Useful information – w/c 11/05/26
May 11, 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: 15/05/26 – 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
Helping employers to better support an aging workforce
Local employers in Barrow-in-Furness are invited to join the Age Friendly Framework Programme aiming to support organisations to embed age inclusion more fully into workplace practices.
The Age Friendly Framework offer includes a series of three in person workshops delivered by ProAge CEO, Mike Mansfield, designed to improve the ability of employers to support older workers and foster greater levels of intergenerational collaboration in the workplace.
The workshops include:
- Creating a multi-generational workforce
- Retaining older workers
- Retirement preparations and adjustments
Find out more in this newsletter article and information document
Best Practice Reporting
Tuesday 12th May, 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.
Excel: Beginner & Advanced
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?
➡️ Beginner: Tuesday 12th May, online. More information here
➡️ Advanced: Tuesday 16th June, online. More information here
Masterclass: An introduction to generative AI
Wednesday 13th May, Online. This one-hour in-depth masterclass shows you how to effectively and ethically use artificial intelligence (AI). Attendees, for just £20 per person, 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.
Digital Fundraising Summit 2026
Thursday 14th May, online. Back for its eighth year, Charity Digital’s Digital Fundraising Summit returns with a full day of action-packed insights from experts across the charity and tech sectors. The event featuring a dynamic programme of informative webinars.
The theme this year, Building Fundraising Resilience, reflects the need for fundraisers to adapt and thrive in continually changing conditions. They will be exploring how to prepare for the unpredictable, how to strengthen supporter relationships, and how to diversify income with speed and confidence.
Practical uses of AI for your charity
Tuesday 19th May, online. 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.
Let’s talk about menopause at work
Wednesday 20th May, Online. The menopause is a natural occurrence, yet up until recently, it has received little attention despite the impact it is known to have on women at work.
Join Acas for this free webinar where we will discuss the importance of supporting those experiencing the menopause.
Will your website still matter in an AI world? How AI Is Transforming How People Discover and Engage with You
Thursday 21st May, Online. AI-driven search is transforming which organisations are found, seen, and trusted.
Join Hart Square for this free webinar to explore the patterns we’re seeing across NFPs, charities and membership organisations: why content built for traditional channels can be overlooked, why trusted organisations are getting outranked, and how AI is reshaping authority and relevance.
Get Your Charity Featured in the Media
Thursday 21st May, online. Get your Charity Featured in the Media is a practical workshop for people in marketing and communications roles in charities who want to gain positive media coverage for their cause — even without prior media experience or big budgets. Over the course of the session, you’ll learn how to craft and share stories that grab journalists’ attention, how to pitch them effectively, and how to turn coverage into long-term impact for your organisation.
Whether you’ve never written a press release before or you’ve dabbled in media outreach but want better results, this session will give you clear strategies, real-life examples, and simple tools to help you approach the media with confidence. You’ll leave with practical techniques you can use right away — and the resilience to keep going until your story gets told.
Supporter Experience Conference 2026
Thursday 21st May, online. Join Fundraising Everywhere for a half-day conference dedicated to helping you smash your supporter experience strategies and raise more money with your supporters.
Join fundraisers from across the sector for a day dedicated to helping charities build stronger, more meaningful supporter relationships. Hear from expert speakers, explore fresh ideas, and discover practical strategies to improve supporter journeys, strengthen engagement, and boost long term loyalty.
Making the most of M365 apps – tips and tricks
Tuesday 26th May, online. 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.
Preventing Charity Fraud
Thursday 28th May, 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.
Crisis Fundamentals by Horizon Resilience
Tuesday 2nd June, online. The VCSEP are running a free training session for organisations in the voluntary sector.
Drawing on experience at the heart of UK government crisis management, this training by Horizon Resilience will provide participants with a strong practical foundation in crisis management principles, supported by a scenario-based discussion and applied learning. Attendees will leave with an improved awareness of crisis and resilience in the UK context, including how the voluntary and community sector fits within the wider resilience system and a practical understanding of the crisis lifecycle, from anticipation and response through to stabilisation and recovery.
March attendees rated this training 4.6/5 and commented positively on its content and relevancy. This training is aimed at those new to, or less familiar with, formal resilience structures.
Register by emailing marcusbowen@vcsep.org.uk
Understanding Governance: The Trustee Role
Wednesday 3rd –Thursday 4th June, 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.
What does local government reorganisation mean for you?
Tuesday 9th June, online. Join NAVCA for this practical, insight-led webinar designed for VCFSE organisations navigating local government reorganisation. We’ll explore what’s happening now, what to expect over the next two years, and what it means for your organisation — from funding and contracts to partnerships, rural issues and service delivery. With expert input on the political context, timelines, and emerging intelligence from across affected areas, we’ll share real examples and key lessons to help you plan ahead with confidence.
If you receive funding from your local authority, deliver public services, advocate for rural communities, are working in partnership across health, care or prevention, or are interested in how these changes will affect you — then this session will help you understand what’s changing, what matters now, and how to prepare for what comes next.
