ORGANISATION REFERENCE: C

THE ORGANISATION
ORGANISATION DESCRIPTION
This organisation is both a registered charity and a social enterprise based in central
England. It supplies low-price second-hand furniture and domestic appliances and some
other goods to those in hardship. The organisation is funded primarily through sales to their
members (those in hardship) and the general public. This is their core business model, but
they also offer developmental volunteering opportunities to the community (over 35,000
hours in 2015) including substantial training. Over time, the organisation has grown in size,
expanding its range of services and has become more business-like (e.g. deciding to sell to
the general public in 2009).

The organisation became a Limited Company in 2009 while retaining its charitable status
(taking over a furniture based initiative formerly run by the local authority and other local
organisations). The organisation still has relationships with a number of relevant local
organisations including housing associations, local authorities, the Royal British Legion and
the YMCA.

WHY THE ORGANISATION APPLIED TO THE LSF

They felt that they needed to make some changes but simply did not have the money in
their reserves to do it. Their trajectory is of a relatively successful organisation and is
relatively well functioning (e.g. the management and staff are seen as highly committed and
regularly go above and beyond). However, the organisation identified significant changes
that were required in order to be sustainable. The rationale for the LSF project was a
combination of growing pains and of responding to a changing external environment -
particularly increased competition and perceiving the need to become increasingly
business-like in their operations and market positioning.

Over time that became a less valuable business model and certainly when Big Lottery
Fund ran out, it became apparent that we had to worry about the business a lot
more.

They have grown quite a lot and you can tell they havent quite managed to keep
up.

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THE LSF PROJECT

WHO WAS INVOLVED AND WHAT WERE THEIR DIFFERENT ROLES?

The project was led by the Chief Executive. A new finance member of staff was appointed
who worked with the advisor on the financial review, and a new Volunteer Coordinator was
appointed who worked with the advisor on the volunteering element.

The organisation engaged three advisors in their LSF project:

1) The primary advisor, who gave overall support and was involved in the application
process - asking the right questions at the right time to make sure [they] are
considering all the angles.
2) The financial systems advisor
3) Investing in Volunteers and training advisor [NB: this was confirmed since the visit]

They had an existing relationship with a housing association who they engaged as their
business partner in the LSF project.

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 WHAT DID THE LSF FUNDED PROJECT DO?
There were three elements to the LSF project:

Reviewing their financial systems.

Developing their volunteer offer, including achieving the Investors in Volunteers quality mark.
Developing an enhanced and more structured training programme to support their beneficiary group including basic communication,
ESL, computer skills and other employability skills.

Separately, they sought funding to enable them to increase the number of PAT testers and to be able to employ an electrician.

ASPIRATIONS FOR THE LSF PROJECT WHAT SUCCESS WILL LOOK LIKE IN 6 MONTHS, 12 MONTHS AND
FIVE YEARS
At the early stages of the project, the evaluators asked the organisation to describe their aspirations for their LSF project. These are shown
in the table below.

ACTIVITY SUCCESS AT 12 MONTHS SUCCESS AFTER 5 YEARS

A far ranging drains up review of financial
systems including monitoring, controls and
reporting. (NB: this was not identified as a
weakness in the ODT)
Saving considerable amounts of time and
money.
Presenting better information to the board
leading to better decisions.
Better strategic decisions as a result of better
and faster information. This includes stopping
services that are not viable more quickly. A
remark about the planning process was that at
the moment it is mostly hearsay and conjecture.

No longer manually creating reports.

