Monthly Archives: March 2012

Er hello? Does anyone actually understand how the tax relief cap works?

Last week, I got in touch with HM Revenue & Customs and asked them how their new tax relief cap would work. This new idea – George Osborne’s only mention of charity in the Budget – means that you can’t claim tax relief on more than a quarter of your income, or £50,000, whichever is… Read more »

Scotland’s social enterprises seem to have it made

This year brought a new name for the annual Social Enterprise UK conference – the Social Enterprise Exchange – and a new venue – Glasgow. The conference was hosted in partnership with Social Enterprise Scotland, and it appeared as if around half the delegates were from north of the border. As a result, the whole… Read more »

New legislation could discourage extremely large one-off gifts to charity

So the chancellor has said that he’ll cap the amount you can claim back in tax each year at a quarter of your gross income, or £50,000, whichever is higher. How will this affect charities? The first thing to say is that it only applies in a limited number of cases, but those will be… Read more »

The first steps needed to raise your charity’s profile

Last week, along with my colleague Gemma Quainton, I went along to a “speedmatching” event for charities that wanted volunteer support for their media strategy. It was soon obvious that it was surprisingly hard to find a good match between my skills and the needs of small charities.

My night speedmatching. You know – speed dating for volunteers

After my recent blogs on my problems getting started with my new year’s resolution to volunteer, I was asked by the Media Trust to one of its ‘Speedmatching’ events –  you know, speed dating, but for would-be volunteers. The aim of the event is to put charities that need advice in touch with eager volunteers… Read more »

The rise of the amergermation

The past year has seen a lot of stories about charity mergers. A lot more are coming across our desks at Third Sector, and it’s obvious that the financial climate is driving people to think very hard about their independence. Nonetheless, when you read these stories, it’s clear from the common themes that at least… Read more »

Openness and transparency are a long way off

At the National Council for Voluntary Organisations’ annual conference yesterday, its chief executive Sir Stuart Etherington called for greater transparency about the Work Programme. “It is appalling that voluntary sector organisations are being gagged,” he said, referring to the clauses in some Work Programme contracts that say organisations will “not do anything which may attract… Read more »