On 23 and 24 January, we held our two-day virtual Charity Conference. Nearly 1,500 of you joined us and we were thrilled with your engagement and feedback. Despite a varied mix of technical updates, lively panel sessions and thought-provoking keynotes, certain themes repeated throughout the Conference, summarised as the Five Cs: Charities SORP, Confidence, Collaboration, Cash deposits and Continuing Professional Development (CPD).
1. Charities SORP
Unsurprisingly, the Charities SORP 2026 loomed large in the minds of Conference delegates and speakers. In our Accounting Update, we explored the consultation timeline (see SORP project update) and discussed how to prepare for the changes, which will take effect in periods beginning on or after 1 January 2026.
Prior to the launch of the consultation, there is plenty we can do to prepare for the two key FRS 102 changes relating to income recognition and lease accounting. But it’s just as important to engage with the consultation when it launches in March, so please ensure that your voice is heard and please share your views with us too, and watch out for more support from us. We are currently planning a SORP webinar in April, so please watch out for event invitations.
2. Confidence
The need to speak more confidently about our sector echoed throughout the Conference. Charity Commission CEO David Holdsworth mentioned the humility of charity leaders he regularly encounters, while the ‘reframing overheads’ panellists challenged us to speak more confidently about our cost base and redefine ‘overheads’ as ‘enabling functions.’ Closing keynote speaker Dr Danny Sriskandarajah even invited us to re-define our sector:
“We've ended up being backed into this corner to say that we're the third sector, we’re the non-profit organisations, we’re the non-governmental organisations. Why on earth are we letting ourselves be defined by what we're not? We should be saying what we're about, which is about humanity, about community, about solidarity.”
3. Collaboration
Our opening keynote from Concern Worldwide UK’s Sayyeda Salam outlined the global challenges that the charity sector and its beneficiaries face. With 1 in 5 children currently living in a conflict zone, and climate change wreaking havoc on food systems, the charity sector alone will not be able to solve the world’s biggest challenges. Salam emphasized the role of donor governments and multilateral institutions, including the need to fully fund projects with sufficient flexibility to ensure that charity resources can be used effectively. Salam also advocated for multi-stakeholder relationships, bringing together civil society, governments and the private sector to tackle global challenges. This was echoed by Sriskandarajah who encouraged charity leaders to reimagine economic organising so that people and planet are put first, and advocated for more co-operatives, mutuals, citizen assemblies, and more direct participation.
4. Cash deposits
Several sessions mentioned the banking challenges that charities frequently experience. In the Q&A following Holdsworth’s opening address, he emphasised that it was unacceptable for banks to deny charities access to banking and reassured us that the Charity Commission was engaging with FCA and politicians to improve charity banking.
CAF Bank CEO Alison Taylor highlighted some of the risks that workarounds to these challenges bring, such as trustees or charity leaders using personal accounts when bank accounts were frozen unexpectedly. While the banking sector engaged positively with the charity sector in the creation of UK Finance’s Voluntary Organisation Banking Guide, more action is needed, and David Holdsworth encouraged charities to report banking challenges to the regulator so that he can advocate on the sector’s behalf with real-life examples.
5. CPD
One of the key objectives for the Charity Community is to offer you free and low-cost CPD options on a wide range of relevant charity topics. However, with rapidly evolving technology and ways of working, I’d encourage you to look at other development areas too. In our panel session about the future of the accountancy profession, ICAEW’s CEO Alan Vallance reminded us that, as professionals, we need to embrace lifelong learning and to learn from other sectors, too. Fellow panellist Kath Qualtrough, Interim Finance Director at CFG, explained that she trained as a professional coach to get the most out of her team, especially as evolving automation will free up their time for more value-adding tasks and many charities now operate in a hybrid working environment. Meanwhile, Sage Intacct’s Grant Gevers encouraged finance professionals to lead finance transformations with a hands-on iterative learning approach, tackling tasks that are directly relevant to their role first to build up confidence.
Plans for the 2026 Charity Conference
If you joined the Conference, thank you for your time and your willingness to engage with complex questions alongside technical updates. Thank you also for your many wonderful testimonials, thoughtful suggestions and constructive challenges – I have read them all and they will help me plan our 2026 Charity Conference.
Our closing survey showed that around 85 percent of respondents preferred the virtual format of the Conference. We also asked if you would prefer for the Conference to take place in early February next year (rather than late January), but three-quarters voted in favour of late January. It is always difficult to please everybody but I hope that by making the Conference available on-demand for those who cannot join us live, and by introducing other opportunities to network (such as our Big Trustee Breakfast on 19 March), we are meeting your needs. I’m always happy to have a conversation and listen to your ideas and suggestions, so please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Catch up on-demand
If you couldn’t join the Conference live, you can get all the recordings by registering for the on-demand version. You will still be able to claim this as verifiable CPD (up to 8 hours).