Russam GMS, one of the leading providers of interim managers, has been awarded the prestigious Investors in People Gold Award in recognition of its continued commitment to develop, motivate, value and support its employees.

Russam GMS is celebrating 30 years in business this year and was praised for achieving a high level of long-term business success in a very competitive marketplace. This success was attributed to the professionalism, expertise and exceptional client service and satisfaction levels of everyone in the business.

Investors in People highlighted the company’s very clear and well published set of organisational core values, pointing out that everyone in the company lives the values in everything they do. The company was praised for investing in its people in every way, with the outcome being a happy, experienced, qualified and extremely capable team that delivers exceptional customer service to clients.

Charles Russam, Chairman of Russam GMS comments: “We are extremely proud we have been awarded the Investors in People Gold award and full credit goes to everyone in the company for achieving this accolade. We are a small team and sincerely believe that this recognition will contribute significantly to the on-going success of the business – especially in these challenging economic times.”

Investors in People stated that Russam’s strengths lay in its ‘inspirational leadership’ at senior level; its ‘sound financial systems’, the ‘continuous development of management capabilities’ and the importance the company places on ‘succession planning’ to prepare employees to take on additional roles and responsibilities.

The company was also praised for keeping its team fully aware of the strategic and tactical business aims and objectives, especially given the fact the team is split between offices and has a number of home workers. It achieves this is through its highly effective communication strategy and the ‘Away Days’ it hosts at least three times a year, which are treated as employee learning and development opportunities. Coaching and mentoring is also something that happens throughout the company as a matter of course.

Charles Russam adds: “We place a lot of emphasis on learning, training and development and this is something that the Investors in People assessor points out is exceptional in our business compared with much larger companies with much bigger budgets.”

Russam GMS achieved Investors in People recognition in 2006 and since then it has worked hard within the Investors in People framework to meet key objectives, including gaining re-recognised status in April 2012 and now achieving this Gold Award.

Investors in People was launched in 1991 and is the UK’s leading standard for people management. It specialises in transforming business performance through people and over a third of the UK workforce now uses Investors in People as the industry benchmark in people management.

Diane Morris, Director, Interim Women

We were delighted to welcome digital marketing and social media expert and author Annmarie Hanlon to Interim Women’s latest event at Cote restaurant in St Paul’s in London last week.
Annmarie Hanlon, is a respected author of digital marketing books and founder of digital marketing consultancy Evonomie www.evonomie.net

Annmarie guided us through the world of social media and shared her expert tips on how to use LinkedIn and Twitter to engage with people and even win new clients. She also stressed what not to do.

We were given a short course in LinkedIn etiquette and introduced to new functionality most of us didn’t know existed. We were urged to ‘put on our invisibility’ cloaks when making minor updates to our profiles to ensure we don’t annoy our contacts and showed how to activate our privacy settings. Twice a day is adequate for LinkedIn updates – any more risks contacts ‘wanting to turn down the noise’ and disengage with us.

We also learnt how to make our professional profiles stand out to ensure we can be found easily on google and how to use Twitter to engage others and the tools to use, such as Hootsuite, to manage Twitter effectively. We were also given tips on how to use #’s appropriately and link our Twitter and LinkedIn accounts in the right way.

Annmarie urged us to get recommendations and recommend others and to make it really easy for people to recommend us – suggesting text and giving people a get out clause if they haven’t got time.

One of the many things I took away from the night was the fact that LinkedIn and Twitter are now eclipsing blogs in terms of importance. So, there should be no stopping us. Let’s get tweeting!

