The Sustainable Funding Project
What is Sustainable Funding?
Sustainable Funding is about ensuring the long-term viability of an organisation. But it is often seen just as a question of getting better at fundraising or finding a single, secure source of income.
In fact, Sustainable Funding is about income diversification. This means ending an organisation’s over-reliance on one source of funding and moving to a more sustainable portfolio of diversified funding streams ranging from charitable donations, through grants, service level agreements, contracts, trading on the open market and loans, depending on the needs of the organisation and the funding opportunities available to it. ( Click Here ) to see the Sustainable Funding Project's Income Spectrum.
Find out how sustainable your organisation is. Have a look at the Sustainable Funding Project's 'Sun' Needs Analysis Tool ( Click Here )
About the Sustainable Funding Project
The NCVO has developed the Sustainable Funding Project to be delivered in partnership with infrastructure organisations, such as CCD, to provide information and training on Sustainable Funding to frontline organisations interested in using the approach to create more longterm viability for themselves.
What the Sustainable Funding Project Does
Sustainable Funding requires more than just looking for new and diversified sources of funds. It also requires an organisation to significantly improve its approach to how it operates and to be more professional in how it runs and how it manages itself.
The Sustainable Funding Project provides training that helps organisations to look at their methods of working and approach in relation to such important aspects as;
- Strategic Planning
- Financial Management
- Fundraising
- Contracting
- Trading
- Loans
A Tour Around Sustainable Funding
The following modules are by no means exhaustive but are meant merely as an introduction to some of the issues involved in sustainable funding. Click in the title of each module to view it.
- Module 1: Introduction
- Module 2: Planning
- Module 3: Full Cost Recovery
- Module 4: Trading
- Module 5: Public Service Delivery
- Module 6: Loan Finance
- Calculating Overheads and Price
- Jargon Buster
Training in Sustainable Funding
Getting Ready for Enterprise: a One-day Workshop, Wed 16th April 2008
Please note that this is now a one-day event!
This workshop is designed to provide an overview of sustainable funding for frontline community organisations and to raise their awareness of the various funding options available to the voluntary and community sector, including the generation of income from trading in goods and services.
Themes covered will be:
- What does financial sustainability look like?
- Why a holistic approach to to generating income is important
- Planning as the heart of an income strategy and the the key to financial sustainablity
- Knowing an organisation's full costs and how to calculate them
- Generating income through trading goods and services
- Loan finance as a tool to enable voluntary and community organisations to grow
For more information and the booking form [ Click Here ]
Want to Know More About Sustainable Funding?
The NCVO Sustainable Funding Project has produced information booklets on various aspects of Sustainable Funding. To download simply click on a link below: Some of these are large documents and may take a little while to download.
Loans And Other Forms of Finance
Want to Know About Community Enterprise?
Community enterprise is a broad term used to describe this growing family of community self-help initiatives utilising a not-for-private-profit business model.
Typically they provide much needed services and opportunities for their local community, often stepping in where the private sector has failed to deliver and the public sector cannot reach.
To find out more [ Click Here ]
