Building your charity’s resilience

Lucinda and Emily are joined by Ashling Cashmore, head of impact and advisory at the Charities Aid Foundation, and Mandy Rollins, chief executive of Disability Solutions West Midlands.

Ashling explains the six characteristics of a resilient charity, as described in a framework formulated by CAF to guide charities on a strengthening journey. These include effective leadership, financial and operational fitness, and a clearly articulated and understood sense of charitable purpose and impact.

She stresses the importance of ring-fenced funding for long-term investment into organisational sustainability and calls for other funders to support resilience initiatives.

Mandy describes how financial and technical support from CAF through its resilience programme has helped DSWM to bounce back from a turbulent few years. She identifies the charity’s biggest challenge as being the disconnect between its management team and board of trustees, and blurred lines between strategic and operational responsibility. 

Charity Changed My Life features the story of Kevin Massiah, who, thanks to a trip organised by the Willow Foundation, was able to take some much-needed respite from the everyday reality of living with Behçet's disease, a rare condition that causes inflammation of the blood vessels. 

Do you have stories of people whose lives have been transformed for the better thanks to your charity? If so, we’d like to hear them! All it takes is a short voice message to be featured on this podcast. Email lucinda.rouse@haymarket.com for further information.

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