Ian Joseph, Managing Director – Charities and Not for Profit, Russam GMS and director Trustees Unlimited

On 22nd March, we hosted our annual post budget breakfast and invited charity finance directors and senior executives from the third sector to London’s Athenaeum club for a post mortum.
Our speaker Ian Theodoreson, CFO, Church of England gave his reaction to the budget to guests including Tom Davies, Chief Executive Computer Aid International, Kris Murali, Group Director of Finance and Resources at Sense, Bill Cottle, Deputy Exec Director Finance & Services at Unicef UK Eliot Lyne, interim Head of Finance at Greenpeace and Fiona Fisher, trustee at Skills Third Sector.
We agreed that it was a budget for business, with very little content in it for the third sector, no mention of the ‘big society’ in spite of its focus in the previous two budgets and no sign of Minister for Civil Society, Nick Hurd.

Charities have welcomed a pledge in today’s Budget to simplify the administration of Gift Aid in charity shops.
The policy was not mentioned in Chancellor George Osborne’s Budget speech in parliament, but is listed in the full Budget document that was published immediately afterwards.
The document says: “The government will work with the charity sector to simplify the administration of Gift Aid in the context of charity shops.”
A spokesman for the British Heart Foundation, which has 709 shops across the UK, said the administration of Gift Aid from donated goods cost the charity about £150,000 per year in staff time and postage.
“This is a really welcome announcement,” he said. “The current process is very cumbersome and this should save us a lot of money.”
Charity Tax Group warns that plans to end zero-rating for improvements to listed buildings will have a substantial effect on charities
Charities could lose more than £63m a year if the government goes ahead with proposals announced in the Budget to charge VAT on improvements to listed buildings , the Charity Tax Group has warned.
Documents released alongside today’s Budget speech said that the government would hold a consultation on charging VAT on “approved alterations” to listed buildings as part of moves to clear up anomalies in VAT legislation.
Improvements to listed buildings, such as installing wheelchair lifts or improving toilets and heating, are currently zero-rated for VAT. But a consultation paper from HM Revenue & Customs proposes that the relief be abolished from 1 October this year. Repairs to listed buildings already attract VAT at the full rate of 20 per cent. The consultation closes on 4 May.
However, the government will extend an existing grant scheme that covers some of the VAT on repairs to places of worship – it will now also cover VAT on improvements, the documents say. The paper does not say whether the size of the fund would be increased to reflect the additional demand.
Peter Jenkins, special adviser on VAT to the CTG, said: “The decision to remove VAT relief on alterations to listed buildings will have a substantial effect on charities. It’s likely that about three-quarters of the £85m will be lost by charities.
“There are between 35,000 and 50,000 listed buildings, and this will affect about 1,000 cases a year.
“There’s a more general VAT relief for the construction of charitable buildings and I worry that this could be under threat as well. However, I’ve been reassured by HMRC that this won’t be the thin end of the wedge.”
Crispin Truman, chief executive of the Churches Conservation Trust, said: “It would be quite bad news. We have done a lot of alterations to listed churches that have been zero-rated and have given new life to buildings. For local communities struggling to save their church and for church buildings paid for by local volunteers this is yet another burden.”
speech this time around. Has the charity sector been so soon forgot? Dan Corry contemplates.
The last two coalition Budgets have held interesting developments for the sector—the focus on ‘Big Society’ and changes to gift aid last year were a pretty big deal.

By comparison, this year’s announcement contained no such big stories. From a macroeconomic perspective there was little new. The forecasts are still for low growth, way below the 2.5 per cent promised not long ago, and there was no real change to public spending. Broadly that means that the needs of the people which charities try to serve will continue to grow, whilst the resources charities have from public sources will continue to diminish. Hard times will continue, not least as the Chancellor strongly signaled more welfare cuts ahead.

What was fascinating from the voluntary sector’s perspective was less what the Chancellor said, but more what he did not say. OK, one can be a bit over-sensitive, but I counted only one passing reference to charities in his speech. And that once key phrase ‘Big Society’ did not get a look in this year. Clearly the hyper politically savvy Chancellor is not a fan.

At a time when the Chancellor had little to say on growth—unless you are a believer that scrapping the 50p tax rate and some corporation tax reductions will do the trick—I would have expected a bit more about how he was creating a new economy with social enterprise, social investment and dynamic not-for-profits at its heart. Digging down into the small print, the sector did get a promise of a review of financial barriers to social investment, but with little sense of urgency.

