How to ensure your charity is ready for the Coronavirus?

Ian McLintock

Founder at Charity Excellence Framework

4 months ago

CharityConnect: How to ensure your charity is ready for the Coronavirus?

The free Charity Excellence Framework online toolkit was updated 1 March, to include assessing preparedness for the Coronavirus. This resource provides a checklist to identify what you need to do, with resources to help you.

However, whilst the coronavirus is our most immediate strategic risk, it's not the only one and recession now seems likely, in a sector not well prepared it. The Coronavirus 2 toolkit, looks longer term to assess these risks, identify opportunities, and provides ideas and resources you can use to respond. Additional tool kits have been uploaded.

Toolkit 3 - financial sustainability assessment and action plan.
Toolkit 4 - risk assessing volunteer ad hoc groups.

There are also new assessments and resources for virtual events and setting up an online shop. The CEF is completely free. You can register here.

Things To Consider

Healthcare and other expert advice can only come from professionals, and I'm not, so additional resources are included at the bottom of this article.

The checklist is not intended to be doom mongering; we have enough of that already. Not everything will apply to everyone, some might, but may not be important to you and, hopefully, most will not be needed.

Prepare, but don't panic. This checklist is intended to help you identify the issues you wish to consider, in order to help you minimise any impact and reassure everyone that you have adequate planning in place.

Beneficiaries

Risk assess the possible impact on vulnerable beneficiaries, who may be more at risk than the general public or, conversely, may require additional support.
The Government guidance on social or community care, educational settings and residential, supported living and home care is in the Resources section at the bottom.
Here's a useful guide from the BBC on remaining in virtual contact with older people.
People and funding are already in short supply, but potentially setting up a Face Book chat group or calls to the most vulnerable may help to provide some reassurance and alleviate isolation.
And the virus will last for many months. Consider moving more online to maintain engagement with your beneficiaries and other stakeholders, using software such as Mission Box Engagement Communities.

Staff and Volunteers

Review your HR procedures, such as home working and absence. Here's some advice from BWB, with more on their coronavirus hub.
Here's a guide on tools for managing people remotely.
The Government has announced sick pay for those self-isolating will be paid from day 1, instead of day 4. And that health and social care volunteers will be given additional employment safeguards so they can temporarily volunteer in the event of a widespread pandemic.

Ad Hoc Volunteer Groups

One welcome development has been the emergence of ad hoc groups of people who are working to support those affected by the virus.

This is a real opportunity for charities, but also comes with risks. Such groups may not be properly organised, or managed and those who pose a risk to our vulnerable beneficiaries haven't gone away. Carrying out volunteer and DBS checks, if applicable, simply may not be possible in the current crisis.

Options. The best option might be to bring such volunteers under the management of your charity to benefit from your expertise and existing procedures. That may not be possible, or they may not be willing to. Other options might include working with these groups in some way, or providing support and advice to help them work more effectively on their own.

Risk Assessment. Whatever you might choose to do, carry out an assessment of the risks. Questions you might ask include. How credible are those running the group and what organisational, or other relevant expertise do they have? How well organised and managed is the group? What activities are they undertaking? How vulnerable are the beneficiaries? A more extensive Ad Hoc Group Risk Assessment template has been uploaded into the CEF.

In light of that, what support could you provide to help them mitigate risks and achieve more? Should you work with them and, if so, how might you best do that?

Communications

Keep everyone up-to-date on what to do to reduce risk of exposure in the workplace. Include your volunteers in your communications planning. Here's charity coronavirus comms advice from Charity Digital.
Ensure any closure, or restriction in availability, is communicated to everyone, particularly beneficiaries.
If using automated social media posting, make sure that you've amended/deleted any posts that are now out-of-date or no longer appropriate, such as delayed/cancelled events.

Contracts & Service Provision

Consider the potential for disruption to services you deliver, or that others deliver to you. Including any Force Majeure or similar clauses in contracts.
I'm not a lawyer, but force majeure is essentially any unexpected circumstances outside of a contracting party’s reasonable control that, having arisen, prevent it from performing its contractual obligations.

Hygiene Arrangements

Ensure adequate arrangements are in place, both on a day-to-day basis and in the event you may need to deep clean.

Planning & Contact Lists

Ensure that your contingency plan and emergency contact list are up-to-date.

Insurance

The Government has made coronavirus a “notifiable disease”, which is required by many insurance policies. Check if you're covered.
If not, you could consider buying cover extension, but it's likely to be very expensive.
Does your insurance cover people when home working, or require specific checks to be carried out, before they do, or require you to advise them of any home workers?

