Issue 554| 31 January 2019
Enter the NAVCA Awards now!
We are excited to announce that the NAVCA Awards 2019 are now open for nominations!
NAVCA members can nominate your organisation, your colleagues or even yourself in a choice of nine categories which are all about showcasing the stars of local social infrastructure.

This is your opportunity to tell your own story; to celebrate and showcase your staff and volunteers, and to demonstrate the difference you make every single day. Categories include leadership, rising stars, campaigning & advocacy and using digital, plus much more. You can find the full list of categories and criteria here.

To enter the awards, we are asking you to submit a 300 word statement and a short video. To submit your entry via our online form, you will need a Google email account. If you don’t have one already, don’t worry – setting one up is really straightforward. Take a look at this tutorial. Nominations are open now and will close at midnight on Sunday 24 February 2019. You can submit your entry here.

Save the date: NAVCA Awards Ceremony
We will be announcing the winners of the NAVCA Awards 2019 at an awards ceremony during the evening of 19 March 2019 , at St Bride’s in London.
News, views and opportunities
Poor and hungry in Newcastle
NAVCA member Newcastle CVS has released a report – Poor and hungry in Newcastle – which highlights the worrying trends in rising food poverty in the city, focusing on the response from local voluntary and community groups in Newcastle.

The key findings include:

  • There has been a noticeable increase in food poverty in the last six years.
  • Those people affected by food poverty are no longer just those associated with homelessness and people falling on ‘hard times’. Many of the people who use foodbanks today are employed, working people and there is particular concern around children going hungry.
  • The report shares stories where the voluntary sector has been able to offer help, but asks what of those who have slipped through the net?
  • A number of organisations don’t want to over-publicise their activities around food poverty because they can’t cope with the demand.
  • Many organisations reported increasingly handing out food informally when it is known someone is in need.
 
Newcastle CVS suggests that the key issue is not response, creativity, generosity and kindness, but one of policy.
 
The full report: Food Poverty in Newcastle: The Voluntary and Community Sector View and Response is available here. You can also read a blog about the report, written by Newcastle CVS’s CEO, Sally Young. See what others are saying and join in the conversation on Twitter using #PoorandHungry.
Big Lottery Fund rebrands
The Big Lottery Fund along with the Heritage Lottery Fund have rebranded to more clearly represent the link between playing the National Lottery and the good causes that benefit.

The Big lottery Fund, which is the UK’s largest community funder, is now called The National Lottery Community Fund. It also has a new brand identity which shows the well known National Lottery crossed-fingers. The brand refresh comes at the start of the National Lottery’s 25 th anniversary year and is designed to help players better understand the difference they make when buying a ticket.

The Heritage Lottery Fund is now to be known as The National Lottery Heritage Fund. You can read more about this story here.
Six things from the world of grant-makers
The Directory of Social Change (DSC) has published six things from the world of grant-makers you should know about in 2019. These nine useful summaries cover new developments that could give you an edge in applying for grant funding. Whether you’re a fundraiser, policy bod, chief exec, or volunteer trustee, give this a read for some important up to date context about what’s happening in the world of grant-making.
Digital roundup
Hop into digital service delivery in 2019
Tech for good company, CAST, is offering practical, accessible introductions to digital and how to approach it in a strategic way. Design Hops are free half-day workshops designed to help those just beginning to explore the role of digital in their services. You can find out more about Design Hops, including what others say about them, and what you can expect to learn in this blog .

CAST will be running tens of Design Hops around the UK this year and you can register directly here . CAST is looking for local sector infrastructure bodies that are interested in helping it to support nonprofits locally through Design Hops, just get in touch on: DesignHops@wearecast.org.uk .
Picking a fundraising site
Following the announcement that BT My Donate will close in the summer, Cambridge CVS has compiled this very useful list of fundraising sites to help charities and community groups choose an alternative when BT My Donate is no longer available.
Protecting children’s data online
In a new report, the Children's Commissioner has raised concerns that information collected about a child today might jeopardise their future, potentially affecting whether they are offered a university place, job or financial products (such as insurance or credit). The report, Who knows what about me? – explores how we can protect and empower children online and hold social media companies to account. You can read the full report here.
NAVCA members: How are you doing digital?
NAVCA is working on the next ‘In Practice’ publication, in which we’ll be sharing the ways that our members are using digital technologies. This can include any area of your organisation, whether it be operations, internal communications, marketing, fundraising, reaching your beneficiaries or service delivery – we want to hear about it! We know that implementing new digital technologies doesn’t come easily so tell us about the challenges and the problems you’ve experienced, as well as the good stuff.

Please send an overview of your experiences and examples to linx@navca.org.uk .
Events
This year’s campaign slogan, 'Together for a better internet', is a call to action for all stakeholders to join together and play their part in creating a better internet for everyone, and especially for younger users. There are lots of ways to get involved on the website.