There were also nods to the sector on some aspects of gift aid, and on highlighting that the reduced rate of inheritance tax is to come into being soon. The story that the sector seems to be focusing on is the cap on tax relief, with the Chancellor announcing that anyone seeking to claim more than £50,000 of these reliefs in one year would be subject to a cap at 25 per cent of their income. While a sensible sounding policy overall, it has the potential to adversely affect giving by high-net-worth individuals. The detail of the Budget document shows that the government plans to ‘explore with philanthropists ways to ensure that this measure will not impact significantly on charities that depend on large donations’. Easy to say but no doubt hard to achieve. We shall wait and see the results of this exploration with interest.

This Budget will probably be recalled for marking the scrapping of the 50p rate and as a result raising the question of how much we are still ‘all in it together’. But for the sector, I doubt it will be much of a Budget to remember.

Jason Atkinson – Managing Director, Russam Interim

International assignments make up around 11% of the overall interim management market; however, the market is evolving fast. We are seeing a growing demand for UK interim talent from international companies and UK companies recruiting interims to help them establish an operation overseas.

We have just published a new research report, ‘The International Interim Market 2012’, which highlights that demand for interim talent is particularly strong in Western European countries, but is emerging, albeit far more slowly, in the BRIC nations and Asia too.

Out of the 460 interims who responded to our survey, 8 out of 10 had completed assignments overseas. 67% of them had clocked up between five to 10 years of international interim experience, nine out of ten were men aged between 45 and 60. Only 10% were women – and the market is very male dominated.

79% said that demand for interims overseas is strong because international firms need specialist skills on a temporary basis when they can’t resource projects locally. Half of them also said that UK qualifications and the ‘British’ interim manager ‘brand’ are both prized highly abroad.

Project management is the most popular kind of assignment, followed by general management roles and business development projects. A fifth is working on financial projects so there is strong demand for financial experts. Half of interims had worked in manufacturing or engineering firms, 31% in professional services firms and 27% in banking or financial services companies.

The top ten international destinations for British interims are:
1. Western Europe
2. Eastern Europe
3. USA and Canada
4. Africa
5. Middle East
6. South East Asia
7. Australia and New Zealand
8. BRIC countries
9. India
10. China

However, this list might well look very different in five years time. In terms of future growth, Asia was considered the number one market, followed by the BRIC countries and then Western Europe.

According to the respondents there are many benefits associated with overseas working. The number one perk was the challenging and stimulating nature of working abroad, second on the list was the higher levels of pay and thirdly, the fact there were a greater number of jobs available. Surprisingly, the excitement of living in a foreign country and learning a new language were considered less important.

But working overseas is not without challenges. 40% admitted that leaving family and friends was difficult, 17% said that it was very intensive experience with little downtime and 13% claimed the cultural differences were challenging.

Overseas working is also a man’s world, with the majority admitting they rarely encounter women in similar positions when abroad. They cited several barriers hindering women’s progress including security issues, cultural differences in many Middle Eastern countries and a ‘macho mentality’ in Southern European countries. They also said it is easier for men to live in hotels and more ‘acceptable’ for men to dine in restaurants alone.

One of the main points that came out in the research too was the fact that just like in the UK; international firms are recruiting interims based on their competence and experience. They want people with proven international business experience, as well a ‘global outlook,’ who can integrate into their business and culture and deliver the goods. This is the key to a successful assignment in the UK or overseas.

But, the international market is lagging behind the UK. Many firms don’t hire women in senior positions - something we hope will change over time.

