Our Impact

A record year of Impact 2022 - 23

The last year saw record levels of activity at Cranfield Trust. Our consultancy and mentoring services were up by 15% from last year, and we have seen growth in activity across most of our services. We are pleased that so many charity leaders and managers have engaged with us at such a difficult time in the sector, despite the pressures on them and their organisations, and are proud to have had the chance to work with so many inspiring leaders, managers and trustees.

Areas of concern for Cranfield Trust in our client charities include short term financial management and planning, challenges in board recruitment and governance, and increasing illness and stress. In some cases, limited appetite for change when charities find it difficult to visualize and implement different ways of working, or to consider collaboration or merger partners.

It is very positive that the proportion of our consultancy projects addressing strategic and business planning increased to 63% from 58% in the year, as many charities worked with us to develop their future plans. The proportion of our work represented by mentoring fell to 25% from 31%, but the number of mentoring assignments stayed almost the same at 118. We know that having a mentor has a definite impact on wellbeing, with charity leaders and managers reporting the value of having someone listening to their concerns, focused on them as a person, and able to discuss a range of issues.

A highlight of the last year has been the extensive research we carried out into management training needs and provision amongst smaller charities, kindly supported by the Masonic Charitable Foundation. The report, “Charity Management Matters”, was published in November and is shaping our thinking on how we can further support the development of managers, as well as calling on others to collaborate to support their development.

We are extremely grateful to our volunteers, who are Cranfield Trust, and without whom our services would not be possible. We are also fortunate to have very valued support from funders, donors, supporters, trustees and colleagues. Thank you all for enabling Cranfield Trust to have a great impact on the small to medium size charities we all value so highly.

It is our pleasure to present our Impact Report 2022-23, to share our successes and to celebrate our impact and that of every one of the charities we’ve worked with, which are changing lives and society.