Firstly, I want to thank you for being a member of our Volunteering Community – we greatly appreciate your ongoing support of the Community and the charity sector.

I’m very passionate about encouraging younger ICAEW members to build on their experience by volunteering outside of their workplace and support charities, for example as trustees, pro bono bookkeepers or on financial projects for charities overseas. I’ve volunteered for over twenty years, mainly as a pro bono independent examiner, and have found it highly rewarding. My aim for the Volunteering Community is to encourage and empower you to use your professional skills for public benefit and to gain personal and career development from your voluntary roles.

As we all know, it has never been more important to build strong support networks. The Advisory Group first came together in early 2021 to bring together resources and support for skills-based volunteers in our Volunteering Community. We are proud that our trustee training modules are now free of charge for everyone, allowing you to add our online training to your charity’s trustee induction programme, and to share it with your wider trustee network to promote best practice beyond the ICAEW membership.

In 2022, we will continue to share resources, inspiration, webinars and training. I hope that you were able to join our Charity Conference in January and found it useful and inspiring. Over the year, we will continue to deliver a full programme of regulatory and technical updates and explore areas of particular interest.

Our content in 2022 will bring you:

• Education and Training: we will provide tools, resources, and training to help you support charities and non-profits confidently
• Reputation and Influence: we will promote volunteering to all ICAEW members by highlighting the benefits both to the sector and to personal and career development
• Supporting and Belonging: we will offer a supportive platform to exchange ideas and ask questions

We want to hear your ideas and encourage you to share suggestions and feedback with us by contacting Kristina Kopic, ICAEW’s Head of Charity and Voluntary Sector (kristina.kopic@icaew.com).

• Free management liability insurance covering UK volunteering activities for charities and not-for-profits – read more information and access the Full Insurance Policy
• Free access to our sector-specific interactive webinars:
  - In March, we will bring you a webinar on the challenges facing charity trustees which showcases research and launches a white paper which we co-authored with the Charities Aid Foundation. We have a very special panel for this event, so please book your place and join us on 4 March.
  - On 28 March, we are planning a webinar on receipts & payment accounts for small charities, reflecting both the preparer and examiner perspectives. This has been a much-requested topic and we are delighted to welcome back Michael Brougham as a speaker following his popular webinar on Independent Examinations last year. We will keep you informed of all upcoming events and webinars.
• All webinars are available on demand: In 2021, topics included the updated Charity Governance Code, transparent reporting, legal structures of charities, fraud prevention, independent examinations, implementing accounting systems in small charities, updates from the Charity Commission…you can catch up on any of these and more by visiting our library of recordings
• Improve your knowledge with bespoke content and quarterly e-newsletters. These contain relevant updates, and we are launching a series of articles about the Charity Governance Code with this edition, discussing its principles in every newsletter this year to help you reflect on your charity’s own governance one principle at a time.
• Exclusive rates at our technical updates on charity accounting, tax and governance and discounted rates for our popular Charity Conference, which we held virtually held on 20 and 21 January 2022 (the recordings are all available on-demand)

ICAEW offers broader support for the charity sector, including our Charity Community, and connects charities and other not-for-profits with ICAEW members via ICAEW Volunteers, which now has a refreshed look.

Thank you and we look forward to your continued engagement with our community.

Chris