Community Matters The National Federation of Community Organisations

1
Community MattersThe National Federation of
Community Organisations

• Founded in 1945 as NFCA
• Became NFCO in 1982
• Membership now over 1,150 (mainly England and
  Wales)
• Members multi-purpose community organisations,
  local authorities, LIOs

2
CO Membership

• 96 own/manage a community building
• 58 of buildings owned by LA
• 25 under 10K turnover
• Average of 80K turnover
• Just under half run entirely by volunteers
• Independent with intensely local focus
• Scale makes them vulnerable

3
Community Matters role

• Capacity building infrastructure support
• Leadership eg standard setting
• Consultation / voice
• Research
• Innovation and development
• Partnership Community Alliance

4
Advice and information

• Managing community buildings
• Management committee roles, responsibilities and
  procedures
• Constitutions and governance
• Leases and other occupation agreements
• Charity law
• Employment issues
• Budgeting and accounts for small charities
• Developing and delivering activities and services
• Consulting the community and representing their
  interests
• Health and Safety requirements
• Licensing issues
• Trading and income generation
• Community regeneration
• Bar separation and incorporation
• Dispute resolution
• Equality and diversity matters
• Insurance
• Childrens and Youth services

5
Community Matters role

• Capacity building infrastructure support
• Leadership eg standard setting
• Consultation / voice
• Research
• Innovation and development
• Partnership Community Alliance

6
Community Sector

• Range (COs individuals)
• Community Sector Coalition
• Ethos (volunteering, mutuality, self-help, scale)
• Autonomous and self-directed

7
Public service delivery

• Pre-occupation in England at the moment
• COs can and do get involved and add value
• Good local knowledge and local relationships
• Taking a holistic, multi-purpose approach
• Ensuring the services are well networked,
  employing local labour and supporting the local
  economy
• Helping to spread risk through multiple
  small-scale delivery
• Making services cost effective and delivering on
  a more intimate scale
• Flexibility and responsiveness
• Freedom from institutional pressures
• Strong track record of self-help and user
  involvement
• Could do more if worked with larger charities

8
Community organisation USP

• Informal services
• Children, youth, elderly, people with
  disabilities
• Vulnerable to displacement
• COs real strengths
• building strong social capital
• enhancing community cohesion through
  inter-community activity
• facilitating active citizenship and community
  volunteering
• Community anchor role
• incubating new community groups and enterprises
• community voice and democratic engagement.

9
Community Voice

• Community sector as a voice for communities
• Lots of them so dont expect a wholly
  representative voice
• National umbrellas channelling voice up and down
• Challenges
• Their interest and expertise lies in the very
  local
• Limited capacity
• May not be universal access to electronic
  communication
• May need a broad community forum but recognise
  overheads
• Recognise and support their wider role

10
Funding

• Commissioning contracting
• Grants
• Enterprise
• In-kind support buildings etc
• Taskforce proposals
• Capital funds (grant and loan) for community
  buildings and enterprise development.
• Seed funding for new initiatives and for
  equipping community organisations to manage CSAs
• Micro-grants programme easy access to regular
  small amounts of grant preferably locally
  distributed
• Learning for leadership learning fund for COs
  to broaden and deepen their involvement.

11
Regeneration policy

• Moving-on from ABIs
• Focus on winners and losers
• Early ones poor at involving communities
• Focus on flagship projects
• Taskforce proposals
• Impact of the community sector
• Local Area Agreements
• Local Strategic Partnerships