Based on the key findings of the report, I wanted to share with you my top ten tips for international interim success:

1. Learn the language, smile, make friends and adapt to the cultural dynamics
2. Establish a good relationship with the client quickly but keep in regular contact with your home and office
3. Keep an open mind; the UK is not the be-all and end-all
4. Make sure your contract covers all eventualities – remember you will be travelling in your own time often and much of it will be unpaid
5. Hit the ground running, do what has to be done, don’t put on any airs. You are one of the workers, not a colonial officer
6. Your personality is as important as your skills
7. Don’t go native and don’t expect the locals to like you – you have taken one of their jobs
8. Integrate and don’t be too ‘British’
9. Be prepared for things to take longer than in the UK
10. Treat it as an adventure. Enjoy the differences, relish the can do environment and get on and deliver

We have just launched a new division - Russam International (www.russam-international.com), to meet the growing demand for British Interim Managers overseas. We will be sourcing interim specialists from all industry sectors with expertise of working in challenging international markets.

In response to increasing client demand, Russam GMS has launched a specialist search offering to recruit CEOs and Senior Executives for charities and Not-for-Profit organisations.

The new service is led by Ian Joseph and strengthened by Olga Johnson, former Managing Director of CR Search and Selection, who has joined Russam GMS, bringing many years’ experience of recruiting senior people in the charity sector.

The company has just recruited the new CEO for War Child and is in the process of recruiting the CEOs for the soon to be merged Princess Royal Trust for Carers/Crossroads Care and for the Royal Blind Society and Eyeless Trust.

Ian Joseph, Managing Director, Charities and Not-for-Profit comments, “Officially launching a search and selection offering was the next logical step for our evolving business. We have been conducting search alongside our interim and trustee work for a number of years but increased demand necessitated the need to devote more time and resource to meet this growing area. We are delighted to welcome Olga Johnson to the team and look forward to helping many of our existing and new clients with their senior permanent appointments.”

By Diane Morris, Director, Interimwomen.com

Not everyone wants to work for one employer, with set hours and fixed pay and being an Interim Manager is an option suited to senior level women looking for greater career flexibility and an opportunity to work for different clients in diverse industry sectors.

Interims are hired primarily to problem solve; to work on high level projects that need specific expertise and skills and for many, the challenging nature of the work is the main attraction. However, it is not a soft temporary option - it is hard work; assignments are intense and there can be long gaps between projects when you are not earning.

Every six months Russam GMS, an interim provider who set up Interimwomen undertakes a snap shot market survey of 12,000 interim managers and its most recent report in January 2012 provided great insight into the latest market trend, pay rates and the work interims are doing.

The top three sectors for women are charities and not for profit (20%), public sector (20%) and NHS (15%). Just 8% work in the banking and financial services, 6% in engineering and manufacturing and the rest work in other sectors like IT, telecoms and retail. More men dominate positions in the private sector, banking and finance where pay rates are higher.

One clear trend emerging from the research is the evolving nature of interim assignments. Traditionally interim management was all about ‘gap filling’ – with interims hired to cover maternity leave or sudden absences. However, things have moved on and such roles now only make up 13% of assignments. The majority of businesses today recruit interims because they bring in specialist skills that don’t exist internally. They use them for specific strategic projects such as business restructuring, implement new strategies or to lead change programmes. As a result, a growing number of interims now see themselves as ‘change managers’.

It is important to note too that there are no age barriers in the industry. Interims in their 50s and 60s represent 78% of the market and those in their 50s, who make up the core of the market, command the highest pay rates – £648 a day. However, the industry is still male dominated – something we want to change. The average daily rate for women was £555, 13.5% less than men who are paid £630. The research shows that this could be because greater numbers of women work in sectors such as charities where pay is lower.

Last summer, we carried out an in-depth study of 1600 women working as Interim Managers, ‘Women in Interim Management – how to succeed, the opportunities and challenges,’ to uncover the top attractions of a career in Interim Management. The number one reason for women making the transition from their permanent careers was the desire to work for a range of clients and in different industries – they also wanted to run their own businesses and be the boss. Surprisingly, money was not a major motivator - most women see Interim Management as a way of gaining greater career flexibility and work life balance, and a means of gaining new skills and experience.