All VCFSE organisations, and everyone with an interest in this important topic, are welcome.
Nonprofit Summer Customer Round Table
Thursday 11th June, online. Join Mhance for an in-Person Nonprofit Summer Customer Round Table.
Here you will be joined with other like-minded charitable organisations and key members of the mhance team to discuss key topics.
Data Protection Training for Charities
Thursday 11th June, 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.
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.
How charities can build financial resilience in an uncertain funding environment
Wednesday 17th June, online. Charities are operating in an increasingly challenging funding environment. Rising demand for services, sustained cost pressures, uncertainty around public spending and policy change, and volatile markets are forcing charity leaders to rethink how they fund their missions – both now and for the long term.
In this Rathbones Charity Expert Series webinar, we are joined by Emma de Closset, Chief Executive of UK Community Foundations, to explore how charities can strengthen their financial resilience in the face of ongoing pressure and uncertainty. Drawing on her extensive experience across the charitable and philanthropic landscape, Emma will share insights into how charities are adapting their funding strategies, reassessing risk, and planning for a more unpredictable future.
This session will be particularly valuable for chief executives, finance directors, trustees and senior charity leaders who are navigating difficult funding decisions and looking for informed, practical perspectives on building resilience in an uncertain landscape.
Finance for Trustees
Thursday 25 June, 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.
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!
[NEW] Introducing ACEVO’s new podcast: Leader to Leader
A podcast about what leadership in the charity sector needs next, and the future we want to build together.
What makes this series different is its format – just like the very best leadership, every conversation passes on the baton to their guest to become next week’s host.
AI-Generated Imagery Guidelines
The Saltways team have released a set of guidelines for charities to use when dealing with AI-generated images. The guide contains everything charities need to know about using AI-generated imagery, from understanding the risks to crafting responsible prompts.
The guidelines are built on extensive research into how charities are currently using AI-generated imagery and what the sector needs to navigate this new terrain ethically.
Sign up by email to receive your free downloadable copy
Third Sector Podcast: Feminist leadership, conflicts of interest and a legacy boom
In the latest Third Sector podcast, Emily Harle shares her reflections from an event run by the Women in Charity Network, including the need for female leaders to make space for their more junior counterparts.
Andy considers the circumstances surrounding new regulatory guidance on conflicts of interest, after the Charity Commission reported an increase in cases. The team also provides context to Third Sector’s recent findings about legacy trends across 100 major charities.
The Funder Perspective: Impact Reporting with John Ellerman
In 2025, the Charity Commission announced new accounting regulations, requiring charities above a certain size to report on their impact in their annual reports. Many charity leaders have expressed scepticism, including DSC’s CEO Debra Allcock Tyler, who argued that it is harder for some organisations to measure impact. Many charities have a “massively over-stretched budget” she said, and the push for metrics risks “overlooking the real intangible, unmeasurable magic”.
In this interview, DSC speaks to the Director of John Ellerman Foundation, Sufina Ahmad, to discuss their new Impact Framework, which it recently launched alongside its new five-year strategy. This interview provides some key insights into why measuring impact matters and how you can do it too.
Readout of the first meeting of the Civil Society Council
The new Civil Society Council has met for the first time in 10 Downing Street, with both the Prime Minister and Chris Ward MP, the Minister for Procurement, in attendance.
The Council held an initial discussion in which Members raised a wide-ranging set of challenges and opportunities – from volunteering rates to civil society’s capacity levels, particularly amongst small charities. They also discussed what good partnership between government and civil society looks like, and the barriers that need to be resolved to embed this way of working.
Fundraising Regulator updates data privacy guidance
The Fundraising Regulator has published a new guide to help charities and their partner organisations comply with its code of practice when processing personal data in fundraising.
Published last week, the updated guidance comes nearly a decade after the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force, and the regulator felt it was time to update its resources for fundraisers.
Writing in a blog post also published today, the regulator’s head of policy Paul Winyard said the data compliance experience within many charities had “grown” in recent years.
How to appear in AI search results
Charity Digital explore Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO), Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO), and how organisations can use them to reach more people online.
Prime minister invites civil society figures to antisemitism response meeting
Sector figures including NCVO chief executive Kate Lee attended a meeting at Number 10 Downing Street to discuss a collective response to rising antisemitism in the country.
Prime minister Keir Starmer invited representatives from business, civil society, health, culture, higher education and policing to the event following the stabbing of two Jewish men in north London suburb Golders Green last week.
A series of recent attacks on the Jewish community, including the destruction of four ambulances operated by Jewish medical service charity Hatzola last month, has led to the UK’s national threat level being raised to severe.
Record-breaking £87.5m raised for charities in London Marathon 2026
A record-breaking £87.5m has been raised for charities in this year’s London Marathon, the event’s organisers have announced.
London Marathon Events (LME) revealed last week that this year’s total has already surpassed 2025’s £87.3m figure, which set a world record for the biggest annual one-day fundraising event.
Of the £87.5m raised so far for this year’s marathon, official fundraising platform Enthuse facilitated £42.2m in donations, with another £43.7m pledged through JustGiving.
