What are the threshold and core capabilities that funders look for in a voluntary organisation?
Do different funding agencies value similar or different capabilities in the voluntary organisations they wish to contract with or give grants to?
Do voluntary organisations inherently possess distinctive organisational capabilities?
Which organisational capabilities are likely to become more important over the next 3-5 years?

As part of the Third Sector Hub Sustainable Funding training programme Andy will be presenting a short briefing to help organisations to understand the current landscape of funding decisions.

The presentation and findings will be of particular interest to voluntary organisations operating in a competitive contract environment (tenders / large scale funding applications) and to procurement and commissioning staff from funding bodies, such as local authorities, primary care trusts etc.

The presentation will cover

INTRODUCTION
Setting the Scene – The “Contract Culture” and voluntary organisations
Brief background to the research

FINDINGS
Threshold capabilities – what characteristics, assets, resources and competences does a voluntary organisation need simply to “play the funding game”?
Core capabilities – which, if any, capabilities can begin to give a voluntary organisation competitive advantage?
Do voluntary organisations inherently possess distinctive capabilities that help them gain and sustain competitive advantage?
What do funders say they are going to be looking for in the future?

CONCLUSIONS
What are the implications for your organisation?
Question and answer session

The briefing will be held alongside the December meeting of the Third Sector Pioneer Group but is open to any qualifying indivdiuals. Places are very limited and are available to those North East Lincolnshire based Third Sector Organisations who are involved in contracts, procurement, tendering etc.

For further information or to book please contact Karl Elliott.

Cost is no longer an excuse. Computers and hardware has never been cheaper. Software is free. Websites can cost very little. It’s the knowledge and motivation that holds most organisations back. If technology is easy and cheap, why are organisations not taking it up?

The Third Sector Hub is promoting Effective IT. Third Sector Organisations need to have the right equipment, the right software, the right systems, the right online presence and, critically, the right advice and support to be resilient, sustainable and effective.

This briefing will cover key points about why IT is not just a ‘nice to have’, but is critical for the long term survival of Third Sector Organisaations. The briefing will introduce the options available and how to get huge results from small investment. And we’ll open up a workshop discussion after the briefing to help groups get the right support to move their IT forward.

If your organisation would like better support from IT or if you realise that your IT systems are holding you back, please invest some of your time on this free briefing and workshop to see what to do next.

Dates:
Tue 24th November, 9.30am
Fri 11th December, 12noon

Both at Melbourne House, both free, both around 1.5 hours in length.

Local Third Sector Organisations deliver critical services, tangible results and unique benefits and have many stories to tell. And stories work. People listen to stories, relate to them, pay attention and listen to the next story.

So does your organisation tell stories? Do you tell the right stories, through the right medium, in the right way, at the right time to the right audience? Or are you serving up marketing materials, sound-bites, interviews, conversations, emails, websites and other messages without thought, without design and without relating the stories to the people you’re talking to?

Your donors, volunteers, customers, clients, funders, partners all need to hear different things. And each media reaches different audiences in different ways. Printed media (marketing, press releases, emails), sound (your conversations, radio pieces) and images (video, tv) all need different skills.

This one day workshop delivered through the Third Sector Hub in partnership with CPO Media is to help you learn and practice skills related to improving your communication and improving your story telling.

We’ll study the communication process, learn how to prepare and fine tune messages and take a critical, hands-on look at how you get your messages across. We’ll look at written communication, we’ll use sound recording to test how your voice conveys your message and we’ll put you in front of a video camera and let you practice communicating visually.

Learn the basics, learn the rules and tips and get some practice in the mechanics of communicating properly.

At the end of the workshop you’ll know more about communication and will be able to go away and get your stories together ready to present to the world. There will be a maximum of 10 attendees in each workshop, so there will be plenty of hands-on learning.

If your organisation needs to communicate to others (everyone then!) then this is the easiest way for you to make some improvements.

The Third Sector Hub is promoting good communication for Third Sector Organisations. It’s a critical skill for long term sustainability. Funding flows from communicating well. Most of what you do can be made better through good communication.

At the end of this course, each attending organisation will get specific help to get their message across. By the end of 2009 the Third Sector Hub will be launching comprehensive guides to the Third Sector in North East Lincolnshire. These guides will provide online, offline, audio and video opportunities to tell the stories about our local Third Sector Organisations. Each organisation participating in this training is guaranteed priority exposure in these guides. We’ll even advise you as you work your messages up to the quality your stories deserve.

So sign up for one of these workshops and change the way you tell your story.

There is a final opportunity to take up this training:

Wed 10th February, all day, @Melbourne House
read more…

The course runs from 9.30am until around 4pm.
Refreshments will be available from 9am. Buffet lunch included.

The course is provided by the Third Sector Hub and delivered in partnership with CPO Media. Steve Ryder from CPO Media and Karl Elliott from the Third Sector Hub will present the course.

The course is heavily subsidised through the Third Sector Hub (funded via Yorkshire Forward) hence the attendee rate is just £20 per person.

A maximum of two attendees per organisation are permitted.

Download a flyer for this event here.