We know just how valuable the work of the Small Charities Coalition can be for all those involved but no one can communicate it better than those who have experienced it first hand.
David Hartley, XLP Research Trust
XLP affects only boys and is life taking without a bone marrow transplant. Following personal experience of this rare genetic condition, David and his family set up the charity to support others and fund medical research into the condition. They wanted advice on how to make their fundraising sustainable and how to spend funds effectively.
The Small Charities Coalition matched them with Diana le Clercq, former CEO at the Alexandra Rose Foundation.
“Diana understood the issues of XLP not being a particularly ‘sexy’ condition and she’s helped us develope a strategy that will help us tap in to the funding market. I suppose we thought we were always going to be in competition with the big boys that have the professionals doing this but what working with Diana has shown us is that for some trust funds we’re actually what they’re looking for!
We got access to an excellent mentor who could look at us critically and see how we could take the organisation forward. Having that external, knowledgeable view of somebody that’s done it before but in a slightly different context was just fantastic. It enabled us to see beyond our own blinkered perceptions and to see that we could take this on. Each charity has strengths and, let’s be honest, we all have weaknesses. I think working together and supporting each other through the Small Charities Coalition can actually enable us to help each other grow and make a big impact in the areas that we are passionate about.”
Tom Hoyle, Project Harar Ethiopia
Project Harar is a small charity for children in Ethiopia with facial disfigurements. This fast growing organisation was looking to expand quickly but in a sustainable way.
The Small Charities Coalition matched them with Meggie Chezsney, the Director at Child Health International, a health organisation that improves child healthcare in several countries.
“It was great to learn from a medium sized charity, about half million pounds bigger than ours, with projects in many countries. What we talked about most was governance and communicating to trustees. We talked about forming partnerships agreement with hospitals and general advice on fundraising and bringing in new staff. I got the advice of a good medium sized charity as a small charity that wants to grow fast, maybe miss out a few steps.
The things that we looked at the most and were really beneficial for me was getting her templates for policy, so we wrote a child protection policy in a week whereas it may have taken months to research and work out the best way of doing it. The interesting thing about that was their child protection policy was borrowed from a much bigger organisation, Save the Children and so we’re going down the runs and applying what’s relevant to our charity from having got advice from much bigger ones.
Back: To how the matchmaking process works