3

Developing their volunteering offer, including
achieving the Investors in Volunteers (IiV)
quality mark resulting in more structured and
higher quality opportunities.
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Have the financial processes smoothly passed on
from old staff to new staff (i.e. not reliant on
individuals).
Keeping up to date with new developments in
financial management.
Be able to recruit more volunteers (involving Greater success with funding applications due to
volunteers was seen as a key to organisation knowing a lot more about the volunteers and
growth and development) - it is going to make data to show that volunteering has benefits.
us a magnet for people looking for volunteering
opportunities. Volunteer retention will be improved as churn is
a big problem and requires considerable
Charities were traditionally seen as the fluffy resources. The aim is to increase the return on
option this type of accreditation helps gaining investment on volunteers.
more credibility for the organisation.
Continual improvement.
As a result, TRCs reputation will be enhanced
and will be able to attract staff from external
business partners through their Corporate
Social Responsibility programmes to provide
one-to-one coaching for volunteers, further
improving their experience, as well as staff
becoming volunteers themselves.
Develop an enhanced and more structured Having the training programme in place and Helping support beneficiaries into meaningful
training programme to support their being well delivered. work opportunities.
beneficiary group including basic
communication, ESL, computer skills and other
employability skills. This also includes skills in
volunteer management.

Increase their number of PAT testers and

employ an electrician (NB: this was written in to
their LSF application but they are seeking
separate funding for it).

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PARTWAY THROUGH THE PROJECT
Four months into the delivery of the project, the organisation felt that they had achieved the following
successes:
*The financial system review was almost complete and due to be finalised by the end of the
financial year, so that they from then on they would adhere to a standard reporting cycle
(April to March). At this point, there were already reporting benefits:

There is now far less time looking backwards, because they are more comfortable with the
quality of the information they have got. So they have much more time to think about what
they should be doing in the future. The Chair said as much to me. It is always something we
want to achieve. The Chair said This is what is happening and its been brilliant for us. So
thats a big win.

*The business consultant had developed a detailed action plan for the skills and training
programme, which was on track.

*The Investment in Volunteers (IiV) was close to completion. All the policies were done in
the first draft and being read through by a trustee who is a HR specialist.

*They had also increased the number of PAT testers, with two new people and others
interested.

They were particularly proud of the IiV work as it has probably added the most benefit.
They hoped that IiV would help with fundraising through making them more appealing to
funders. In addition, they felt that the finance project had done the most to help their
sustainability. One interviewee was proud of how the financial specialist had got stuck into
the task.

They were then intending to focus on IIV: because it is the biggest piece of work, it impacts
the most people and will have the most impact when it is done. This was echoed by the
other interviewee: Improving the volunteer experience, helping them to learn to work
again.

AT THE END OF THE LSF PROJECT

Having now come to the end of the LSF funded project, the organisations feels that they
have achieved the following successes:

Three things have been done and/or completed:

1. The finance manual, which has been a big help to the organisation:
The financial review] has brought us so many benefits. Weve got much better data
to present to the Board of trustees.

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 2. Working towards Investing in Volunteers they had originally planned to do it a lot
earlier but after fully appreciating the number of documents they needed to gather,
they decided to push back the submission until October 2017:

[Investing in Volunteers] will be something we will be very proud of and well do

everything in our power to retain.
Investing in Volunteers is bringing us so many benefits. We have this really good
dialogue with our volunteers about where the business is going and what were
going to do for them, about what they can do for us, and its just helped
enormously.

3. The skills and training framework, which was completed in February. They are
rolling it out first with staff and then doing it with volunteers, probably in October
so that it doesnt get caught up with the IiV submission, but it might happen earlier.

At the end of this year well be at 100% success, but I think we look pretty
successful now.

While they have fulfilled their original objectives, the timeline has been delayed somewhat.
They had originally wanted to do this all within a year but realised that they had been
overly ambitious. In retrospect, the CEO feels that he would only have done two of the
three things, although they have nonetheless had real successes. These would have been
the financial review as this has led to better data throughout the organisation and proper
documentation, and IiV, as this is already bringing so many benefits. It has created a good
dialogue with the volunteers; this had existed before but it has been in more of a
formalised sense. They are now much better able to follow-up on any concerns and ideas of
the volunteers.

