The Trust Guidelines are now available in a format that can be downloaded and added to your Kindle library.

You can find a variety of formats available on the guidelines web page of our main web site.

You can select the .mobi format for the Kindle, download it to your desktop and synchronise the file with your Kindle reader.

Having our guidelines available on portable devices like the Kindle will, we hope, be useful in assisting Edridge reps and trustees in supporting and advising applicants to our charity.

It’s also a great way of sharing our best practice, operating procedures and charity history with interested enquirers too.

(Don’t forget you can buy a Kindle directly from Amazon.co.uk on the pages of Edridgebooks – our charity benefits with a few pounds from the transaction too). If you do, thank you for your support.

We are delighted to announce that a member in Tyne and Wear, number 97, was the winner of £85 in April. 

If you would like to have a chance to be a 50/50 winner you can visit our club page on the Edridge web site here and view and download the club application form.

Have the fun of a flutter for a good cause every single month by becoming a Friend of Edridge and joining our 50/50 Club. This is a raffle, drawn monthly, which you agree to participate in for one year.

The annual membership fee is only £12.00.

£12.00 will buy one number to be entered every month, for twelve months.
Half your money will help Probation and Cafcass people who need it.

The other half will go into our draw, giving you a chance to win every month.

Good luck!

A new investor in the social sector has just launched – Big Society Capital. “We enable organisations tackling social issues to grow by encouraging investments made for social as well as financial return”.

As a body the organisation is dedicated to only lending capital to social investment finance intermediaries (SIFI’s). This is a range of UK organisations who offer social investment to, and seek ethical and financial returns from, front line Third Sector organisations.

The Big Society Capital organisation will invest a minimum of £500,000 and a maximum of £15 million, dedicating their funding across a broad aspect portfolio of projects.

There is no doubt that, if this is new money, then intermediary organisations who seek to lend to and develop infrastructure projects with the Third Sector now have an exciting new source of funds to deploy. If theIr applications and business plans are rigorous enough.

For smaller charities and social enterprises one interesting aspect of the Big Society Capital web site, although excluded from BSC funding, is that smaller organisations can access a database of advice, guidance and finance provision for to the sector.

This comprehensive list can be searched whether looking for grants, business advice or investment. You can find the BSC database here. A really useful, one stop tool we think for smaller charities or social organisations.

Free to use too.

As Edridge rep for Greater Manchester, I’m aware of the valuable work the fund does and the people it has helped.

It’s four years since I last ran the London Marathon and now, finally, I feel recovered enough to give it another go!

After much beating myself up about not getting my backside in gear, the training started in earnest after Christmas & I’m reasonably confident that I’ll cover the distance. If I do, it’ll be in no small part thanks to the support of Gail for the kicks up the backside, coming on training runs with me and a watch that does everything but run the race for me!

In the current climate of cuts and ever increasing financial pressures on probation and CAFCASS staff, the Edridge fund is a vital last resort for colleagues experiencing particular hardship.

I would therefore urge you to sponsor me, so my suffering is about more than masochism! Regards, Karl.

You can visit my JustGiving  page to make a donation…thanks if you do!

http://www.justgiving.com/Karl-Hesford

‘Businesses should act as ‘community hubs’, helping promote social interaction amongst their customers and developing local action plans to create happier, more resilient communities’.

This is a quote from a new report from the RSA, The Community Footprint: Shared Value for Business and Communities, outlining how local business, social business, can become hubs or focal points for community interaction and development.

Charities and social enterprises in particular, can have a role to play in this ‘combination’ role.

A charity could, for example, through its social enterprise network or community development activity co-ordinate and contribute to the strategies and focus of ethical business support to that community. Helping businesses to answer the ‘how can we help’ question?

You can see the RSA report here…

The Community Footprint: shared value for business and communities

The RSA report looks at a a case study of a B & Q store and how it’s in-store activity and engagement with customers and staff, were able to affect and effect change in community projects.

Big business, with financial and operational clout, can clearly be players in this role – but we would argue that there is a place for small, local economic groups and networks to use the same model – generating change using their very specific local knowledge too.

Food for thought?

Network image: Creative Commons – w0746203-1 (Wikimedia)

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 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)

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.