Half of all women found the transition from permanent to Interim work difficult and said that it took several months or more to find work, with some taking up to a year. They stressed the importance of careful financial planning and creating a financial buffer to cope.

To win assignments, networking with former clients, colleagues and bosses pays dividends. Around a third found their first assignment through a personal recommendation or referral, 30% found work through an Interim Recruitment Provider, 27% said it was through networking and one in ten used the social networking sites Twitter and Linked In.

Most concluded that although it was hard work, it was worth it. They also full of some straight talking advice and practical tips to ‘would be’ interims. These tips were truly inspirational and motivating but at the same time very practical and realistic. I’ve highlighted a few of my favourites below:

• Take a long time to make your decision and consider all your options. Make sure you have a financial cushion of at least a year’s outgoings before you take the plunge

• Talk with as many other interim managers as you can to get a good ‘feel’ for what being an interim is like.

• Prepare a business plan

• Be flexible and ready to learn new skills.

• Apply for lots of credit before starting - sort mortgage etc - because it will take 2 years to build up the credit rating again. Register for VAT before making any purchases

• Make sure you can deal with the uncertainty of the work and cash flow - some people can’t and permanent employment is a better option for them

• Present yourself as a complete professional, Meet and get registered with the main Interim Management agencies and have a clearly defined service offer

• Do your homework before deciding to make sure it is the right career choice for you i.e. - What benefits will you bring to a client? - What are your strengths? - What are your needs? - Is there a market for what you have to offer? - Do targeted networking and spread the word about what you do

• You need to be able to be self motivated and get on with the job of generating business - even though you may not always feel like it. Ensure you have a good network of contacts - join Linked-in!

• Once you are sure this is what you want to do stick at it and don’t give up!

It was management consultant, Tom Peters, who said that there’s no such thing as a great leader who communicate poorly and I couldn’t agree more. Communication doesn’t just lie at the heart of great leadership; it’s the lifeblood running through any organisation. Communication makes or breaks organisational change, employee engagement and getting that well-crafted strategy off a piece of paper and into action. But, despite communication’s importance and inherent familiarity with us all, it takes particular skill and courage to communicate with employees clearly, passionately and sensitively each and every day!

Before we look more closely at leadership communication and the role that courage plays, it’s worth taking a step back and thinking momentarily about courage itself. History shows that courage ranks people morally. In fact, Aristotle recognised courage as a cardinal virtue – a golden mean. Alongside prudence and justice, he named it as a habit of the soul. Aristotle considered that, to be truly brave, one must have fears and the ability to recognise them with ease through deep self-awareness, a well-trodden concept in leadership commentary.

It doesn’t take a deep dive into the literature to recognise how much emotion that courage and its quest evoke and that’s not surprising when you look to its linguistic roots. The word courage comes from Latin ‘cor’ which literally means heart. There are always multiple definitions in any tale of courage but fear and risk are always the central characters. I would argue, therefore, that courage doesn’t just lie at the heart of leadership; it’s the backbone to impactful communication.
This article aims to link some of the thinking about courage explicitly to communication and specifically to leadership communication in organisations. Surprisingly, courage appears largely unexplored in the communication discipline. So, firstly, what is courageous leadership communication?

In Lane4’s experience of working with senior leaders, HR professionals and internal communications practitioners over the last sixteen years, we’ve noticed six consistent themes requiring courageous communication.

1. Ownership of the message. It is inevitable that leaders will, at some stage, deliver something that they don’t like or haven’t created. It won’t always be easy to really ‘own’ that message and to deliver it with authenticity to others.

2. Giving tough feedback. Giving tough feedback often takes courage. Many of us will have an impulse to tell people what they want to hear because it may evoke fewer or more favourable reactions. But courage is not about not being scared. It’s being scared and still doing it anyway. Courageous communicators don’t allow their actions to be influenced by fears of reaction or disappointment.