The project lead considered what these successes have meant for different stakeholders
at different stages of the project.

For the organisation, they felt that the changes had made the organisation more attractive
to get involved with:
Seeing that things are being done to improve the future of the organisation has made it
more of an attractive trust for people to get involved with. So we have actually, over the last
nine months, been able to take on three, possibly four new trustees. So theres lots and lots of
good things. Thats not to say its all been easy, but theres lots of good things to come out of
it.

Also, they noted that the organisation was also starting to see benefits from Investing in
Volunteers, with better policies and procedures; this was also a benefit for the volunteers.
They noted that:

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They give 36,000 hours of their time a year to the organisation, so are seen as very
important.

Impact for interviewees:

Ive got the benefit of a more streamlined and efficient monthly reporting process.

Now at the end of the LSF project, they reported noticeable at an organisational level. The
finance officer has benefitted from a better set of accounts, which has had a trickle-down
effect to others in the organisation, giving people more time to do other things, and also
benefiting the volunteers.

They feel that their clients are now benefitting from a better-trained and better-informed
workforce. The organisation has undertaken a few secret shopping visits since the project
has started and the ratings have improved, which the CEO feels must be linked to
improvements in customer service:

Weve got a better trained and informed workforce, in terms of staff and
volunteers, and thats just got to trickle down to a better customer service
experiencethings seem to be getting better in terms of how we present ourselves
to our clients.

The CEO feels that the volunteers are feeling the benefit of IiV, particularly in that they get
more information and there is better two-way dialogue. There is also more training
available to volunteers, and they are rolling out some of their health and safety training.
Volunteers will also get more to update on their CVs, giving them some employability
benefits.

The volunteers are most definitely feeling the benefit of the Investing in Volunteers
process because Im sure they now feel they have more of a voice and they get more
information from management as well about where its headed and what were
doing. Theres a good two-way dialogue there which is just beneficial to everyone.

Reflecting on their achievements, they think that there were some things that really
helped them.

Having money to pay external consultants has been very positive. Having the support of
experts in their field has been the catalyst to getting things pushed forwards:

[With reference to the advisors] We wouldnt have been able to do all this on our
own, theres no way. Theyve been the catalyst to get things pushed forwards when
things were stalling a bit.

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And there were also some things that hindered what they could achieve.

They felt that nothing had really hindered their project and progress, noting that it had
been very positive overall. However, their landlord, the local council, is now going to
redevelop the site their organisation is based on, so they are looking for a new home. This
has not really negatively affected progress on their LSF work but has had an impact on their
journey towards sustainability and has been time-consuming.

THEIR ASPIRATIONS FOR LONG-TERM SUSTAINABILITY

The LSF project lead feels positive about the future in terms of sustainability. The main
benefit has been around improving and standardising the financial processes and systems,
something they feel has increased the likelihood of a smooth succession between senior
staff in the future in terms of financial management of the organisation. He feels that IiV
will really help in the longer-term. Once they get it they will do a lot of publicity around it,
which will be a big part of helping them to stand out from other organisations in the area.
Furthermore, having better trained people is a huge asset.

Sustainability means being able to do their three core activities better. It is helping to make
them a more robust organisation, making them better at what they do. The project lead
attributes quite a lot to LSF, as they wouldnt have done these activities without it and they
have been pushed to do better. He felt strongly that they needed to do the activities well,
and LSF gave them real focus and the milestones, ensuring that the work got done:

Anything we can do like the LSF project which makes us a better organisation and a
more robust organisation that understands what its doing and where its going
feeds in to those core activities.

Making us better at what we do and just have a better understanding of what we

do and why we do it, and just being able to explain that to people and bring them on
board faster.

If we hadnt have had the funding last year then we wouldnt be doing the activities
and I think it would just have been very much the status quo. Wed have been
aspiring to do better and we always want to do better but this has really pushed us
to be better.

