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Assess income generation Be strategic. List all the fundraising and income-
generating activities run in the past 12 months. Record the activity, the amount raised, costs, profit, approximate time commitment, resources and any publicity generated. Compare and analyse which raised the most money and, more importantly, the biggest profits. Which activities were the most time efficient? Did you get a lot of publicity for the school from a particular event? Before you decide not to repeat an activity because of low profits, bear in mind that it isn’t just about the money raised – events can also play an important role in engaging with families or the wider community. Share your findings with the leadership team and the PTA, and use it to plan a calendar of events for next year.
Review contracts Which agreements are due to end soon and which
ones automatically roll over? Check that your procurement procedures are still fit for purpose (Government procurement thresholds increased from 1 January 2018). If you are using the actual threshold figures in your documents, check that your policies and financial procedures manual have the correct amounts. If you don’t have a contracts register then add it to your to-do list! Software products are available, but start with a simple spreadsheet – include the service supplied, current supplier, length of contract, start date, end date and date for giving notice. Review it termly.
Check grant opportunities Do you keep a grants register? If you do,
check it for upcoming opportunities. Many grant- awarding bodies have more than one round of funding each year; some are open all year round. If you are looking at a project for the 2018/19 academic year or a summer holiday project, now is the ideal time to look into funding. The FundEd grants database (
funded.org.uk/grants) has more than 200 schemes listed, and you can filter results by curriculum area, so use this as a starting point.
Check progress on capital projects
Check on the progress of capital projects, communicate regularly with the person managing the project or, if you are managing the project yourself,
regularly update your project tracking tool, e.g. a Gantt chart. Be ready to prepare a report for your governing body and be able to answer any questions they might have. Governors are often interested in the details of larger projects.
THINGS TO DO THIS TERM
Finance Director Hayley Dunn shares her must-do tasks for the coming term
Think economy, efficiency and effectiveness
Hayley Dunn is Finance Director at Codsall MAT. She is a Fellow of the ISBL, avid Twitter user: @ShropshireSBM, and blogs at
ShropshireSBM.org
58 SPRING 2018 FundEd
Remember the three Es: economy – lowest price; efficiency – as smooth as possible; effectiveness – done as well as possible. Consideration should be given to the three Es in all processes and procedures that we undertake. Review whether the automation of activities is effective; areas where there is possible duplication, and time thieves. For example, track your interruptions – by keeping a daily tally of the reasons why you are being taken away from your intended task you can identify ways to reduce this and focus your time where it will make the most impact. Similarly, with processes we want to get to a single point of entry for data, where possible.
IMAGES: IZKES; GOLDYROCKS; EUROBANKS/
ISTOCKPHOTO.COM
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