Social investment – the emperor’s new clothes?

Reading the Charity Times article on social investment models (Charity Times p 42 et seq, Vol 9 issue 5) reminds me of this tale.

As the author (David Adams) reports “this is not some short-term sticking plaster”. But it is even that?

The article helpfully indicates that social investment  is a loan or investment  – so is capital funding and not revenue – and it is money that is loaned to you – and so has to be paid back somehow – from incoming revenue perhaps or  as grants and other funding is received.   And everyone is silent about interest or returns.

So it is not revenue funding – and what do we all need? !!

Of course that is not quite true – we do need capital funding sometimes – not the least to try and earn some income.

The Quaker Housing Trust (www.qht.org.uk) has been making grants and loans for 30 years, to promote social housing development.  QHT helps to get schemes off the ground with a mixture of grant (for the “at risk” elements e.g. planning permission), soft loan (loan at below market rate) and hard loan (market rent) with the so-called covenant (requirement to pay back) met by rent – so income earnt.

So important question one is will this new social investment provide “soft” money.   If it will not it will be commercial, not “social”.  And you can always get commercial money providing you are prepared to put the shirt on your back into hock and can meeting the repayment schedule – even in today’s financial climate.

As with the notion  of social enterprise (not defined anywhere) social investment could be useful if a “rebadging” of a pre-existing set of options draws in more investors to join e.g. those already investing in the Quaker Social housing account which lends at “soft” rates through QHT.

And that is my second question is there new “social” money?

Because if there is not, the emperor has no clothes

Is collective working passe?

I now find that my old rubric that anything other than a hierarchical structure requires internal or external energy to survive is still true. I’m indebted to John Hunt (http://tinyurl.com/3kc6bzn) for the original insight but keep on coming back to it as clients try matrix structures that degrade into chaos

The rule is that unless there is energy in the structure – external as in you are being kicked by your market or internal of some sort then conventional structures are de reigeur

Clouds

As Joni Mitchell would have it …..“rows and flows of angel hair, and ice cream castles in the air, and feathered canyons everywhere, I’ve looked at clouds that way……….

I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now, from up and down, and still somehow, it’s clouds illusions I recall. I really don’t know clouds…at all”

“I really don’t know clouds…at all “summarises my view.

On the one hand vendors say “put your data up into the cloud, and all will be well” – which equals “ice cream castles in the air”.

On the other the “cloud” is just a few bits of string linking a few server racks with hard drives in them.

Usually the reality is somewhere between, but the two extremes suggest some issues to be considered at least.

First, you need to be connected to the interweb to get to the cloud – all very well in a well connected part of the world but in some part of the UK such access at any reasonable speed can be a big ask.

Second, it will probably help you to know where your data is kept. Some of the big vendors move their data around the globe to follow the sun ( and the peak load by users). So if you do not want your data to go there you really need to say so.

The UK ICO says;

“From a data protection point of view it is important to remember that organisations using these services might not store the personal data they are responsible for on their own equipment. Therefore they often can’t be certain where the personal data is being processed and by whom. Clearly, this raises compliance issues that those using internet-based computing need to address.
Organisations using an internet-based service must not relinquish control of the personal data they have collected, or expose it to security risks that would not have arisen had the data remained in their possession in the UK. To overcome this problem a written contract should be in place.

It is also good practice to encrypt the data before it is transferred to the online services company. This should render the data useless to any hackers and snoopers without the key, regardless of the jurisdiction it is in or who is processing it. “

Thirdly, look at the business continuity issues. Many users of Gmail, as pointed out by our consultant Steve Cassidy, lost their accounts – wiped at the end of February 2011. So take care about who actually owns your data and where it is copied or backed up to.

Generally we are always happy to advise – details on the “contact us” page.

Hope property was in your investment porfolio? And other possible gains ….or losses

Interesting to see (http://tinyurl.com/38dwax7) that The Charities Property Fund, the first common investment fund for charities in England and Wales, is celebrating its tenth year with a return of 19.1 per cent for the past 12 months. Obviously this should be part of a balanced portfolio, as property is a volatile investment – and a large holding is not for the brave hearted

Also if your income in demominated in, say, euros, and you spend in sterling again your gtrants may now be worth rather more than they were towo years ago.

However, if you are spending in euros or dollars or paid from sterling, or invested at the bottom of price swings of the property market, then woe is you.