Charity Property Briefing 2026
The Ethical Property Foundation published their 2026 Charity Property Briefing, which they hope will prove useful to everyone working in the sector as well as policymakers and grant makers.
They are not a policy organisation, but their’s is a unique perspective as the UK’s only dedicated property advice charity supporting the voluntary sector. So, what does 2026 look like for charities’ property? They explore emerging trends and challenges and what these mean in practice – from insecure tenure to rising costs.
DSC Resource – Charities against hate – How to respond to racism
The Directory of Social Change (DSC) have released its guide – Charities against hate – How to respond to racism.
This resource aims to provide practical actions that charities can take to ensure their own safety and continued operation, to help them re-evaluate their strategic planning, and to join in solidarity with others to push back against racism and bigotry.
New rules strengthening benefits claimants’ rights to volunteer welcomed
Charity sector umbrella body NCVO has cautiously welcomed new government rules that aim to reinforce the freedom of people who receive welfare benefits to work and volunteer.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) intends for its “right to try” regulations, which came into force yesterday, to strengthen benefits claimants’ ability to volunteer without automatically triggering a reassessment of their claims.
DWP stated: “Right to try makes it clear that undertaking work or volunteering will not automatically lead to a reassessment.”
High Sheriff honours non-profit groups
Representatives from nine community and non-profit organisations were honoured at the High Sheriff Award ceremony at Brougham Hall, Penrith. The awards are part of the High Sheriff’s Fund, managed by Cumbria Community Foundation, and publicly recognise both charities and individual volunteers who help improve their communities.
Charity Commission chair criticises lack of open trustee recruitment
Julia Unwin has criticised a lack of open recruitment for trustees in one of her first speeches as Charity Commission chair.
Unwin made the comments last month at Civil Society Media’s Trustee Exchange in London, saying that she was “saddened but not surprised” to learn that the majority of trustees are appointed through personal contacts rather than via open recruitment channels, with only 6% of trustees surveyed saying they had applied for their role via an advert.
“That is a great loss. It prevents people contributing, it narrows the mindsets of boards, and it deprives vital organisations of the best, independent engagement that a truly diverse board offers,” she said.
Six ways to move the dial on prevention
A new report by The Future Governance Forum’s Social Insights Panel, ‘Six Ways To Move the Dial on Prevention’, has called on the Government to make key changes in order to shift public services towards a preventative approach, after decades of successive governments acknowledging the shift is needed, but failing to achieve it.
The Panel’s first report argues that prevention is dependent on the resilience of the support networks that exist in communities, which often don’t look like traditional public service delivery. They also identify six mindset shifts the government must adopt to deliver meaningful prevention, including an overhaul of public and social sector commissioning culture and practice at a local level to rebuild trust with community organisations and groups.
VCSE Barometer Survey – Covenant principles
The VCSE Observatory is pleased to launch Wave 14 of the VCSE Barometer — the largest quarterly survey of the UK voluntary, community, and social enterprise sector.
Thank you for your support in previous waves. This time, the survey focuses on how VCSE organisations experience their relationships with government and what they expect over the next 12 months. In Wave 14, the VCSE Observatory is building a repeatable baseline to assess over time whether VCSE organisations feel that different levels of government are behaving in ways that reflect the Covenant principles.
They also want to understand organisations’ views, experiences, priorities, expectations, and concerns for the next 12 months, with a particular focus on the upcoming local elections in May 2026.
- Your relationships with local, regional, and national government work in practice.
- To what extent do these relationships reflect Covenant principles.
- Your organisation’s priorities, expectations, and concerns for the year ahead.
The survey runs until 20th May. Fill it in here
CEOs and chairs report ‘challenging behaviour’ on charity boards
A new survey of charity chairs and chief executives has found that “challenging behaviour” is common across voluntary organisations’ boards.
Some 59% of the respondents to the survey by nfpResearch, ACEVO and the Association of Chairs reported having experienced difficult conduct on their board, such as individuals exerting disproportionate influence.
CEOs were more likely to report such behaviour, with just under half experiencing it occasionally and another one in five seeing it often.
Third of junior charity roles now paid below real living wage, research finds
The proportion of junior charity roles that fail to cover essential living costs has increased to a third, according to new research, prompting concerns about the sector’s finances.
CharityJob’s Salary Report 2026, which examines over 55,000 roles posted on its jobs board last year, says that 34% of full-time/annualised entry-level and junior roles in London paid below the London living wage, up from 24% the previous year.
Similarly, 33% of entry-level and junior roles outside the capital last year paid below the UK-wide real living wage, set by the Living Wage Foundation, compared to 25% in 2024.
Community projects boost social interaction
An independent report into the Know Your Neighbourhood (KYN) Fund has been published. This national partnership saw Cumbria Community Foundation distribute £1.7m in grant funding to support community led activity in Barrow in Furness.
The evaluation found that the KYN Fund successfully engaged people new to volunteering, with 52% reporting they were volunteering for the first time through KYN funded activity.
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.
