Council of Ethnic Minority Voluntary Sector Organisations

Our unique National Capacity Building Programme is aimed at strengthening Britain’s minority ethnic voluntary and community sector organisations, in order to enable them to achieve long-term sustainability. The Programme’s main objective is to assist these organisations in modernising their structures and systems, so as to be capable of delivering better and more effective services to their constituent groups.

The process of Capacity Building is undertaken by MBA (Masters in Business Administration) qualified Capacity Building Officers (CBOs) - from the University of East London -, based across CEMVO’s Regional and Country Offices. As young educated minority ethnic individuals, CBOs are ideally placed to understand the difficulties facing their communities and design innovative solutions to tackle such problems.

Aided by a bespoke software-based Diagnostic Tool Kit (DTK), the CBOs seek to identify a given organisation’s Capacity Building needs in nine particular areas of organisational development. After their initial assessment, the CBOs will make recommendations and draft an Action Plan. They will then typically work on a one-to-one basis with their groups, providing them with guidance and support in implementing their particular recommendations. Over a twelve-month period, the CBOs will provide their organisations with:

• Free Professional Guidance and Support
• Free Assistance with Training and Development
• Free Information on Networks and other relevant Sources of Information
• Mentoring

Since July 2005, after completing their CEMVO-sponsored MBA Programme at the University of East London, the CBOs have been working with their assigned groups. During this time, they have recruited and worked with a total of 250 organisations. The CBOs’ work has accordingly comprised the production of 250 Action Plans, assisting these organisations to develop constitutions, putting in place policies and procedures, business plans - which identify funding opportunities - and helping them with funding applications. CBOs have also provided training to the organisations’ staff and Management Committee Members, thus helping them to improve their skills, while better understanding their roles and responsibilities. In addition, the CBOs organised a number ‘Funding Open Days’, where funders were invited to explain funding priorities as well as providing an insight into the application process. Up to June 2005, CEMVO’s CBOs have assisted voluntary and community groups across the board to raise over £4million. By the end of July 2005, over 200 groups had provided evidence of the work done.

CEMVO’s National Capacity Building Programme has been developed in partnership with key stakeholders at national, regional and local level. To this end, CEMVO has built successful partnerships with the Government Office for the Regions, Local Authorities, Local Skills Councils, Connexions and local minority ethnic umbrella groups. This has ensured that individuals and organisations at the grass-roots are directly involved in both identifying community groups in need of capacity building work and partaking in the process of capacity building. A number of local minority ethnic groups, for instance, have played the role of ‘hosts’ to CEMVO’s CBOs, which has allowed them to operate from their premises.

CEMVO’s Capacity Building Programme is funded from a variety of sources including the European Social Fund, The Big Lottery Fund and Esmee Fairbairn Foundation. CEMVO also makes a substantial contribution towards the programme.