Good practice is the generic term we give to ensuring things are being done well in an organisation or group. We want local organisations to be safe, compliant, resilient and accountable for their finances, staff/volunteers, beneficiaries and so on.

Many committee and board members have a very good sense of what good practice is and how to do things well. It's always a good idea to review things periodically and seek to learn from what others are doing in an effort to improve your own procedures and performance.

Here at the third sector interface we can help organisations to improve and can share our expertise and knowledge of what others are doing and promote recommended practice. A key tool we use is our Organisation Health Check.

We don't need any help!
We hear this a lot. For many organisations this is likely to be the case. We'd suggest that there's always room for improvement and it's worth reviewing things anyway - that's good practice in itself!

Sadly, third sector interfaces across Scotland are asked to help organisations which have hit real difficulties - sometimes with significant legal implications. From our experience, almost all of these situations could have been prevented - including jobs saved, no need for police investigations, funding protected and so on. In most cases, the committee/board members didn't think they needed any help or support - until it was too late. The amount of support required in a crisis can be significant on our part but also on the part of committee/board members, staff and volunteers. There's the added stress and potential (although rare) issues of legal implications. It is often assumed that Trustees/Company Directors have a 'limited liability' but that limit can be removed if due process hasn't been followed.

Thankfully, crisis situations are few and far between. But there are many instances of groups needing more help and struggling because they didn't review things earlier and take action. We provide a range of training courses and one-to-one help for organisations to help them to identify areas for improvement. Our training courses are very good value and most of our one-to-one support is provided at no cost. We're willing to invest time to develop your group - are you?!