Thursday 29th June marked the CFG Annual Conference in London.
As always it was a great event put on by the CFG team – there were around 700 delegates from the charity finance world.It was great catching-up with some old faces and new, and the sessions were excellent – informative, positive and useful for anyone working in charity finance.
With my recruitment hat on – here are some key takeaways from this year’s conference which I found useful:
-In a challenging market, creating a compelling value proposition for your charity is essential to attract and retain staff. Charities often can’t compete on pay versus other sectors, so ensure the purpose/cause of the charity is at the forefront of your value proposition to attract candidates who really care about what you do. Younger jobseekers also tend to move jobs more often, so retaining them at the 3-4 year point when statistically employees are at their most valuable and productive is important. This younger demographic is motivated by a positive working culture, diversity, flexibility and recognition– so highlight this in your value proposition. Less emphasis should be on the content of the role and traditional benefits perks such as pension.
-The cost of living crisis is here to stay for charities. Charities financial situations are no longer in the post-Covid firefighting state, and they are now facing an ongoing cost of living crisis with donations decreasing, an increased cost base and inflation. Some ideas from CAF bank on how to tackle this include: Focus your charity on its core purpose and programmes and don’t spread services too thinly, invest any spare money the charity has and don’t let it sit in a current account, review any unclaimed Gift Aid, invest in cybersecurity to tackle cyber fraud, consider increasing salaries for lower paid staff by a bigger % than executive salaries, and finally – try to focus on the holy grail of unrestricted donations!
-Ensuring generational diversity in the workforce is crucial. It’s hard to recruit generally at the moment – we have low unemployment, not many active jobseekers and more jobs than candidates. And crucially lots of the current workforce are over 50, with many likely to retire over the next 10-15 years. It is therefore important to have a diverse workforce in terms of age, to plan for the future. Generational diversity is also incredibly important to ensure a range of perspectives and expertise in the workforce, and on boards.The key to attracting candidates across different generations is to build flexibility into your value proposition and benefits package – different elements will appeal to different generations. In general, more needs to bed one to assist returning to work parents – assigning a ‘return to work coach’ has been seen to work well.
-Trustees –friend or foe? The importance of effective boards. Research suggests Trustees feel more disconnected to organisations than previously due to most interaction now being remote. Effective governance is vital to provide strategic leadership, accountability and it sets the tone for the charity.Balance and breadth on a board is crucial, as are expertise – have a skills audit for the board, do they have the expertise required? Ensuring outcomes for committee meetings is crucial, to avoid time-wasting or duplication. And the relationship between CEO/SLT is vital – working in partnership as a ‘dynamic duo’ is the overall aim.
I would like to say a big thanks to Caron and the team at CFG for a great event!
#cfgac2023 #marblemayne #charityfinance
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