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THEIR EXPERIENCE OF THE LSF PROGRAMME
GETTING STARTED WITH LSF
Relationship with advisors
The organisation approached Eastside Primetimers (EP) for advisor support and the advisor
was recruited through EP because of his experience with the organisation. He has a long and
substantial relationship with them, having been involved between 2010 and 2013 as a
trustee. He even acted as interim CEO for 4 months in 2011/12. He has continued to have
contact with them since stepping down as a trustee.

This advisor then assisted the organisation in recruiting the other two advisors through his
network. In both cases, a shortlist of potential advisors was invited to respond to the brief
and then invited to interview. This process was seen to have a number of advantages:

The competitive process ensure that some selection can be made, although this
needs to be proportionate;
Perhaps more importantly, the process of producing a brief and requiring a formal
response means that the organisation was clear in what it wanted and the advisors
were clear on the nature and amount of work required.

The consensus from the interviews was that key criteria for a good advisor were their
topical skills (i.e. finance, HR, IT), rather than their service skills (i.e. furniture re-use,
employability) or sectoral skills (i.e. voluntary and community sector). For the advisors
undertaking discrete projects, it was not seen as important that they didnt have experience
of the organisation, although detailed knowledge of the organisation was seen as a critical
advantage for the advisor offering general support.

The organisation has considered the relative merits of the status of advisors, in terms of
being individuals or part of an organisation. The main outlined advantage of being part of a
group was the security, although others felt groups can be more mercenary in their
approach whereas independent advisors give more bang for the buck, more support and
more creativity rather than a conveyor belt approach. The two independent advisors
were charging lower rates for the LSF work than they do for other clients. This work also fits
into their mix of VCSE and for-profit clients.

Another important element underpinning the success of the advisors was felt to be that it
was not just about offering skills and perspective, but also about the fact that an external
individual was getting involved and driving change and development in the organisation.
We are lucky to be working with a consultant who is very good and is very hands on, which

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is what we needed; If we had a consultant who came up with a list of things we needed to
do that wouldnt work.

Volunteering element
The local business partner is a registered social landlord with 18,000 properties, a lot of
which are in the local area. The key feature is that they have a social mission and as such, the
aims of the organisation (including poverty alleviation) have some crossover with the
organisation. The business partner felt that their model fits what we are all about and what
we are trying to achieve and neither side saw any culture clash.

All staff at the business partner are entitled to one day of community volunteering a year.
The opportunities that have been taken up historically with the organisation have ranged
from kitting out some of their spaces to expert advice from the Chief Financial Officer. For
the purposes of the LSF project, there was extremely high take-up of volunteering
opportunities across the staff team, which the organisation attributes to a variety of reasons:

The high level of choice of opportunity;

The organisation thought about what they wanted from their volunteers;
Senior buy-in from the business partners Chief Executive - It has got to be led from
the top;
There was a long-lasting relationship already in place e.g. advisor on the Board, they
buy goods from them, use other services, work on projects together;
Finally, the business partner has had a positive media presence.

There are hopes that the relationship will develop into a two-way one with the business
partner actually taking some of the organisations volunteers into paid employment. The
volunteering has offered staff the opportunity to understand their clients better and develop
their skills. Also, the organisation is hoping to get help from the housing associations HR
staff on the skills element of the LSF.

The ODT
Overall, they valued the ODT process and they felt that the report they received was clear
and easy to understand.

I thought the results were very good, given the data that was given.

However, there were a number of challenges they had faced with the ODT:

The data [they gave to the ODT] wasnt very good, which they felt was a result of
only one person completing the ODT and it being rather rushed;
When they got the results, they felt that an area that had been identified as a
strength was actually a weakness, although it was felt that this was likely to be due to
the answers that were inputted rather than the ODT itself being invalid;

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 A weakness that was identified was that the ODT doesnt account for the time spent
undertaking certain activities e.g. the financial reporting may be good but it might
take half the CEOs time;
Another frustration was that they didnt receive a copy of the answers they had
inputted, although this issue was later rectified.

