The government’s decision to increase employer national insurance contributions, announced in the recent Autumn Budget, has left many charities questioning how far they can stretch their resources to support the growing needs of communities hit hardest by the cost-of-living crisis. For most charities, this means that tough decisions are unavoidable. However, necessity is the mother of invention and increasing collaborations between charities and across sectors may ultimately re-shape our sector for the better.

I hope we can help you do this – giving you access to the collective ICAEW ‘hive brain’ and amplifying your voices on topics such as charity banking, digital filing, the next Charities SORP and many other hot topics related to charities’ finances. Our webinars and event programmes are informed by your suggestions and I hope you have found value in our offer this year. With over 18,000 members and subscribers, the Charity Community is probably the UK’s largest network of finance professionals who work or volunteer in the charity sector and we hope you take advantage by connecting with others (more on that below).

We started the year with over 1,200 of you joining our Charity Conference in January 2024 and were delighted to receive so much positive feedback – thank you! We’re starting the year again with our virtual Charity Conference. If you haven’t bought your ticket yet, please remember to register by 15 December to benefit from the early bird rates. I’m currently reading Danny Sriskandarajah’s book “Power to the People” and know that his closing keynote at our Conference will leave you inspired to tackle 2025 with fresh enthusiasm.

• Find out more

My personal work highlight in 2024 was meeting so many of you at our inaugural Big Trustee Breakfast (which will return in 2025) and to organise an event especially for trustees of small charities. This was in response to your invaluable feedback in our Community survey. Held in October, our virtual half-day event was called ‘Small charities – tackling financial governance challenges’ and attracted 1,300 bookings. It’s still available on demand.

In 2024, we offered 12 free webinars to Community members, covering topics such as finance board packs, cost recovery, AI, legal forms of charities, staff-related disclosures and more. If you have missed any of these webinars, all recordings are available within the Charity Community’s library of recordings.

I’m always heartened that so many of you are volunteers alongside busy careers – in 2024, over 21,000 ICAEW members supported charities or other not-for-profits as board members. Thank you for your service! If you are interested in becoming a volunteer or taking on another board role, I encourage you to visit our ‘voluntary jobs board’ ICAEWVolunteers.com. We facilitated 1,788 applications for voluntary roles in the last twelve months and I’m sure we can also help you to find the perfect role.

I’m proud that our popular Trustee Training Modules are now listed as a recommended resource on the Charity Commission website and by many other charity infrastructure bodies. This year, almost 3,900 existing or aspiring charity trustees enrolled for the training and spent a combined 8,100 (!) hours on learning more about the trustee role – clear evidence that you are not only generous with your time but also striving for best practice in your voluntary roles.

In addition, we have just published our 2024-25 CPD course for charity trustees – now structured in two parts and designed for chartered accountants who act as charity trustees.

• Find out more about how this course differs from our Trustee Training Modules

We advocated on your behalf on areas such as charity banking, urged for a consultation on the charity audit threshold and streamlined regulation. We ensured that charity-specific considerations were reflected in ICAEW consultation responses, for example the recent FRC discussion paper for the opportunities of digital filing.

We also collaborated with other organisations, for example promoting high-quality scrutiny for small charities with the Association of Charity Independent Examiners (ACIE), supporting fraud and cybercrime prevention with the Fraud Advisory Panel, and celebrated and promoted trusteeship with the regulator’s Trustees Week initiative. We contributed to the Association of Chairs’ brand-new finance guide for small charities and helped with the creation of Charity Investment Governance Principles (launching in January 2025), which we will introduce at the 2025 Charity Conference.

Much of our offer is virtual for accessibility and financial reasons. However, there are many ways for you to connect with other Community members. Firstly, I’d encourage you to join and actively engage with the Charity Community’s LinkedIn Group. We created the group so that you can be a support network for each other and ask your peers for advice.

• Join the Charity Community’s LinkedIn Group.

You can also join your region’s Charity and Not-for-profit Insight Group. These groups meet a few times each year and discuss exactly what’s on your minds. I join these meetings whenever I can and it’s always great to see how much advice is shared and help is offered between members – all working or volunteering in the charity sector. If your region doesn’t have such a group yet, you can suggest creating one. The link for 2024 meetings is here and we will signpost to 2025 meetings within the Community’s events page in due course.

If you are a trustee or interested in becoming one, and you are able join a morning event in London, keep your diary free for 19 March 2025 (08:00-12:00) because that’s when we will hold our second Big Trustee Breakfast (we will launch this in the new year).

Finally, I want to express my gratitude for all the encouraging words. It’s always wonderful to hear how our offer has been helpful to you. I look forward to supporting you again next year, especially with your preparation for the next Charities SORP. Until the SORP consultation goes live (in early 2025), I encourage you to prepare for the most significant FRS 102 changes – lease accounting and revenue recognition – and consider what impact these changes may have on your charity. Read our article 'Preparing for the next Charities SORP: Practical steps you can take now' to help you prepare.

In the meantime, I hope you have a restful festive season and I wish you all a wonderful rest of the year.