Group Support

Supporting Voluntary & Community Groups to grow and thrive

Through the free support we provide, VAAC is able to help organisations to grow and achieve their aims; last year alone (2018-2019), we helped small organisations to raise £52,389 through funding applications, 202 new volunteer opportunities were advertised, the development team provided one-to-one support to 150 organisations and 122 people attended VAAC training events on subjects including First Aid, Data Protection/GDPR, Making every Contact Count, Resilience and Trustee Training.

What we offer

Free 1:1 support on the following;

• Start ups – finding the right organisational structure, writing a governing document, recruiting trustees, opening a bank account and more…
• Policies (which ones you should have) and practice (and how to deliver them)
• Strategy planning and how to measure impact of your work
• Advice on writing funding bids and checking them – we need 10 working days before the closing date to review bids
• Recruiting volunteers including Trustees – Contact Volunteer Now!
• Health Checks – advice on development and check you have everything in place
• Advice on websites and getting your message across

Services

We also offer the following services at a charge:

• Training courses (although subsidised)
• Consultancy services – we charge for pieces of work that are more involved than advising. Examples include:
  - Facilitating strategy development days for Trustee Boards
  - Writing funding bids
  - Running bespoke training for organisations

We are happy to discuss with you your needs. Our charges are very reasonably priced for the voluntary sector.
Please contact Lucie via email or on 01243 840305.

VAAC Development Team - follow up

As VAAC’s Development Team we are interested in how your organisation is fairing if you have had a member of the team giving you support and advice in the last couple of months.

For some of you it may still be early days and you have not put in place the things we discussed. We wanted to let you know that the team is here if you need more support – our way of thinking is that there is no such thing as a silly / stupid question. With that in mind here is our VAAC Development Team Referral form if there is something new you would like to discuss or you would welcome a review.

We have supported 76 organisations since the beginning of April. Thank you to those of you who have emailed directly to express your response. 51% have responded to the on-line survey which is great. If you have not completed the online survey please to do so. The information from the survey is used to inform what and how we can help you and is part of the statistical data for our funders.
Survey

Dramatis is a community drama school with funded projects.
VAAC has helped Dramatis get to grips with the ins and outs of setting up a community group. Great support in regards to setting up their constitution and knowing there is somewhere to go when confused.

Can we feature your organisation on our next promotional video?

Hopefully you will have seen the series of videos we released recently shining a spotlight on some of our members and the support they have received from VAAC.
We are hoping to produce some more featuring local groups, would you like to take part?
Please contact Jenny via email to find out more and register your interest.
Our members videos