3 Mistakes I Made in My First Year as a Treasurer for a Charitable Organisation (and How You Can Avoid Them)
If you’re interested in taking on a treasurer role at a charitable organisation in the UK, here are some lessons I learnt in my first year that (had I learnt them sooner!) would have saved time and increased my impact.
Go straight to the experts — CAF Bank
I spent months trying to open an account with a high street bank that shall remain nameless. It became clear that their infrastructure and appetite for enabling first-time charitable groups to formalise was hugely limited and their offer was little more than warm words on a website.
I should have gone straight to the people who do banking expressly for charitable organisations. In the UK, these are they: https://www.cafbank.org/. And they are lovely, professional people who want your charitable organisation to succeed.
Think about funders after your banking is sorted
I really underestimated how long opening a bank account would take and tried to research funders at the same time as sorting the bank account. That was a big mistake!
I would have been much better off taking these jobs on one at a time. Focusing on the banking first is your key if you’re seeking to take your group from a grassroots community network to an established organisation. Leave the funder research until you have a way to apply for their funds!
Have set ‘voluntary’ projects and time
I don’t know about you, but I am a serial volunteer and idea-suggester, getting caught up in the excitement and the mission; adding to the collective to-do list.
In the treasurer role, I have learnt to remind myself that I best serve the organisation and its charitable objectives by sticking to my brief and getting those tasks done to the best of my ability.
I now put 2 hours a week in my diary for my voluntary tasks with specific project task lists in Master Task Database (thank you, Marie Poulin — https://mariepoulin.com/ 🙏).
I hope this is a useful reflection for first-year charitable treasurers out there — most of all, enjoy working with a committed network of people all working to make the world a better place!
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