Useful information – w/c 28/07/25
July 28, 2025
Events, training, charity news, surveys, research, feedback, reports, services and much more – in one handy place!
This page will be updated with new information as we receive it during the week. Please check back regularly. (Last update: 30/07/25 – items added on this date are marked as [NEW])
You’ll also find the latest Health and Wellbeing news, events and opportunities in the current post on our News page here.
You can view previous Useful Information posts here to catch up on our archive of information.
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? Check out the latest edition of Focus on Funding here
Training and Events
Meet the Funder Event: Lloyds Bank Foundation
Tuesday 29th July 2025, online. Get Grants is delighted to host a Meet the Funder event featuring Peter Cunnison from Lloyds Bank Foundation West Midlands.
This session will provide valuable insights into their DDPO (Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations) Grant Programme.
Advanced Excel – tips and tricks
29th July, 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.
Practical uses of AI for your charity
5th August, 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.
Accessibility Basics: Inclusive Websites for People with Sight Loss
Wednesday 6th August, Online. Join Vision for Access CIC for a practical and engaging session on website accessibility, focusing on making online spaces more inclusive for people with sight loss.
Whether you’re a small business owner, charity worker, or content creator, this event will give you the confidence to improve your website’s accessibility – even if you’re not a tech expert.
Social Prescribing Wellbeing Festival
Friday 8th August, Whitehaven.
Free Fun Day with special guests including Marathon Man Gary McKee.
Click on the thumbnail image for more information.
Budgets Masterclass
Monday 11th August 2025, online. Presenting your budgets and financial information is a key element of any application’s success – incorrect and unclear budgets give funders easy reasons to reject your application!
Get Grants Director John Ellery will use his decades of experience writing and assessing funding applications to show how you can design clear budgets that give your application the best chance of success.
How to manage charity finances
12th August, 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.
Sir John Fisher Foundation Webinars
Wednesday 13th & Thursday 14th August, online. The Sir John Fisher Foundation is running a series of webinars for groups who may be interested in making an application to them. The sessions will provide an opportunity for groups to get a better understanding of what to include in a funding bid as well as information about the Foundation funding priorities.
This link below provides more information: Thinking Of Applying to Us? – Sir John Fisher Foundation
If you would like to receive an invite to this workshop, please email grants@sirjohnfisherfoundation.org.uk to receive a MS Teams Link.
Charity Digital Academy: Writing a Successful Funding Application
19 August 2025, online. This 3 hour course provides a beginner’s guide to how to write a successful funding application, using the National Lottery Community Fund’s Awards For All online application form as an example.
In these 3 hours you’ll get:
- The chance to go through a successful funding application and understand how you can emulate it
- Advice on key elements such as writing project outcomes, evidencing co-production and creating an accurate budget
- Time to start sketching out your own application, ask questions and get expert advice
- The chance to step back and decide what you need to do next to lay the foundations for a strong application for your project
Supercharge your use of social media
9th September, online. This course aims, in just three hours, to supercharge your use of social media. 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.
Best Practice Reporting
16th September 2025, 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.
This 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.
Introduction to Improving Quality
Thurs 18th Sept 2025, online.
Improving Quality is a clear, simple system, and focuses on the key issues that make a difference for charities. IQ can either be used for self-assessment or accreditation, and has international recognition: a number of organisations in the UK and the Republic of Ireland are already accredited to it. Find out more about it at our free online workshop.
This event is free but you will need to book.
Practical uses of AI for your charity
23rd September, 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.
[NEW] Getting set up with Microsoft 365
24th September, online. The course uncovers everything you need to know about Microsoft 365.
The first half of the first session looks at the functionality 365 includes, helps charities to make sense of registration process and domain authentication, explores eligibility, and so much more.
How to master email marketing
30th September, online. 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.
Get Grants free Virtual Conference 2025
7th-8th October, online. The Conference will provide two days of expert fundraising advice, top tips, Q&As, networking, peer-support, and lots of chat, bringing together thousands of Fundraisers from across the UK for a programme led by Get Grants Experts, funders, and other experts from across the sector.
