Council of Ethnic Minority Voluntary Sector Organisations

CEMVO Launches its National INTERFACE Programme

An Innovative Capacity Building Programme for Community-based Organisations

CEMVO is proud to announce the launch of its INTERFACE Programme. A new innovative national capacity-building pilot project designed by CEMVO and funded by CapacityBuilders’ Improving Reach Pilot programme, running from January 2007 to March 2008.

The INTERFACE project is CEMVO’s practical response to the government’s ten-year ChangeUp programme of strategic investment in building the infrastructure of voluntary and community sector organisations - Fit for Growth 2006 strategy. As part of this strategy, the national agency CapacityBuilders awarded a grant to CEMVO to run a national pilot project. The project covers London, South West, South East and North West England, while benefiting minority ethnic, refugee, migrant and faith frontline groups. It is also concerned with infrastructure organisations that need support in order to provide capacity-building work to their clients.

INTERFACE is designed to help front line organisations to access information, support and resources as well as improving their performance. It is a systematic and structured scheme that brings organisations together to share good practice on a regular basis.

Benchmarking and Action Learning are central to the INTERFACE project. This involves experienced Capacity Building Officers (CBOs) recruiting a number of groups and targeting the most established ones in the following four areas of organisation development performance:

• Management and Leadership
• ICT Capabilities
• Workforce Development
• Labour Market Share and Participation

Experienced groups act as ‘Peer Organisations’ for their front-line counterparts, by mentoring and supporting them. Peer organisations are in turn matched with front line groups in developing a particular area of organisational performance to form ‘Action Learning sets’. Typically, the CBO will agree with the Peer Organisation and its beneficiaries a series of objectives, resource allocation activities and outcomes in order to develop an action plan. Meetings between Peers and beneficiaries are also facilitated by the CBOs to ensure that work is undertaken and documented. Benchmarking exercises and sharing of good practices take place in the learning sets.

By March 2008, CEMVO expects to have developed the organisational capacity and performance of 50 organisations, including Peer Organisations working directly with CBOs. INTERFACE will moreover help groups to attract further resources and thus enhancing their ability to negotiate with funders. Benchmarks established from the programme will also help to inform and develop more effective future schemes. Overall INTERFACE will contribute to creating a robust and a sustainable minority ethnic sector capable of meeting the needs and aspirations of the communities it serves.

For further details about INTERFACE, please contact:

Wondwossen Tadesse
Project Manager, INTERFACE
CEMVO
Boardman House, 64 Broadway, London E15 1NG
Tel: (020) 8 432 0415
Email: Wondwossen.tadesse@cemvo.org.uk