The Edridge Blog

You can now donate small sums regularly to The Edridge Fund by using your mobile phone.

All you have to do is simply text SASY24 and any amount between £1 and £10 to 70070.

What could be easier? We get all the donation to support our work and nothing is deducted for charges from the amount by the Vodaphone Foundation backed scheme.

You can read more about justTEXTgiving on this web page.

Using technology in innovative ways to support others

- The Edridge Fund.

The independent think tank The Smith Institute have recently published a new report on poverty in society.

The organisation, dedicated to the fairer society, tracks in the document a century of welfare reform, social initiatives and government policy on poverty and inequality.

The report suggests a number of measures that could be developed to combat the ever widening economic gap. The Institute sees these new interventions as being aimed at, what it calls the ‘pre-distribution’ agenda.

Essentially a refreshing of older ideas on tax levels, workplace structures and, importantly, mantaining pressure on the development of skills as basis for social and economic change.

The report stresses how important the role of civil society organisations can be, especially where they interact with skills development projects and the general labour market.

Community charities can have a strong role to play at the local grassroots level in this framework of ideas.

You can download, view or print the full report here. (.pdf file/ 2.8Mb)

The Edridge Fund has been facing an unprecedented demand for assistance from your colleagues who are in urgent need and often distressed.

We appeal to all colleagues to consider donating the cost of two cups of coffee per month – not much really!

Our appeal form was recently included in your copy of Napo News. However, if you missed it, do use the link below to view and download our appeal form.

You can complete and return it to us – starting to help those we support in their time of need.

You can donate to us online through any JustGiving links on any of our web pages. See more here.

View or download our appeal form here.

If you do donate – thank you from The Edridge Fund.

Every little bit you give goes to help others. 

From next week charities, social enterprises and community groups will be able to join Credit Unions in their own right as ‘bodies corporate’.

The 1979 Credit Unions Act is being amended to extend the scope of credit unions to cover more than just individuals, as the original legislation specified.

In essence the qualification of ‘common interest’ has been relaxed, with Credit Unions now able to offer services to community groups, social enterprises and businesses. (You can see an example of how Credit Unions promote financial literacy here on the ABCUL web pages…)

The Credit Union can also now pay interest on savings, rather than a dividend as before. These changes are set against the background of reform that was under way as far back as March 2010, with the changes receiving broad cross-party support as the legislation moved through Parliament. (See an ABCUL press release here).

Mark Lyonette Chief Executive of ABCUL said ‘…the new rules mean that, for the first time, credit unions will be able to offer services directly to charities, social enterprises and community groups, allowing credit unions to compete more effectively with banks and other lenders to provide fair and affordable financial services‘.

We think this news could herald a whole new era for charities working with Credit Unions to develop delivery programmes around financial literacy and promote good habits with regard to savings in new communities of interest.

The Edridge team:

In May 2012 in celebration of the NAPO Centenary and his 70th Birthday Fred Pickstone has planned to cycle from Lands End to John o’ Groats – a long held ambition.

He is a retired Probation Officer and a former NAPO Chair, in office when NAPO celebrated it’s 75th Anniversary in 1987.

We appeal to all Napo members and others to sponsor him.

You can make a donation to Fred’s great adventure on his JustGiving page here.

Most of you will know that for the past 15 years or so, Mike Wistow has been walking with a group of people connected with the Probation Service – NAPSAC.

You can read more about this energetic group here.

The walks began 35 years ago when John Hunt, who led the 1953 Everest expedition, was the speaker at a Probation conference and he offered to lead willing volunteers on a charity walk in Snowdonia.

Funds would be given to the Edridge Fund, the Probation Officers charity. Since then, we have continued to help the Edridge Fund by giving a small donation as part of the price we pay for each meeting.

During October, the group were in the Brecon Beacons. In recognition of the continuation of NAPSAC for 35 years, we again asked to be sponsored for the Edridge Fund.

You can still donate to the NAPSAC team and Edridge Fund on their JustGiving page here. Thank you if you do.

You can donate individual amounts or a regular sum to the Edridge Fund at anytime on JustGiving – see more here.

A new sector organisation called Partner Up can be found online here at www.partner-up.org

Described by Nick Hurd, the Minister for Civil Society as a ‘discreet dating agency’, the new organisation aims to bring together charities, social enterprises and housing associations to help find practical, effective and cost efficient new ways for charities to cooperate or merge if applicable.

This new plan for collaboration is yet to be backed up by funding at an organisational level, which may deter some prospective partners from registering. Collaboration across organisations, particularly mergers, can bring initial costs well before economies of scale are realised.

Launched by Eastside, itself a social enterprise, you can find recent examples of mergers and collaborations, living case studies if you will, on the Partner Up resources page here.

Food for thought perhaps, in these recession stricken times?

New Philanthropy Capital yesterday released a new report, commissioned by the Arts Alliance, entitled Unlocking Value.

The report seeks to make the connection between the arts and its potential to impact on rates of re-offending.

Examining the work of three organisations, Clean Break, Only Connect and Unitas, the research examined their value to the criminal justice system.

The core claim of the research is that deploying creative arts in support organisations can reduce the re-offending rates and therefore reduce the burden on the taxpayer as a consequence. In 2010 National Audit Office data defined the cost of re-offending as between £9.5bn to £13bn.

However, the report cautions charities that to provide effective interventions in this area they need to act on three issues.

1. To develop clear profiles of the interventions that are seeking to make.

2. To be able to collect sound and accurate data on outcomes and costs for the proposed interventions.

3. That charities funding ‘arts for offending’ programmes should become more sensitive to the opportunities such work offers and to help charities working in this specialist sector become more outcome aware.

You can read the executive summary of the NPC report here. A press release from yesterdays launch, with more detail of the findings is here.

Just Giving have just launched a corporate fund raising service – allowing companies and corporate entities to brand their giving web pages and to distinguish the efforts of their internal team giving.

The service enables companies to recognise employees for their fund raising energies and to promote ‘a little, gentle competition’ amongst staff teams.

The service allows teams to use leader boards and team identities to stimulate activity and offer public recognition to participants.

There are also simple online reports available for companies to track the results of the company giving programmes.

As a charity Just Giving say…

• You can point your corporate partners to a ready-made tool to manage their fund raising.
• You can celebrate success together, and offer fund raising support when it’s needed.
• You can be sure that more people than ever before can hear your story.

If you have a parent body, or strong corporate support for your charitable activity, why not point your funder or marketing people at this new resource.

Spread the good news about your work…and raise more funds too!

The winning number for 50/50 Club for September 2011 was as follows:

Member number 183 won £78 and the lucky winner is from from Somerset.

If you would like to learn more about how to support The Edridge Fund by joining our 50/50 CLub see more on our website here.

(You can download an application form too…)