This seminar looked at a range of issues around charitable giving including donor motivations. It considered why some people do not support charities, how everyone might be persuaded to give and how they might be persuaded to give more.

Resilience is a key quality for leaders and managers, not just in the social sector but in all sectors. Bhaggie Patel from the Clore Social Leadership Programme worked with Joe Saxton to interview 20 leaders from the social sector, including chief executives, executive directors, board chairs and assistant directors, for their experiences of resilience. 

This report aims to raise the profile and importance of resilience for social sector leaders.

The death of Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, in October was followed by an outpouring of collective grief around the world and eulogizing of Jobs’ contribution to the fields of business, design and technology.

Steven Levy, in his Wired Magazine obituary, wrote “[Jobs] was the most celebrated person in technology and business on the planet. No one will take issue with the official Apple statement that The world is immeasurably better because of Steve.”

Like many organisations, nfpSynergy has grappled with how we use interns and volunteers as part of our workforce. Up until two years ago, our approach was relatively informal. If we stumbled across a suitable intern, we would get them into to work in a way that suited both them and us.

• Top UK charities “punch above weight” re Facebook, Twitter and YouTube - compared with private sector giants.
• “Social media is ‘the great leveller’ in communications, with many smaller charities outshining larger ones – some even excelling huge retailers and big business” says Saxton

The Royal British Legion, RSA and Comic Relief are the top three UK-based charities with the largest “social media presence” - in terms of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube engagement - according to a major briefing out today.

Is your organisation a planned economy?

The economist Paul Seabright once mentioned travelling through London with a Russian bureaucrat who asked him ‘tell me, who is in charge of the supply of bread to the population of London?’ It’s a dazzling question – and the answer is, of course, no-one. Who, after all, could possibly calculate the needs of the city, and plan the delivery of your daily bread from seed to toaster?

• Young, single and childless who have still to write wills are amongst those most amenable to charity legacy-giving
•  Those most amenable to legacy-giving are also most open to letting a charity draft their will for free (no obligation to give)
• “Charities should especially target younger legacy-givers to help create a culture of legacy-giving,” vies nfpSynergy

People yet to write a will comprise a larger potential new legacy market for charities than those who have already written one currently without a

We have a shiny new government. It is ready to give the voluntary sector the big bear hug of an embrace and the big wet kisses of an over-enthusiastic relative. The government also has its own agenda of the ‘big society’. But before we get carried away with the government’s agenda of what it wants to sort out – what are the issues that the sector needs to sort out. What are the big tasks that the sector needs to tackle to move onto the next stage of its development, to become an even stronger force in society today – indeed to play a full role in the big society?