How to Become More Financially Robust:
SAFE’s growth as small charity, to a thriving medium-sized organisation.

To celebrate Small Charity Week, we had a chat with the CEO at SAFE!, Chloe Purcell, to explore what makes this charity so financially robust.

SAFE! - a charity supporting children and families across the Thames Valley who have experienced crime or abuse - is accredited with Trusted Standard Level 1.

This achievement not only recognises their commitment to quality, but also highlights one of their standout strengths: exceptional financial oversight.

Chloe recently joined us as a special guest on one our "Lunch and Learn" webinars. Here are some of the highlights:

One of your major strengths highlighted by your Trusted Standard assessment report was your impressive financial oversight. Can you talk us through that?

We’re really lucky at SAFE! to have an exceptional treasurer – and I know that’s not necessarily par for the course to get a particularly strong treasurer. One of the bonuses of this process from her perspective, has been that recognition that although she's the treasurer and she’s strong, and I'm the CEO and I've got a lot of involvement with the finance… actually, all the members of the board need to have an understanding of the finance. One of the key roles of board members is to have an understanding and the ability to scrutinise and challenge forecasts and budgets.

It doesn't need to be an in-depth knowledge of the ins and outs of the accounting, but they've got to have an understanding of where we're at financially, where we're headed financially, what our core income streams are, and have general confidence that we have that financial robustness. I think that the Trusted Standard enabled that.

Can you talk about any of the indicators with the Trusted Standard that were particularly useful for you in developing the way you run SAFE! from a financial point of view?

Going through the Trusted Standard process and looking at the financial area was really about that reassurance that ‘yes, we are doing it right.’

One of the things that Trusted Standard has enabled us to do was getting really clear about our income streams, and ensuring that we are differentiating in multiple areas. It just helps you organise a bit better.

Like I mentioned before, one of the current areas of concern is that income streams are coming to an end, and we are having to look for more. So it was about having it all set out and being clear on what our funds are like.

One of the other areas that was helpful for us was the financial procedures area.
We did have a financial regulations document - over the years you grow these documents and you build lots of different policies and procedures. And yes, there are some that get annually reviewed, but there are some that perhaps don't get reviewed as often as they should.
So when you go through this process, you realise that actually, it really did need reviewing. It’s not just for the process of the accreditation, but for the organisation itself.

I think one of the biggest changes that we brought in following the accreditation process was around my reports into the board and linking them clearly with our strategic plans for the next two years.

Every quarter, we’ll provide a RAG report on the basis of the business plan, that keeps the board up to speed on where we're at with the actions that we set out to achieve over the next two years.

But it's also means that as an organisation and senior management team, we're able to ensure that we're keeping on track with everything that we've set out, and nothing is left unaccounted for. Initially I felt like I report a lot into the board already, but I think it really helped to give it a little bit more structure. And it's been very welcomed by the board.

Why did you decide to go for the Trusted Standard route rather than other different types of accreditation?

I've been working for SAFE! for nearly 12 years, which is a long time. And in that time, the charity has grown significantly. When I first started, I was the only employed member of staff. We just worked in Oxfordshire, and we reached about 100 children a year. Now we have almost 40 staff, we work across 3 counties, and we reach 1000 – 1500 children a year, plus family members.

It's been pretty much straight up growth all the way through. And in that process of rapid growth, we started looking at PQASSO - which was the precursor to Trusted Standard.

I think it's been a helpful tool throughout our journey as an organisation, from a really small organisation, to a one with a greater reach, in helping us identify what we need to safeguard the organisation in lots of different areas.

Was it a requirement of the Commissioners that you use Trusted Standard?

It was a requirement of the Commissioners that we sought a Level 1 accreditation.

We felt that the Trusted Standard gave us that holistic accreditation that looked at the whole organisation.

It felt like a kind of health check for the organisation. It was much more than the tick box that we needed for our Commissioners. It enabled us to review in the right areas and think about what we needed, and where.

I guess what you're saying in a way, is that it helped you embed good practice throughout the whole organisation. Is that fair?

Absolutely. It doesn't leave any stone unturned.

I think that the Standard helped in terms of giving a framework to my learning and development as well.

What did you learn at the Self-Assessment stage?

Even if you don't want to get the accreditation, you can use the self-assessment to help strengthen areas of the organisation.

The lead up to the external assessment feels quite scary because you think somebody is going to come and scrutinise everything you’re doing, and it feels a little like you’re being inspected, which essentially you are. But actually the process felt quite collaborative and you learn so much from it.

You're quite happy to have got past the self-assessment because, to be perfectly open and honest, the self-assessment process does require quite a lot of input. A year on, I wish I'd got a few more people involved in helping with it than I did, because it fell to two of us to pull all the evidence together. Next time I'll have a team of people.

How did you benefit from the external accreditation?

It's really helpful to have that accreditation. I think it gives confidence to funders and donors that the organisation is managed well.

We've all seen the way that charities can be scrutinised more heavily in the light of scandals and mismanagement of funds, so I think having that accreditation really helps.

It says that we're an organisation that can be trusted.

You went through the accreditation at Level 1 - are you thinking of progressing to Level 2?

In terms of moving to Level 2 - I think this time next year it might be a conversation that we'll be having with the board. But I would.