3. Sharing bold decisions. There’s a reason that leadership is not always easy. At the crux of it lies making tough, bold and often unpopular decisions that people won’t always like. This is synonymous with courageous communication.

4. Against preferences. Going against your natural personality traits can take courage. For example, a natural introvert might find standing up in front of a group difficult. Everybody’s looking at them. They’re visible and vulnerable to employees’ comments and views which can often evoke fear. But introversion is a preference, not an excuse when it comes to communicating courageously.

5. Really listening. Standing up and speaking takes courage but so does sitting down, really listening and helping people to make sense of organisational messages. It’s one thing perfecting a presentation, it’s another to open the floor up for questions, giving people a voice and really meaning it. What if they ask you something you don’t like or, worse still, to which you don’t know the answer?

M.A.D. – MESSAGE, AUDIENCE, DELIIVERY

I’ve written previously about the full spectrum of communication approaches available to leaders and, critically, the often overlooked informal and everyday conversations that can really influence organisational change. I’ve also suggested that operating in your ‘safe’ communication forum (an email, for example, rather than getting out among employees to have real conversations) is a preference or an act of convenience rather than an excuse when you’re a leader. It certainly takes courage to operate outside your preference but that’s no excuse. It should be a non-negotiable requirement of all leaders, particularly at the most senior level, to operate outside their communication comfort zones.

As important as the delivery mechanism of any piece of leadership communication is, truly great leadership communication is about more than powerful delivery. Two key things must happen before – working out your message and understanding the needs of your audience. In fact, I often say that it’s M.A.D. to think about where you’ll tell your story before you think about what your story is and who needs to hear what from it.

Crafting a compelling message was the first thing I learnt at journalism school and it didn’t stop there. It was drilled into us by some of the most respected news journalists in the industry – who, what, why, when, where and how. In fast paced-news journalism the message serves primarily to inform.

The newsworthy element is if it’s the first time something’s happened, if it’s had the biggest impact or if it has the potential to affect many people’s lives. But, in my transition from news journalism to business communication, it didn’t take long to appreciate that leadership communication or a leadership message isn’t news reporting.

In fact, in many ways, it’s far more complex. It’s not there just to tell people about issues and what they need to do (inform). It’s there to get people involved by getting their input (involve), capture people’s imagination (ignite) and invite participation (invite) No small feat then.

So, if we think broadly about why leaders may need to be courageous (tough message, against preferences, fear of feedback) then it’s important to think closely about what makes for an effective message. As hard as leaders must focus on how they want to be when they stand up in front of people, they can’t afford to forget the message. An effective message is free from ambiguity. Its intent is clear. And, let’s not confuse this message with its content.

A leader’s message is the whole reason for communicating. It’s the 30 second take away. If they had to strip everything out of a half an hour team meeting except one sentence, it’s what would remain. It’s the opening line of an email rather than the closing line. An effective message takes preparation, even for the most experienced and skilled leaders.

This is even more important when it’s a tough or seemingly complicated message requiring courage. Thinking about the message, asking trusted and expert views (including peers, Internal Communications and HR) and gathering feedback are all vital preparation points.

CRAFTING AN EFFECTIVE MESSAGE

-Why am I speaking?
-What do I want people to do, think, feel?
-If it’s a tough message, how might they react?
-What does the audience want to hear?
-What is the audience afraid to hear?
-What can your communications do to create unity and engage?

TALKING TOUGH:
TOP TIPS FOR TOUGH TALKING

Many of us have an impulse to tell people what they want to hear, often convincing ourselves that it’s better for them that way. But, I have seen too many leaders soften a message to make it easier for them to deliver and to avoid a difficult reaction. Courageous communicators deliver tough messages despite discomfort, often finding that once they develop a reputation for straight talk people will return the favour and trust is built.

