‘Under-resourced and over-stretched.” There can’t be many people running a charity or voluntary organisation who wouldn’t identify with this.


In some cases, the key concern is survival: The change from grants to commissioning, the reduction in funding from trust funds, and the need to think more commercially, mean that staying afloat can almost take precedence over what the organisation was set up to do in the first place.


For other organisations, it might be that the problem is less about survival and more about growth and development: Not so much a shortage of ideas, but more a problem of focus and of contemplating change.


And at the centre of these dilemmas — whether they are about survival or growth — is the person, or people, who manage the organisation and who need to make it all happen. How do they know that they are making the best decisions? Have they thought about all the different options? Are there ideas, or models, that they don’t know about but which might be helpful or better than those that they are currently contemplating?
It was in response to such concerns, that Charity Mentors was set up, just under a year ago.
Roz Warren of Charity Mentors explains: “Charity Mentors offers short-term, free-of-charge mentoring service to charities and not-for-profit organisations.
“Their mentors work alongside charity leaders and managers to help resolve specific strategic issues. All of the mentors are volunteers and they bring with them substantial experience at senior leadership level.
“Since Charity Mentors started, they have worked with 30 different voluntary organisations and charities.”
The range of challenges and issues has been very wide but Charity Mentors tries to work towards specific, pre-agreed goals that will deliver identifiable outcomes.
Sometimes these outcomes take the form of a written plan but sometimes they are more about securing the direction of the organisation and strengthening its leadership.
For instance, Charity Mentors recently worked with Talking Shop (who won Best Community Project in the 2013 OCVA Awards) and Abi Johnson, the chair of Talking Shop, identified a number of outcomes as a result.
Among the outcomes she identified were, “keeping individuals’ workloads manageable” and “supporting and maintaining the group’s sense of ownership of the project”, alongside “stronger leadership”.
So, if you are feeling “under-resourced and over-stretched”, you could try contacting Charity Mentors to see if they can help.
Contact info@charitymentors.co.uk.