Festival of Trusteeship
3rd-7th November 2025, online. The Festival of Trusteeship is a week of inspiring discussions, practical tools and bold ideas to reimagine trusteeship. Led by Eastside People, this event is part of the Festival of Trusteeship during Trustees’ Week 2025, proudly supported by the Institute of Leadership.
With online events on topics including engaging younger people in trusteeship, how to build confidence as a trustee, and how to deal with times of crisis, this is a collection of events to inspire and inform your trustees.
Festival passes are available now, and lots of the events are free. Find out more here, and please share with your board and your local networks.
Digital Fundraising Summit 2025
Thursday 6th November 2025, online. For the seventh year in a row, Charity Digital are bringing back their incredibly popular online FREE Digital Fundraising Summit.
The summit will be particularly beneficial if you have a fundraising, marketing, communications, or a digital innovation role, but that said there will be plenty for everyone! Sessions will be tailored for all charity sizes.
You can find out more information here
VCFSE News and Information
[NEW] What the 10 Year Health Plan means for the voluntary sector
The government recently published its 10 Year Health Plan. NAVCA have summarised the paper from a voluntary sector perspective, with a focus on the key themes relevant to the local VCSE sector and the role of local infrastructure and ICS-VCSE Alliances.
[NEW] New: inclusive volunteering podcast
NAVCA recently recorded a podcast to chat all things inclusive volunteering, with an expert panel who shared their experiences and views on how we can make volunteering more accessible and welcoming for everyone.
They were joined by Ciara Devlin from Breaking Barriers (a charity that supports refugees into meaningful employment), Holly Notcutt from Volunteering Matters, and Debbie Sadler from Unlock (a charity that is building a fairer future for people with criminal records).
You can listen to the episode here
[NEW] Is Your Charity Website Truly Serving Its Users?
Your website is more than just a digital presence, it’s a vital tool for delivering services, building trust, and supporting those who need you most.
Explore four key insights from Reason Digital, a social enterprise that has spent 17 years creating digital projects that change lives for the better, on how charities can ensure service users get the most out of their websites
This includes:
- Research respectfully and ethically
- Ground your services in real user experiences
- Design with empathy and accessibility in mind
- Create a welcoming, impactful digital space
[NEW] CIOF refreshes face-to-face fundraising guidance after subcontracting inquiry
The Chartered Institute of Fundraising (CIOF) has updated its guidance on face-to-face fundraising in response to the Fundraising Regulator’s market inquiry into subcontracting last year.
CIOF said that it had made major revisions to its guidance for the first time since 2016 and aimed to strengthen best practice and improve accountability in face-to-face fundraising.
Its revised guidance follows the regulator’s conclusion in 2024 that charities needed to “tighten” their subcontracting arrangements and focus more on due diligence and contract management.
[NEW] How to achieve greater impact with volunteers
Explore the four key steps to volunteer recruitment and retention to help your impact go further.
[NEW] Cumberland Council newsletter
You can view Cumberland Council’s newsletter from 26/07/25 here, including:
- The Beacon Museum wins top travel award
- Funding now open to support Cumberland Harvest Festival events this autumn
- Creativity meets wellbeing in innovative new project
[NEW] Westmorland and Furness Council newsletter
You can view Westmorland and Furness Council’s newsletter from 25/07/25 here, including:
- Fighting the stigma around men’s mental health
- Free activities and meals for kids this summer
- Vote for Kirkby Lonsdale Fire Disaster Recovery Appeal Partnership
[NEW] Cyber security for small charities: how to stay protected
In this article, Charity Digital explore how small charities can strengthen their cyber security in practical, affordable ways.
[NEW] Former charities minister replaces Stuart Andrew as shadow culture secretary
Nigel Huddleston has been appointed shadow culture secretary, replacing fellow former civil society minister Stuart Andrew, as part of Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch’s frontbench reshuffle.
