Welcome to the April edition.
We’re very grateful for so many positive responses to our new brand, which launched at the end of last month. Working with our partners Red Stone and drawing on valuable input from members throughout the process, we’ve arrived at a refreshed look and feel that we hope more clearly reflects what ACO is all about: bringing charities together, amplifying your expertise and showcasing the real difference your charities make on the lives of the beneficiaries you support.
Alongside the brand launch, we also published our 2026 Salary Benchmarking and Working Patterns Report, developed with the support of our colleagues at Merrifield Consultants. We hope it’s already proving a useful reference point for conversations around pay, benefits and working practices across your organisations. You can access the report here.
We know that training for frontline staff, including caseworkers and grants teams, can often be financially challenging for many ACO charities. We’re keen to explore regular, low-cost workshops that make use of ACO’s collective purchasing power, giving all our charities access to relevant, tailored training at a reasonable cost, and particularly opening up opportunities for our small and medium-sized members. To help shape this, we’ll shortly be sharing a short training needs survey with members and we’ll use the responses to decide where to move forward.
For CEOs and senior leaders, we’re looking forward to our first Leaders Roundtable on 26 May, a workshop based day of peer-led discussion focused on the leadership decisions and strategic challenges ACO charities are navigating right now. Full details of all our upcoming events in April and May can be found here.
On a final note, our annual conference programme will be formally launched on 1 June. This year’s event takes place on 17 September at BMA House in Tavistock Square, London and is always a great opportunity to reflect, connect and share with colleagues from across the network. Discounted early bird registration is open now for members only until the end of May, so it’s worth booking sooner rather than later.
Donal Watkin
Chief Executive
This month’s edition features:
- Upcoming ACO events
- Jobs board
- Member spotlight on NABS
- Guest article from Wellbeing People
- Member news
- Policy and sector news
- Publications