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Finance, Legal and Admin

For Community Accountancy projects dotted around the country, see Accountancy Services page.

• Association of Charity Independent Examiners. See our Charity Accounts page - this is for those who do, or want to, scrutinise smaller charity accounts to SORP requirements. The Gatehouse, White Cross, South Road, Lancaster, LA1 4XQ, phone 01524 348920, email: info@acie.org.uk

• Association of Insurance and Risk Managers (AIRMIC) have a special interest group (SIG) for the voluntary sector. Phone 020 7480 7610.

• Charity Complaints Forum Aims to provide support and information for anyone managing complaints within the voluntary sector; and promote the use of complaints handling and information to improve service delivery. Contact Claire Wilson, email: Claire.Wilson@cancer.org.uk

• Charities Facilities Management Special Interest Group of Upkeep, for those whose work in a voluntary organisation includes dealing with buildings. Email: upkeep@sbu.ac.uk

• Charity Finance Group (was Charity Finance Directors' Group). Monthly meetings in London, some regional presence; helplines for members on such things as IT and finance, accounting problems, VAT, charity law, investment. Membership from £90. 49-51 East Road, London, N1 6AH, phone 0845 345 3192, email: info@cfg.org.uk There is also a Scottish Charity Finance Group.

• Charities Internal Audit Network Membership (free) is for anyone working, or having an interest, in internal audit and internal control within charities. Email: enquiries@cianonline.org.uk

• Charity Investors' Group. Open to investing charities and charity sector investment managers - mainly concentrating on the big players. Focus is on exchange of views and information rather than lobbying.

• Charity Law Association This is more for charity lawyers, but membership is open to any individual or organisation with an interest in charity law. Subscription from £45.

• Charities Safety Group Self help and support network for people with health and safety responsibilities.

• Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supplies has a Charity Sector Procurement Group as a Special Interest Group, probably (link to info has gone, Sep 2010).

• Charity Tax Group Advice and lobbying on tax issues (including VAT, Gift Aid). Church House, Great Smith Street, London, SW1P 3AZ, email: info@charitytax.info

• FM Charity Network Forum, for facilities managers etc. New 2009?

• Honorary Treasurers Forum (was Charity Treasurers Forum). Set up to provide a source of information, research and knowledge for the treasurers of charities large and small.

• ICAEW Talk Charity online forum from the chartered accountants body.

• Institute for Chartered Secretaries and Administrators (ICSA) no longer has information online about a Charity Secretaries Group (at Jan 2010) - it was open to chartered secretaries and others taking on a company secretarial role in voluntary organisations. £70-50 for non-ICSA members (at Nov 08).

• PA to Chief Executive Network - see the linked page giving full details.

Funding

• Association of Charitable Foundations Exists to promote and support the work of UK grant-making trusts and foundations, membership open to all such bodies and some administrative trustees. Web site has guidance notes available for both funders and applicants, and alphabetical list and web links (with basic info) to ACF members. Central House, 14 Upper Woburn Place, London, WC1H 0AE, phone 020 7255 4499, email: acf@acf.org.uk

• Community Fundraisers’ Forum (was new spring 2007) designed for fundraisers in smaller charities who are working by themselves and need a bit of support. Membership is £10 per year with four meetings a year, email: janerockliffe@wspa.org.uk

• Funding Advice Workers Network has an email list operating from NAVCA, but there are independent regional groups. No longer any info about this on NAVCA web site (open pages).

• Institute of Fundraising Park Place, 12 Lawn Lane, London, SW8 1UD, phone 020 7840 1000, email: enquiries@institute-of-fundraising.org.uk. See regional info on the website - Wales, Scotland, NI and English areas too.

• Institute of Legacy Management promotes professional standards in legacy administration and provides consultancy, training and support services to its members.

• London Funders is "open to all London-based local authorities, public, independent and corporate funders and to all charitable funders and investors in the capital's voluntary and community sector".

Information and Research

• ARVAC (Association for Research in the Voluntary and Community Sector) provides researchers with a supportive network, amongst other things. See Sector Research page for more.

• Social Impact Analysts Association (started as Association of Nonprofit Analysts).

• Charity Archivists and Records Managers - CHARM (link problem Sept 2012) is a special interest group of Society of Archivists. Provides a forum for archivists, records managers and other people responsible for the management of charity records and archives.

• LMSC - the Legislation Monitoring Service for Charities, voluntary organisations and their advisers. 'Subscribers (are) kept abreast of developments in Westminster, Whitehall and Brussels'. Policy as well as law, quarterly reports. Church House, Great Smith Street, London SW1P 3AZ, phone 020 7222 1265.

• Vol-info (uses Yahoo groups). Voluntary Sector Information Workers Network for anyone involved in providing and managing information in the voluntary sector. Defunct at May 2011?

• Voluntary Sector Studies Network is for those with an interest in academic research about the sector. It uses the university JISCmail service, but is open to all.

• See Technology below for Charities Security Forum.

Communications and Campaigning

• CharityComms "The professional body for charity sector communications from internal communications and publishing to media relations, marketing communications and new media, as well as reputation and crisis management."

• Fifth Estate, connected with Chartered Institute of Public Relations, "aims to support anyone in the not-for-profit sector who has public relations in their job description".

• Also see NCVO's Campaigning Effectiveness material - the forum may still be active.

Technology

Also see Voluntary Sector and IT page for support projects and research (although rather dated).

• Charities Consortium IT Directors Group For Heads of Information Systems/Information Technology from the major UK Charities.

• Charities Information Technology Group. Web site has disappeared (was www.citg.org.uk). So may no longer exist - had been based around the Royal Colleges (medical profession bodies).

• Charities Security Forum "the premier group for Information Security Professionals working in the charity sector".

• Charity Web Managers Forum An informal but helpful discussion group with knowledgeable members. Uses Yahoo Groups web/list service, sometimes also meets in the real world.

• CITRA, membership body for voluntary sector IT professionals, has become a special interest group of Socitm, the public sector IT body.

• eCampaigning Forum Network International eActivism Practitioners Community aiming to share expertise and increase capacity to use new media to stimulate change.

• ICT Development at NCVO.

• UK Circuit Riders Discussion group for those providing IT support across a number of voluntary organisations, which are too small to have their own IT staff.

Other

• Charity Retail Association (was Association of Charity Shops) Brings together over 300 member charities which have about 7,000 charity shops between them. Aims to help member organisations through the sharing of information and representing their interests by lobbying and informing. Has developed kitemark scheme. Membership £31 per shop or a minimum of £105. 5th Floor, Central House, 14 Upper Woburn Place, London, WC1H 0AE, phone 020 7255 4470

• Charities HR Network. We have no info on this other than Sonia Higgs, HR director at Advanced Housing and Support, is its chair.

• Community Transport Promotes safe and efficient use of community and accessible transport.