How the Charity Excellence Framework can help small charities
01 February 2024
Helping charities grow stronger and more resilient is a key part of what we do because we know that funding – even unrestricted, multi-year funding – can only go so far. By providing additional development support alongside our grants, we hope charities can thrive beyond our funding.
Our Regional Managers meet with our charity partners to talk through challenges they’re facing and what areas they want to develop around. This could be improving governance, developing a fundraising strategy or introducing a new database.
As part of our mission to help small charities develop, we recently piloted the use of the Charity Excellence Framework (CEF) to help charities identify areas they want to prioritise so that we can find the right support for them.
What is the Charity Excellence Framework (CEF)?
“A clear framework to assess where a charity is at and to see areas that need strengthening.” – Charity leader who participated in the pilot
Branded as ‘a free one-stop-shop for funding, policies, help and resources’ on their website, the CEF is an online tool that supports organisations across the voluntary sector to:
- search for funding and donors
- search for wider help with marketing, digital equipment and office space/furniture, consulting and training
- search for data around charitable giving statistics, pro bono advice and data tools
- use AI tools for fundraising and bid writing
- identify strengths, weaknesses and relevant resources using a ‘health check’ framework
Feedback from charities about using the Charity Excellence Framework
Our work focused on using the CEF to identify strengths, weaknesses and signpost relevant resources. Charities can sign up to the CEF with a free account and complete questionnaires across eight areas: strategy, risk, governance, people, operations, finance & resources, income generation, and communications.
The number of questions vary depending on the information the organisation provides about itself at sign up, such as their size and sector. Alongside each statement, users are also signposted to a variety of resources including policy templates, videos and guidance.
We surveyed our charity partners and Regional Managers to hear what they had to say about the CEF:
- Almost half of the charity partners who participated in the survey reported completing the tool within 1-2 hours, although some reported the tool taking 4-6 hours. However, the questionnaires don’t need to be completed all at once – you can choose which areas you want to prioritise.
- Everyone who participated said the tool helped them identify new organisational development needs. One charity leader said: “[The CEF provides] useful evidence for me as charity leader to demonstrate responsibilities/actions needed etc. to the Board.”
- 92% said they were definitely likely to recommend the tool to other organisations.
- There was particular praise for the tool being easy to use, having a wide range of resources, relevant templates and examples and a traffic light summary which visually represents how charities are doing.
What can charities use the Charity Excellence Framework for?
Our charity partners said they would continue to use the tool to:
- Ensure compliance
- Download resources
- Improve policies and procedures e.g. using drafts and templates
- Review how the organisation has changed e.g. completing the tool on a six month/annual basis
- Develop plans of action with chair and trustees
I have [used the CEF] over a number of years and will continue to use it on an annual basis as a quick double check that I've not missed anything when it comes to action planning for the year. I will also use elements of it to devolve responsibility and increase ownership to members of staff I am looking to develop. - Charity leader.
Our Regional Managers also praised the use of the tool as an aid to development conversations with charity partners:
It helped to focus the conversation and prioritise. In my experience charities do not need to do all the questionnaires to have a meaningful conversation. I would prioritise that they do governance, legal compliance, safeguarding and finance first and then build on the rest.
Using the Charity Excellence Framework is not a mandatory part of our process as we understand that capacity varies for every organisation. However, after hearing positive feedback from our charity partners that have used the tool, we encourage anyone wanting support to develop their organisational priorities to try it.