They stressed that completing the ODT should be a collaborative process within the
organisation.

The first few weeks

To begin with, they stuck to their original plans for the project timeline running from April
2016 - March 2017, even though they received funding in June 2016, but later on asked to
extend the project until the end of Q1 financial year 2017/18 (June 2017) . This was driven
by the dates to approve IiV certifications.

PARTWAY THROUGH THE LSF PROJECT

At this point, the organisation reported that there had been progress with the three main
elements of the LSF work: the financial systems, the training and IiV.

They noted that the monthly financial reporting used to take two to three days a month, but
had dropped to less than one. It had also enabled the Board to be more forward thinking.

They commented that there had been challenges, particularly relating to their volunteers.
The volunteers have always been variable in terms of support needs, so it is important that
their roles are clearly outlined. It did not help that the DWP programme that supplied them
with long-term unemployed people ended over a year ago, so getting volunteers became
harder.

Their business partner is a social housing provider and when their contact there was made
redundant, it meant there was a hiatus. A new contact was identified, and the relationship
began to function again.

When weve reached out and asked questions, weve always got a good response.
When we look for specific help, we never get a no. So if we need people to help with
organisation time, if we need some answers on basic charity accounting questions,
they will help.

NOW AT THE END OF THE PROJECT

Looking back over the whole period of the LSF funding, the project lead reflected that
something he liked particularly about BLF was the ability to have a broad focus to the work,
enabling them to undertake different things. Normally it would be necessary to be very

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specific, focusing on one topic as part of a grant application and their project would probably
have been three separate bids if they had applied elsewhere. He felt this made the business
as a whole more robust and sustainable, being able to work on three different things more
holistically.

He has also liked the opportunities to feed back throughout the project, including as part of
the evaluation, feeling that it is a well-designed programme. The CEO noted that perhaps the
only downside of the process was that the Chair completed the initial ODT on his own due to
finding out about it late and it being a very tight deadline, but it would have been better to
have done this together.

The organisation described a good relationship with BLF, and have been largely able to do
our own thing.

They summarised their reflections on the successes and challenges they had experienced,
and the learning they have drawn out from their LSF project.

Successes / challenges Learning

Success: The short-term funding was a
challenge but they have been able to
achieve things in a short period of time.
Pre-planning has been essential to this.
When they got approved, they were
ready to go, which gave them 6 months
ahead of the game. They felt that if you
had waited for funding to start, then you
would be up against it.

Success: Relationship and work with The learning is detailed in the advisor
advisors section above but it was Less stressful
than I thought it would be and that is all
down to the quality of the people we are
working with.

Success: The financial review is almost
completed and has achieved most of its
aims e.g. improving bank reconciliation
(which used to take two days and now
takes half an hour), saving management
time and saving substantial amounts of
tax.
The success of the financial project was
underpinned by:
They were very clear what they
wanted;
Very collaborative the advisor
spent a day up there but then
used skype (both sides being
flexible). If you have the clarity
upfront for what is needed and

