Following the greatest economic upheaval in a generation, community, voluntary and charitable organisations are preparing for extremely challenging times in 2009 and beyond.

The Wheel has developed this Recession Toolkit to help equip community and voluntary groups with the practical information resources required to weather this economic storm.

Managing Your Resources in a Recession

Training

In response to the recession, The Wheel has developed a new half-day workshop called ‘Making More With Less’ to support groups as they assess and address the challenge posed by the recession. The half-day workshop is being offered throughout the country in 2009.

The practical elements of the workshop include:

• A Financial Awareness toolkit

• Analysis of the changes to the fundraising environment  

• A strategic options check list

• An exploration of what can be done to grow existing income streams

You can find out more about the workshops here.

Downloads

Money Counts - a Financial Toolkit for Small and Medium Sized Voluntary Organisations

Money Counts templates

Fundraising in a Recession (a report from 2into3)

25 Tips for Fundraising in Tough Times (The Ireland Funds)

Recession and the Charity Sector (Fundraising Ireland)

Managing Risk

Community and voluntary organisations are not immune from risk. In fact, they operate in particularly high-risk environments, coping with uncertain funding streams, working with vulnerable client groups, being dependent on voluntary input, dealing with continuously changing public representatives and civil servants etc.

Risk cannot be avoided, but most types of risk can be anticipated and therefore planned for. By properly managing risk, the negative effects of hazards can be reduced. It is important that those who run not-for-profit organisations, whether as volunteers or paid staff, are aware of the risks involved and feel comfortable dealing with these. In these challenging economic times, managing risk, especially around financial risk, becomes even more important.

Training

The Wheel is running a series of workshops on the topic called ‘Introducing Risk Management’ throughout 2009.  At this workshop participants will also recive a free copy of our new good-practice resource guide ‘Reducing the Risk’.

You can find out more about the workshops here.

Downloads

Introducing Risk Management to Organisations (the slides relating to The Wheel workshop)

Managing Risk in Your Organisation (a short good practice note from The Wheel)

Guidelines on Reserves Policy (developed by The Wheel)

Employment Law in a Recession

The changing economic climate may compel many community and voluntary organisations to review their existing employment arrangements.

Employers should, however, be aware that there have been significant changes in Employment Law during the past few years, and it is essential that those dealing with human resources in community and voluntary organisations are informed about their rights and obligations under the law.

Downloads

The report below offers in-depth guidance on the following key areas of employment law:

• Redundancies: procedures, the employers responsibilities and the employees rights;

• The Employee Handbook: explaining the terms of employment, disciplinary procedures, dispute resolution etc.

Employment Law in a Changing Economic Climate

www.Fundingpoint.ie

Fundingpoint.ie is the online source of funding information for the Irish community and voluntary sector. Developed and maintained by The Wheel, with support from the Vodafone Foundation, Fundingpoint.ie lists comprehensive details for over 500 funding schemes from a variety of sources, including central and local government, independent trusts and corporate foundations. It is an invaluable and labour-saving research tool when looking to diversify funding for your organisation.

www.fundingpoint.ie for further information or email Paul Meade on paul@wheel.ie

Resource Guides

Equip your organisation with our series of management and resource guides and publications.

List of The Wheel’s publications.

Additional Resources

Recession – Watching is Not an Option (published by THINK consulting)

What Happens to Charities in a Downturn (research published by nfpSynergy)

The Direction of Major Gift Giving in Ireland (a report by Prospect 23 and 2into3)