Travel, meeting and event schedules

Review travel, meetings and events that are planned, and consider contingency options that may be needed.
Board Meetings. For board meetings check your constitution allows remote participation (such as by phone or video link) and quorum.
AGMs. If you have an AGM coming up, consider encouraging members to vote by proxy.
Overseas. For foreign travel, check the FCO website. The Travel Health Pro website might also be useful.

Fundraising and Income

Impact. About 45% of total income is from the public, with small and very large charities the most reliant on this. The immediate impact is likely to be on street and Door-To-Door collections and/or fundraising events. If you have retail shops, visitor attractions or deliver other paid-for services, consider the financial impact of any potential disruption. The IoF has published guidance on the potential impact and how fundraisers are responding and also advice for events fundraisers.
Digital. Is likely to become much more important. Make sure your online fundraising is working well and, if you're new to this, here's how to get started. Consider setting up an online shop, or virtual events, text donations and/or contactless. If your charity has national reach, the £90k Google Ads grant is an absolute gift. It works best if you have national reach, it's not a quick fix and it's a bit of a pain to set up, but I've done it, so it's not rocket science. Here's what you need to know.
Grant Funding. Check how critical funding bids, or grant payments might be, in case of possible delays in these being processed. But some good news is this very welcome, positive response from our grant makers.
To try and help, 2 new Charity Excellence funder lists have been created, with links to funder websites - 60+ health and 90+ social welfare. There are also existing funder lists for hospices, and those working with older people and the disabled, plus funders that support smaller charities, hard to fund causes and core funding applications.
Other Guidance. Here's the IoF guidance for fundraisers and events advice from the Fundraising Regulator. Blue Frog have produced appeal and thank you letter templates for hospices and arts charities.

Finance

Forecasting. Review your income forecasts, assess any cost increases and consider reviewing your expenditure.
Managing Cost. This Charity Excellence resource includes 30+ ways to reduce cost, without cutting into core activities.
Business Rates. Most of us have at least 80% mandatory relief anyway, but some good news in the budget for charity retail, museums, galleries and sports organisations - business rates have been suspended for this year.
Other Tax Reliefs. Each year we fail to claim £600m in Gift Aid and that's only one tax relief. There are different types of Gift Aid, lots of other tax reliefs and you can claim up to 4 years retrospectively. Click either link above to find out what these are and how to claim them.
Investments. If you're lucky enough to have investments, consider the potential risks of the recent market falls becoming protracted.

Resilience

The sector is already hard pressed and, potentially, the coronavirus could trigger a recession. If you have any financial concerns, confirm that you have a reasonable expectation you will be able to continue meeting your liabilities as these fall due - pay your bills? A Coronavirus financial sustainability and action plan toolkit has been uploaded into the CEF.
Warning indicators to think about - income streams are uncertain, or may be substantially impacted by coronavirus, limited cash at bank and few assets that can easily be liquidated, heavy dependence on a single income stream that may be at risk, multi-year funding due to end soon, with no replacement funding yet in place, spending restricted income on core costs or unplanned spending of reserves, free reserves well below target, or no free reserves.
If you do not have a reasonable expectation of being able to pay your bills, advise the Board and seek professional help. There are potentially serious personal risks to trustees who continue to 'wrongfully trade', whilst insolvent.

IT Systems

Do you have adequate access to conference or video calling, for remote meetings and home working. Has any software been set-up and do participants know how to use it.
Before buying workspace collaboration/meeting software, check what's available free for charities. I like Zoom, but there are others, such as Slack. In response to the coronavirus outbreak, Asana is offering charities free licences to its work management tool.
For home workers, check their broadband is strong enough and they have adequate anti-malware, such as an up-to-date virus checker and firewall. Consider using a Virtual Private Network (VPN).
Here's a guide to holding online meetings.

Specialist Requirements

Ensure you are aware of any additional requirements, such as in education or social/health care?

Scams

Sadly, it had to happen. There are reports of fraudulent sellers of face masks and coronavirus-themed phishing emails. People are understandably worried and panic buying has made some resources scarce. However, don't let those pressures blind your common sense. You may wish to alert vulnerable beneficiaries. Details of the scams can be found here.

Resources

Can you help?

The CEF works on a community collaboration basis. Can you help me help others by adding to this resource? If so, comment below, including any links.

With thanks to Sarah Critchley and Rebecca Curtis Moss for making this resource more useful for everyone.