Useful information – w/c 12/10/26
October 12, 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: 12/10/26 – 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.
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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
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.
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.
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
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.
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] Why local charities are so important
Local charities are the lifeblood of the charity sector and are important to society. For Small Charity Week, Charity Digital celebrated the amazing work they do.
[NEW] Cumberland Council newsletter
You can view Cumberland Council’s newsletter from 11/10/26 here, including:
- Carlisle Fireshow 2026 – Plea to support local charities
- Have your say on… Bus services across Cumbria
- Festival of Practice 2026: Shining a Light on Unpaid Carers
[NEW] Westmorland & Furness Council newsletter
You can view Westmorland & Furness Council’s newsletter from 09/10/26 here, including:
- Have your say on walking and cycling access in Penrith
- Cumbria in Bloom Awards recognise local volunteers
- Council schools benefit from £5 million investment in improvements
[NEW] HMRC tackles gift aid processing delays as large charities raise concerns
HMRC has said it is “working hard” to reduce any gift aid processing delays after some large charities raised concerns.
Last week, the Charity Tax Group (CTG) said some of its larger members had reported that the delays had impacted their cash flows.
CTG said it had discussed this issue with HMRC, who advised that “a processing issue had created a backlog of claims requiring approval”.
[NEW] Top insights from the Charity Digital Skills Report 2026
Charity Digital explore the most recent findings in the state of digital and AI skills, trends, funding, and support needs.
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.
