Events

Upcoming Events

ACO Annual Conference: 5th-7th October - Navigating through Challenging Times

We’d all agree 2020 has been a turbulent year for the charity sector!

Join us from 5-7 October for the virtual ACO Annual Conference – kindly supported by Smith & Williamson - bringing together colleagues from benevolent funds and grant-making charities throughout the sector to reflect, debate and re-energise through a series of envigorating panels, session and workshops.

Core sessions include:

• Keynote Panel discussions: “Where Now for the Charity Sector?” and “Appliance Poverty – Living Without During Covid-19”;
• Navigating the Crisis and Preparing for the Second Wave;
• Considering Diversified Income;
• Diversity & Inclusion in the Sector;

We will also run standalone workshops including Charity Mergers and Collaboration; Grant Management in a Digital World and Getting Back to Work After Lockdown – HR Perspectives;

Registration fees (ACO members £25/ACO Corporate Partners £30/Non-members £35) have been set deliberately low to encourage maximum participation from member and non-member charities for this digital event and provide full access to all three daily sessions.

Registrations now open on Eventbrite.

Register Here

With thanks to Smith & Williamson as official event sponsor

Grant Making Forum - Tuesday 22nd September

Our next Grant Making Forum will be taking place as a virtual event on Zoom on Tuesday 22 September at 11am - 12:30pm and is free for all ACO members to attend.

Register to attend on Eventbrite. Joining us for the morning will be three speakers:

Sam Royston - Director of Policy and Research at The Children's Society

The Coordinated Community Support programme is working with four areas (Oldham, Swansea, Tower Hamlets and Norfolk) to improve the coordination and delivery of emergency financial support.  As part of the work of the programme, we have been looking to improve awareness of and access to small grant provision for people facing emergency need.  This presentation will give a short introduction to this work – including the development of a new small grant application portal - and explore ways in which we could work together in the future.

Paul McAfee and Helen Bradley - Family Fund Business Services (FFBS)

Paul will talk about what FFBS has been working on over the last 6 months and how they have been supporting customers to deliver essential support to those in need. Helen will take a look at what the future holds for FFBS in light of what we have learned during this period and how we can use this experience to shape our processes and offering.

Dr. Neil Stanley - Director of Sleep Science at Sleepstation.org.uk

We all need sleep so what is it, why is it important and what can go wrong? Sleepstation is here to help you understand and make your sleep better.

This session will be followed by a meeting of the ACO Under Fives in the afternoon.

Grant Making Forum (GMF)

We run quarterly meetings in London, which are all free to members and feature 2-3 speakers on issues of interest to our sector. Potential members can be invited to attend to get an idea about ACO and its membership.

Meetings are held at the British Dental Association, 64 Wimpole Street, London W1G 8YS, from 11am-1pm

Under Fives

The Under Fives meeting follows on from the GMF after a half-hour break for lunch to start at 1:30pm.

The objective of the Under Fives group is to support smaller charities with five staff or less to meet their stategic goals.

The group discusses how themes relevant to the benevolent sector (presented in the Grant Making Forum) translate to charities delivering on a smaller scale. The group also gives the opportunity to discuss hands-on issues outside of the workplace, enabling staff to deal with day-to-day issues.

We are planning to create a virtual network to encourage greater participation from members between meetings.

The ACO is grateful to the British Dental Association Benevolent Fund for supporting these events.