grant-giving and wellbeing charities, including the pressures they face, what helps them manage, and what support makes a real difference in practice.
The report finds that almost three quarters of respondents had not accessed any organisational wellbeing or mental health support in the past 12 months, and many did not know what support was available to them. It is hoped that the findings will help organisations to better understand and support their frontline teams.
[NEW] Good boards make good decisions, but what makes a good board?
Every year, the thousands of trustees behind the UK’s registered charities make thousands of decisions that shape services, safeguard funds and steer organisations through uncertainty. While the charity sector has produced a rich body of guidance on board effectiveness and composition, less attention has been paid to how composition shapes the quality of a board’s decisions.
New research from the University of Bath School of Management, supported by Nigel Kippax and Charity Finance Group (CFG), has set out to address that gap. Their published report combines charity sector data with established academic research on decision-making and behavioural science, drawing lessons from theory and practice to identify what helps boards make better decisions.
The research reached three central conclusions: good decisions are driven by good processes, good processes depend on the people around the board table, and boards must actively create psychological safety to challenge assumptions, reduce bias and improve decision-making.
Financial sustainability is chief source of pressure for charity leaders, research finds
Charity leaders are still focusing much of their attention on financial sustainability, according to new research.
In response to a recent survey of 72 sector leaders, 40 said financial sustainability was the area most under pressure, with impact and organisational culture also raised by a minority.
Respondents said that financial sustainability was attracting most of their leadership attention, scoring 4.58 out of five on average while impact was rated as 4.04 and culture scored 3.7 in the research commissioned by charity Services For Education.
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.
