Freegle Reps Report 2012-04-16

Strategy

We have been discussing how to progress the strategy for Freegle, by:

1. Starting from the aims and objectives we have previously identified.
2. Turning these into specific tasks which need to be achieved.
3. Deciding which part of Freegle is best placed to do this.
4. Considering how well we are currently doing.

This is still very much a work in progress - for example we haven’t started to consider how well we are doing - but you can see the current status at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhDLE82mEn2jdDFvLWNCcUxhVzhJdWRZYjBPWTFhdmc#gid=0 .

As part of doing this thinking, it becomes very clear that this is not work which we (i.e. all Freegle volunteers) can ignore in the hope that someone else is going to do it for us.

1. Freegle is what we all make it - so we all need to consider not just what we’d like to happen, but what we are individually prepared to do.
2. A very real danger for volunteer organisations is that they become dependant on an increasingly small number of individuals who take on more and more work, then burn out and disappear.
3. We must ensure that Freegle does not fall into this trap.

Funding

During this period we were advised that our application for registration with HMRC as a charity for tax purposes was successful. This opens a number of opportunities:

1. Various options become available for registering for donations, particularly prompted by Helen (Stirling) who kindly offered to do a sponsored run. Of these, VirginGiving appears to be the best for our purposes - after an initial setup fee of £120 (which we can cover via a kind donation and the gift aid we can claim back) there is no ongoing monthly fee. We have started the registration process.
2. We are entitled to Google AdWords grants. We have obtained these and set up Google Ads for relevant keywords. If anyone has experience in running a Google Ads campaign and would like to look after this, please contact Edward.
3. We have applied for a similar grant for Google geocoding (mapping).

We prepared an estimated budget for next year, and appealed on Central for donations.

1. We are very conscious that funding Freegle in this way is not ideal, since volunteers already give their time and may not be able to give money too.
2. Funding for grants at a national level is very hard to achieve in the current climate when we are competing for a smaller pot of funding against established organisations with full-time fundraising staff; we do not think this is a viable option at this point.
3. One avenue we have discussed is to provide a template for local groups to tap into the relatively common funding for local community groups which is at the level of low hundreds of pounds; if we could do this then we could help fund resources for local groups (e.g. business cards, banners, travel expenses) and national costs (e.g. IT costs, national media expenses).
4. We also hope to be able to allow (but definitely not require) members to donate via a Donate button, though this will require further discussion on Central.
5. We are in the process of registering with CAF.
6. We have decided not to register with JustGiving as there is a £15 per month fee.

We discussed other funding options besides donations:

1. Some internet search engines provide a small donation for each search. If only a handful of mods were prepared to use one of these as their default search engine we could perhaps raise a couple of hundred pounds a year. We have registered with one of these, everyclick, and will be providing more details.
2. We are also registering with Charities Trust, who support payroll giving.

Publicity

1. A number of Reps and other volunteers attended the PEA Awards in London, which unfortunately we didn’t win. We are doing increasingly well at getting nominated for awards (a.k.a. applying), and are considering what would give us the edge to win more.
2. We also have nominations in for a number of other national awards. These are valuable levers to gain publicity, but we need local groups to do their bit by researching local media contacts and passing on press releases. This is especially true at the nomination stage - being nominated is a news story; not winning is not news - so please don’t wait.
3. We continue to miss out on publicity opportunities for lack of time and funds for people to attend events and meetings[a].
4. A number of donations were made for the specific purpose of buying a laptop to be the property of Freegle and loaned to Cat for her media work until she no longer needs it, which we purchased.

Miscellaneous

1. We discussed a disaffiliation procedure suggested by Structure and returned it with some minor comments.
2. After Rowena of Skipton and Craven indicated that she wanted to hand over her group, we contacted various neighbours. Vera of Bradford will take this over and look for local moderators.
3. We reviewed the Rep Observers on Working Groups. Jacky has taken over from Sian as the Observer on the Geeks group (the Geeks are the people who keep the website running).
4. There is an informal Helping Hands initiative to help newer groups get off the ground. We’ve been talking about how this should relate to the Growth Working Group (recently renamed from Start).
5. We had a request for a reference from a volunteer. Since this was short notice, individual Reps offered personal references, but we agreed that it would be worth exploring for Freegle to be able to reward the valuable work which our volunteers do in this way.

Back to Freegle Representative Group or Freegle Reps Report 2012-03-12, or forwards to Freegle Reps Report 2012-05-16