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 Successes / challenges
Its huge for us, we are getting to be a
much smarter organisation now and we
are accounting for things properly.
Success: Communication with the Big
Lottery Fund was seen as very good
Challenge: The delay in receipt in funding
Challenge: Some changing circumstances
since ODT e.g. they have been offered a
large amount of business which is good
but is a major bit of work that they have
to take now or never. They thought
about it and went for it.
Challenge: Getting time from the local
business partner
Challenge: Not having suitably qualified
staff to undertake the LSF project and the
risk of losing key staff during the process
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Learning
then some flexibility around how
you deliver it;
There has to be some chemistry in
the relationship. One advisor said,
They were extremely friendly and
extremely helpful and I enjoy
working with them.
it was well explained so we always knew
what was expected of us. We were well
able to work within the framework.
There were some mixed accounts of the
experience of the delay in funding. Clearly
it was not seen as ideal by anyone,
however, as they began their LSF project
on the planned date (April 2016) rather
than on the date when payment was
received, some felt that the project had
not been unduly affected. However, one
senior stakeholder was very negative
about the delay in payment saying it is
not good enough. These organisations
do not have the wherewithal to cope with
paying out for stuff that they have bought
and ordered based on that money. They
simply dont have the money. That was
bad.
REFLECTIONS ON HOW LSF WORKED
The model
The LSF advisor model was seen to make sense. The organisation recognised that it lacked
particular skills and needed to buy those skills in on a short-term basis. For example, the
financial review was felt to require high levels of expertise on a short-term basis (high cost)
but that the ongoing financial management could be done by someone operating at a lower
(cheaper) level. One interviewee argued that there was a culture in the voluntary and
community sector that you should employ people, but that this contractual model made
sense because small charities cannot afford to employ high level skills full-time.

The longer-term view of LSF (despite short funding term) was also supported. Its no good
doing short term stuff but it doesnt help sustainabilityit is about making sure the
fundamentals in the organisation are much better than they are at the moment.

There would potentially be other things that they would like to do (e.g. get a grant to give
away more furniture) but they had to be quite harsh and make sure the things we wanted
to do fit the Fund, which was a good process for focusing us.

They were generally positive about the LSF model and organisation so far - You could tell
that a lot of time and thought had gone into the project beforehand, and therefore you could
tell it was going to be quality throughout.

The organisations definition of sustainability

Sustainability was essentially seen as making sure we survive in the long term and was
largely seen as financial sustainability. The key aspect that was seen to underpin this was not
just adapting to change, but being able to continuously adapt to new changes. An important
dimension to this was that rather than the skills and knowledge being held by individuals,
they are characteristics of the organisation i.e. if people leave and are replaced, the new
person can easily pick up the sustainable processes.

Part of this adaptability is seen as adaptability to external changes which affect the
organisation, such as responding to new technology (e.g. ebay) or changing town centres.
Another part is becoming more business-like, both in terms of embedding business
processes into the organisation (especially financial and strategic planning) and in conceiving
of the organisation as embedded within a competitive marketplace where local competition
is increasing.

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AT THE END OF THE PROJECT, THEY SUM UP THEIR EXPERIENCE OF LSF AS

Challenging and positive.

Taking on three different things at the same time and trying to do it within 12 months was
felt to be particularly challenging. The CEO feels that it would have been beneficial to have
had a chat with someone at BLF who couldve said how realistic their plans were, and
potentially have helped them be more realistic. A longer timeframe, however, could also
have led to project drift and might not have been that helpful:

It gave us some real focus, specific milestones and benchmarks and things that we
needed to achieve in a specific timeframe.

In retrospect he would have done the three projects in succession rather than attempting
them together.

LEARNING
THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSONS THEY WOULD LIKE OTHER ORGANISATIONS IN A
SIMILAR POSITION TO THINK ABOUT ARE

1. To look carefully at timings and not to have too many overlapping activities in one
go; but rather start and finish projects in succession. You need to be realistic for
smaller organisations, and doing things simultaneously is harder, as your day-to-day
business still needs to get done.

For me, the biggest thing would be to look at the timings and not have too many
overlapping things at one time, especially if its going to be a small group of people
working on that stuff.

2. The value of having well-trained staff in helping an organisation become sustainable

in the longer-term:

Better trained people who are more knowledgeable about the work that they do
are a huge asset to any workforceand thats what were going to have.

3. When working with external consultants, the CEO notes the benefit of having them
spend more time on-site at the beginning, to help them get a better understanding
of the organisation and what they do. They deliberately chose not to pick people
from their local area but instead went for what they considered to be the best
experts, who happened to be from further away, something which meant they

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 could not spend as much time on-site as someone local could have done; but they
felt this trade-off was worth it.

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