dale lane

I’ve mentioned v (the independent charity and grant-provider that took over the running of Millennium Volunteers from DfES) a few times before, as they’ve grown out of the Russell Commission recommendations to a major figure in youth volunteering.

Last week, we submitted our funding bids to v – four separate bids totalling over £1.7million over three years. Nothing much to do now but wait for the next stage of the selection process on 10th September.

But I was reading this morning that we apparently have a lot of competition.

The youth volunteering charity v has received nearly 800 expressions of interest from organisations that want to apply for shares of the £70m funding available through its new National Youth Volunteering Programme.

Eek.

Still, I think we have submitted strong bids, in consortium with other local providers, so I am hopeful.

I twittered earlier this morning saying that today I was getting to be a volunteer for SYA for a day (helping one of the youth groups and driving a minibus) instead of just being a trustee. I quickly got three replies pointing out that trustees are volunteers, so I was talking nonsense. 🙂

They’re right, of course… but that’s not what I meant.

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Yesterday, I went to a conference about the Charities Act 2006. Hosted by the Charity Commission and the Office of the Third Sector (is it just me or is that not a great name?), it was a chance to find out more about the implementation of the Act.

What was covered?

Speakers included senior staff from both the Charity Commission and Office of the Third Sector. They started by pitching the new Act as an long-overdue overhaul of the regulatory framework which govern charities. (Apparently, this act contains the first legal definition of a charity since the 1600s – which I didn’t know). A lot of emphasis was placed on the themes of modernising the system, streamlining processes and removing red-tape, as well as shaping the system so as to strengthen the public’s faith and trust in charities.

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Budget 2007 was a little while ago now, but I’ve only recently started to have a look through some of the finer details. In particular, I’m looking out for the sections which will affect charities.

One change jumps out of a lot of the analysis produced by groups involved in charities: the effect of changes in income tax rates.

The basic rate of income tax was reduced in the budget. At first glance, this sounds like a good thing, but it has a knock-on effect on Gift Aid – the scheme where charities can reclaim the tax paid on donations received from UK taxpayers. For many charities, Gift Aid makes a significant difference to the income that they receive.

By reducing the basic rate of income tax the Budget has essentially reduced Gift Aid claims from 28.2% to 25% (from next April). After a little maths, this works out to meaning that (in order to keep the same level of income that they currently receive) charities will need each of their donors to add 25p to every pound that they currently give.

Or in other words, imagine a donor who currently makes a monthly direct debit of £5. They will now need to increase this to at least £7.20 a month for the charity to get the same amount of income (allowing for tax change and inflation).

Our imaginary donor may be unwilling to do this, which means that charities like us need to start planning now on how to handle this impact on fund-raising.

This week saw a change at ECS House. To start with a little history, Eastleigh Community Services was where my charity, Solent Youth Action, started. We began as a project ran by ECS, and we’re still physically based in ECS House – renting some office space from them since we became independent. So even though we are now independent, we still watch what happens to ECS with interest.

This week was the launch of their rebranding – including a change of name to “One Community”. I’d heard of the planned name change a little while ago, but I hadn’t seen the new logo or tagline yet.

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