Do you want to be a charity trustee, but you worry about joining a dysfunctional board? Are you a charity planning to recruit new trustees, but you want to ensure that your board stays effective? Or perhaps your charity’s board doesn’t operate as usefully as it might?

In this talk - organised by trustee recruitment charity, Getting on Board and kindly hosted by ICSA The Governance Institute - Diana Garnham will use her extensive experience to explore some of the board behaviours that lead to ineffectiveness including lack of diversity of thinking, self-interest, focus on the operational, disengagement from the wider world, dominant trustees or too many long-serving. These are the situations that those who are new to trusteeship probably want to avoid so Diana will also highlight the characteristics of the effective board where new trustees are most likely to be both welcomed and valued.

The event is aimed at aspiring and current trustees, charity leaders and advisers and anyone with an interest in charity governance. Book your free place now.

This year’s Time to Talk Day is all about bringing together the right ingredients, to have a conversation about mental health. Whether that’s tea, biscuits and close friends or a room full of people challenging mental health stigma, we want you to get talking. Having conversations about mental health helps break down stereotypes, improve relationships, aid recovery and take the stigma out of something that affects us all. There are lots of different ways to have a conversation about mental health. And you don’t have to be an expert to talk. However you do it, make sure you have a conversation about mental health this Time to Talk Day. More information.
 
The event is for anyone working in the charity sector with an interest in the power of storytelling in raising awareness, changing perceptions, inspiring action, recruiting volunteers, engaging supporters and generating funds.
The Big Lunch 2019 - save the date
The Big Lunch was a huge success in 2018 so the organisers, Eden Project Communities, are asking you to Save the Date for June 1-2 in 2019 . Sign up now to receive your Big Lunch pack and begin planning how you’ll bring your community closer together this year.

Watch the video and visit thebiglunch.com for ideas and inspiration.
Jobs
Visit our  jobs page  for more details on current vacancies in the voluntary and community sector:

Chief Executive Officer, Poole CVS and Bournemouth CVS

Also here's a   quick guide  to selling yourself when applying for a job in the voluntary sector.

Advertise jobs and contracts here, on our website and through our Twitter page! Just send details including a weblink to   webedit@navca.org.uk . This service is free to members.
Funding, contracts & awards
Our funding section is brought to you by  Community Matters Yorkshire .

The D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust funds United Kingdom Registered Charities operating in the UK in the fields of the advancement of the arts, health and medical welfare and environmental protection or improvement. The majority of the Trust’s grants are single grants over a one-year period. Occasionally longer-term grants (usually up to 3 years) are agreed by the Trustees when deemed to have particular merit. Deadline 07 February.

The Education Endowment Foundation's (EEF) funding tests the impact of high-potential projects aiming to raise the attainment of 3-18 year-olds, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. They do this to find out what's most likely to work effectively and cost-effectively, and to put that into action across the country. Deadline 15 February.

Macmillan recognises the importance of supporting the learning and development of both Macmillan professionals and the wider cancer workforce with the aim of improving the lives of people living with cancer.

The objectives of the Westhill Endowment are the promotion of education in the manner which reflects the principles of the Christian religion and the tradition of the historic free churches and the promotion of dialogue and educational interchange between the Christian Church and persons of other living faiths. To achieve these objectives Westhill supports community-transforming projects with advice and grants.

Happy Days supports groups who work with disadvantaged and disabled children and young people aged three to 17, funding day trips, theatre trips, family holidays and residential trips.
Blogs
Karen Dyson talks about her first 100 days in post as Policy & Influence Team Manager at MACC, including navigating everything that’s going on in Manchester and finding out what the sector needs from a CVS organisation.

Cambridge CVS – in its second featured blog of the week - sets out the three things that small charities want to say about commissioning.
Health and social care
NHS England to boost social prescribing with ‘army of workers’
This week NHS England has announced plans to recruit an ‘army of workers’ as part of plans to ramp up social prescribing.

One thousand social prescribing ‘link workers’ will be recruited as part of the  NHS Long Term Plan . It is hoped that they will handle around 900,000 patient appointments every year, easing pressures on GPs by reducing the number of appointments that are not directly related to medical conditions.

NHS England has reported on the growing evidence that referrals to community services such as exercise or art classes, history groups and ballroom dancing can boost health and wellbeing more than medication for many conditions.

Whilst NHS England’s commitment to social prescribing has been broadly welcomed, many in the VCSE sector have expressed disappointment that services are not being commissioned instead to local voluntary and community organisations, which in many areas are already delivering successful social prescribing schemes. This includes several NAVCA members, who use their unique position to coordinate social prescribing schemes, harnessing the power of communities to improve local people’s health and wellbeing.

To read more about NHS England’s plans, read the press release here .
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