(a charitable company limited by guarantee)
Registered Charity No. 1054914
Company Number 3182826
Over 3,000 delegates attended more than 50 CFDG events during the year. We planned to increase events income by at least 10%, the actual increase was 24%.
The Annual Conference in May 2005 focused on the subject of “Sustainable Outcomes” and looked at a variety of charity finance and governance issues including sessions on internal audit, disability compliance, money laundering and fraud, sustainable fundraising, VAT, and finance benchmarking. An important element of the conference was of course the new SORP. The conference dedicated a whole stream to regulation matters, specifically looking at the new trustees report, the SIR and internal and external reporting. With over 300 delegates, the conference, which was sponsored by haysmacintyre and the Bank of Scotland, had excellent feedback from members, many of who also made use of the networking opportunities of the reception at the end of the day. As per our plans we investigated ways of developing the conference in 2006 by moving venue to the more spacious QEII Centre.
Due to a change in the date of the IT Conference, the year saw not one but two IT Conferences, in April 2005 and February 2006. Together, they had an audience of almost 300, and strengthened the reputation of CFDG as a key player in IT strategy planning for charities (a fact born out by a recent survey in Charity Finance magazine in which CFDG was the voted most highly respected provider of IT information in the sector). As technology progresses, CFDG continues to encourage discussion on how IT can be used to build comprehensive management information systems
The CFDG Risk Conference also attracted an audience of 150 (its highest ever). Brendan Gormley, Chief Executive of the Disasters and Emergencies Committee was the keynote speaker, giving some insights into how risk management is addressed by a global multi-agency relief effort. The chart below shows the growth in attendance at our major conferences over the last two years.
The new SORP was also the focus of two very well received training courses at the beginning of the year, led by Pesh Framjee (Deloitte), Keith Hickey (then of Help the Aged) and Nick Kavanagh (Save the Children Fund) through which CFDG had the chance to train almost 300 members in the hands-on application of the new SORP. These followed on from the SORP launch events CFDG held the year before in London and all regional groups. Due to staff shortages we were not able to extend our VAT or Trustee training as we had planned.
Our Annual Fundraising Dinner took place at The Brewery in the City of London in October 2005. In an evening supported by the Royal Bank of Scotland, many of CFDG’s subscribers again sponsored tables and invited CFDG members, resulting in a very well-received social and networking event. We increased attendance by 6% against plans of 10%, being somewhat limited by the capacity of the venue. However we increased income by over 30% against a target of 15%.
2005/06 also saw a 10% rise in corporate sponsorship for CFDG events and training courses. As we are providing services for an ever increasing number of delegates, as mentioned above, this sponsorship, mostly coming from our corporate subscribers, enables us to keep fees for events as low as possible for charity employees. Companies sponsoring and hosting CFDG events in 2005/06 included: Addleshaw Goddard LLP, Anglo Irish Bank, Baker Tilly, Bank of Scotland, Barclays Bank, BDO Stoy Hayward LLP, The Co-operative Bank, Deloitte, Fujitsu-Siemens, haysmacintyre, Horwath Clark Whitehill LLP, Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, PKF (UK) LLP, Rathbone Investment Management, The Royal Bank of Scotland, Rensburg Sheppards, Sarasin Chiswell, Touchstone, and UBS Wealth Management.
Page 6 - Annual Report and Financial Statements 2006