Andrew had served as Badenoch’s first shadow culture secretary since last year’s general election but will now take on the health brief from Edward Argar, who is stepping down due to a “health scare” according to the Melton Times.
Huddleston, who had been co-chairman of the Conservatives since November 2024, said on social media he was “delighted” to become shadow culture secretary, having been civil society minister from February 2020 until September 2022.
[NEW] Starmer says government considering business rates support for charities
Keir Starmer has said the government is considering how it can support charities facing financial challenges, including potential changes to business rates.
However, the prime minister once again ruled out an outright exemption for charities from a recently introduced rise in employer national insurance contributions (NICs), estimated to cost the sector £1.4bn a year.
Starmer was speaking at a Liaison Committee hearing last week, in which the culture select committee chair Caroline Dinenage asked what his government would do to support charities facing increased overheads and demand for their services as well as declining donations.
[NEW] Regulators call for tougher sanctions on unlicensed street fundraising
A national coalition of enforcement and regulatory bodies, convened by the Fundraising Regulator, has called on the government to reform what it describes as “outdated” legislation to tackle a rise in unlicensed street fundraising.
The Charity Commission, Local Government Association, Metropolitan Police and City of London Corporation were among those who co-signed a letter to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) calling for tougher sanctions to deter “rogue” operators.
In its letter, the group argued that the Police, Factories, & c. (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1916 is not fit for purpose in dealing with aggressive or misleading street fundraising and lacks the enforcement powers needed to stop unlawful activity effectively.
[NEW] CFG publishes new guide to help charities communicate better with banks
Charity Finance Group (CFG), the UK’s leading membership organisation for charity finance professionals, has published a new guide for charities.
The guide is a practical toolkit designed for medium-sized charities. Its aim is to support those charities that need to raise an issue or concern with their banks.
The new CFG guide sets out step-by-step how to raise an issue or concern, provides background information on ‘know your client’ and ‘anti-money laundering’ requests, and contains handy email templates for different types of communications.
Find out more and download the guide here
[NEW] 100 areas campaign launch
Across England, communities have been creating new spaces, building connections, and making local dreams a reality through Big Local. As part of their new campaign, Local Trust are celebrating a huge milestone of 100 local areas completing the Big Local programme.
From playgrounds to youth projects, community gardens to events, this is what happens when local people take the lead.
Read more and find a Big Local area near you
NCIC bulletin
You can read the latest newsletter from North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust here, including:
- Resident Doctor industrial action
- First patients attend appointments at new CDC
- Open visiting for all wards from Friday 1 August
Surveys, Research, Feedback and Reports
[NEW] Creative arts at the heart of research incorporating lived experience
The power of creative arts took centre stage in the second webinar of this year’s national #ARCseminar series.
The session, titled ‘Exploring lived experience with creative arts,’ highlighted how poetry, theatre, photography, and illustration are helping to give voice to people whose experiences are often underrepresented in health and care research.
[NEW] Mental health support urged for charity staff dealing with 2024 riots aftermath
A report published last week has called for mental health support for the staff of local charities managing the aftermath of last summer’s riots.
Published by health equity charity People’s Health Trust, the report entitled Standing Together details the short and long-term health impacts that the riots across the UK had on marginalised people in local communities as well as the staff and volunteers working at the charities that support them.
It describes the riots as “highly damaging” to the mental and physical health of charity staff and volunteers, with many “facing a direct threat to personal security because of the services they provide”.
[NEW] Civil society’s true economic contribution valued at nearly £40bn by think tank
Think tank economists have valued civil society’s true economic contribution at nearly £40bn a year, about double UK government estimates when including volunteer labour.
The government’s latest official Gross Value Added (GVA) statistics – which follow international accounting rules – estimate that civil society contributed £18.5bn in 2023, accounting for 0.8% of the UK economy and growing by 2.3% compared to the previous year.
However, research by PBE and commissioned by the Gradel Institute of Charity has estimated that civil society contributed £39.6bn in 2024, representing 1.5% of the economy and comparable to the combined output of the UK’s agriculture and car manufacturing sectors.
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.