1. Think about verbal and non-verbal communication and its impact on message effectiveness. Arriving late to a meeting can seem relatively mundane but alignment between actions and words, known as behavioural integrity, helps to build trust. Do you or your leaders say they care and then vanish for days? Is there an open door policy to discuss change but closed doors throughout the business? Do you or your leaders say information will be shared next Monday and deliver it on Friday with no explanation? These things matter. People are perceptive to, and critical of, any mismatch between words and actions.

2. Leaders are responsible for creating conditions for other people to be courageous, including meaningful opportunities to make sense of tougher messages. Being honest is more difficult than it sounds but leaders have to make conscious and courageous decisions to support transparency and create a culture of candour in their teams and throughout the organisation. Their positions as chief role models for candour should not be underestimated.

3. Practice having tough conversations because, as necessary as honesty is, inadvertent damage happens when leaders speak honestly about difficult subjects without due preparation and consideration.

4. Set information free. Absolute transparency is neither possible nor desirable in organisations. People know and understand this. Too often, however, it’s easier to not share than make tough decisions about what can be shared and the impact it may have. Silence is not a strategy, however, and deciding what information is withheld sits at the heart of courageous communication.

Leadership communication is complex, requiring both courage and thought to deliver messages that engage employees in the direction of travel of an organisation. Without effective communication, leadership severs its connection with the people who make organisations perform. Communication drives engagement and, it’s through engagement, that organisations maximise the potential of their most valuable assets – their people.

Russam GMS Charity Leaders’ Breakfast – Athenaeum Club, Pall Mall, London 18th January 2012

At a business breakfast for UK charity leaders hosted by award-winning recruitment company Russam GMS in January, guest speaker Dame Suzi Leather, Chair of the Charity Commission, led a discussion focusing on the challenges of securing charity investment in the current business climate. She also promoted the Charity Commission’s latest guidance for trustees on this subject – entitled ‘Charity and Investment matters’.

Dame Suzi highlighted the main investment challenges facing UK charities, including donors’ demanding quick wins and an immediate return on investment. She stated that many donors don’t understand the true investment needs of charities – the need for back office as well as front line investment and that it was the sector’s role to put them straight.

She suggested that trumpeting zero or minimal overheads as part of charities’ marketing messages can be counter-productive. She said donors must learn that charities need investment in running costs, operations, people and administration and that without it they won’t survive. She urged the sector to promote the benefits of ‘slow charity’ and pointed to the Commission’s new investment guidance as a tool in developing that approach. The new guidance makes clear that charities may invest their assets to achieve their aims directly – as well as to secure a financial return.

Dame Suzi said she hoped the new guidance will give trustees considering new forms of charity-to-charity social investment confidence in their own judgement. She also said it was time for charities to ‘go hunting’, to increase their investment in fund raising and approach the corporate sector not only for investment but for services and goods in-kind. She urged greater collaboration with corporates, especially where there is a good fit. She cited Network Rail’s collaboration with The Samaritans as a highly effective working partnership that is also helping to reduce suicide numbers on the railways.

The discussion sparked a lively debate amongst the audience, many senior sector leaders, and most agreed with the problems highlighted by Dame Suzi. Other key points raised in the discussions were:

• The need for charities to put in place timelines for reviewing any long term investments and to communicate this to donors

• Charity bonds were suggested as a way of generating funds for the sector

• It was agreed that there needs to be better evaluation of return on investment of any projects to attract new donors

• The importance of boards’ scrutinising not only what works well but what hasn’t worked so well was also mentioned.

Ian Joseph, Managing Director - Charities and Not-for-Profit, Russam GMS commented, “We were delighted to welcome Dame Suzi Leather as our guest. Funding is one of the biggest challenges facing all charities in the current climate and she not only articulated these problems but provided some really useful advice on how the sector could educate donors about the benefits of long term investment. Her concept of a ‘slow charity movement’ represents a paradigm shift in the way most donors think about investment and it is one that I hope we can help to promulgate.”

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