All goes to show you need professional advice if you do not have good comon sense and knowledge – and bear in mind only if you are properly in contract with payment of fees can you sue for wrong advice

Another day, another dollar – go gently into this dark night

Ho hum – Friday over – weekend coming up – perhaps last day of open air track cycling at Herne Hill this year and preparing for next week – fundraising, finance and frolics – and ICT, strategy and PR of course.

Also, we are having to persuade clients not to panic – some of course are wide open to the winds of Con-Lib cuts. But others are in areas where smaller Goverment may mean more for them – especially in core areas such as care, health (mental and physical) and education.

And we have to remembver two similar agencies may have quite diferent cost structures – decisions made a few years ago to merge ro raise donor funds for facilities – buildings; equipment, may lead to gloriously varying cost structures and ability to pitch successfully.

We wish all our clients well as they go gently into this good night, and, have to remember having misquoted Dylan Thomas I quote properly….

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Best to all

Microsoft Server update day

Microsoft Server update day today I see – and Server 2003 updates seem to reboot automatically – at least on our VM (virtual machine) – ho hum!

And we advise all to use “notify me, but do not download automatically” by and large – if your machines are working well, the odd device driver automatically downlaoded can cause mayhem, especially if it is a network card update that removes network and/or internet acceess.

Who remembers the last Conservative Administration?

I guess few fundraisers under 30 years of age remember the last Conservative administration in the UK. And a number of others over 30 who have gotten used to a continually increasing central, regional and local government largesse to the voluntary sector over the last 10 years.

It is interesting tho’ to compare the economic circumstances in the early ’90′s (John Major lost the election in 1997) and the early “noughties” with the Con- Lib Coalition taking over this year. Post the recession in the early 1990′s (1990 – 1992) the economy pulled up allowing first the government of Tony Blair and then Gordon Brown to “grow” public sector spending to what has been estimated as high as 40% of the income of “UK Charity plc” during year 2009/2010.

Our reflection on the last (1979 – 1997) Conservative administration was that it was voluntary sector friendly but the reality was often about using the sector as cheap suppliers and to do things the Government did not want to do. What this Con-Lib Administration’s reality will be is still far from clear – less money certainly but suggestions that, say, British Waterways and the Audit Commission (and other Government agencies?) will become social enterprises may also grow the voluntary sector.

Dealing with grants in advance

Interesting conversation this am where grant commitments were being added as debtors and therefore increasing income in one year to the detriment of the next.

We have always advised never taking in commitments as debtors as a donor almost always has a way out if they want one.

We also advise keeping a monthly check on the “grants in advance” position in relation to restricted monies as it it is all too easy to either under or over spend. And of course gant is advance get posted as creditors (money du back to the donor) – and not debtors!!

Managing in a mixed economy

We have been reflecting on the matter of costs for and with some of our clients – it is noteworthy how wedded some trustees and managers are wedded to an “overhead heavy” way of operating.

This is fine while the organisation is supported by a regular income stream, such as membership income. Focus tends to be on delivery of service to members that is paid for by that income.

Grafting on to that way of working, say, some kind of trading of activity may then seem to make sense, but managers and trustees forget that an apportionment of overhead to that activity almost always loads it up with costs that make that activity return an overall loss.

Of course that trading activity will make a contribution to overheads but may also soak up more of management time than is needful – all un-costed
Perhaps far better to move such an activity into a trading subsidiary with its own infrastructure so making it clear what costs the trading activity can support and those it cannot.

System upgrade time

Its system upgrade time at Dovetail – always interesting – mac and linux have been OK, as has Notes 8.1, but Windows 7 has given us some interesting times on our 2 “Windoze” workstations.

Especially useful has been this link – we usually make up our hard drives on a test box and then swop them in to the live machine when ready – and without knowing what Microsoft have done with a “secret” boot partition you cannot do that. All set out in

www.mydigitallife.info/2009/01/09/how-to-avoid-200mb-hidden-system-partition-from-been-created-during-windows-7-installation/

Also mNotes (see www.commontime.co.uk) has also been interesting – seems version 5.15 of the mNotes Wireless client does not seem to like Windows Mobile 6.1 but their help desk has been very responsive – although even that was wearing thin after the fourth hard reset on my mobile ‘phone!

My consolation is that this is a once in three years up date – by which time I will have forgotten the pain!