Connie's Rambles

"We know we're making a difference." Most charities believe that. Fewer can actually prove it, and the gap between the two is where funding applications, annual reports and trustee confidence quietly fall apart. Week 9 of Stop Being Stupid: why good intentions alone won't save your organisation, and what proving your impact actually takes.

Every grassroots organisation has that laptop everyone's terrified to replace, because "everything's on there." A charity local to me found out what happens when it finally dies. No hackers, no drama, just a failed hard drive and no backup. It was almost the death knell. Weeks of scrambling followed, including phone calls to funders asking for copies of applications that had already been approved. Week 8 of Stop Being Stupid: what backups, updates and five minutes of common sense could have saved.

I turn 51 on Monday.My borrowed son turned 20 on Saturday. We lit a BBQ on bricks stamped with the Grimethorpe Colliery mark, made a cake nobody was expecting, and watched the sky do something it does for free.New post. Not about grants.

I didn't plan to write a poetry collection. I went to sit in a room for an hour while one of my kiddos was at a project. Everyone else made quilt squares. I found the charcoal and pastels and did what I do. Six sessions. Six poems. Original charcoal illustrations. The honest version of this life, not the one that goes on recruitment posters. The Underground Sun: In the Wreckage, We Stand Watch is for every foster carer, adopter, kinship carer, special guardian, and connected persons carer who knows what the night-watches feel like. Who has absorbed someone else's storm. Who has stood at the threshold and stepped forward anyway. With thanks to Equipt Therapy Services CIO for the room, the cuppas, and the art supplies I raided. 🖤

Good intentions don't protect you from a funder clawback. I've had two CIC directors lose grant money because of an unmanaged conflict of interest. The supplier was cheaper, more reliable, and trusted. The process just wasn't there.

Week 6 of 40 is live on the blog. Someone decided to donate to you this week. They found you, they read enough to care, they clicked the button. And nothing worked. A broken donation process doesn't just lose the donation. In the UK, it loses the Gift Aid too. That's 25p per pound, handed back to HMRC because your form wasn't set up right. UK charities claimed £1.7 billion in Gift Aid last year. The ones that weren't set up got none of it. The free audit checklist is in the post. Ten minutes to test. No excuse not to.

Someone put a lit-up gaggar on my head at the jaggo and I've never felt more at home. Four days in London for one of our closest friends' weddings. I wore phulkari made by my mother-in-law. My youngest birth son held the cloth at the maiyaan because that's what the brothers do, so he was a brother. My foster son ate four jalebis before asking what they were, followed by four plates of chilli paneer, eight bowls of ice cream and a bottle and a half of Coke. He danced every last bit of it off. The aunties cheered him on. Different kids, different moments, all of them there. New post on the blog.

Friday at five. Garden. Sausages. Kiddo with a marshmallow on a stick. Jatinder at his very serious brick barbecue. And that sky. There's a story behind that barbecue that I've been meaning to write for a while. It's up on the blog now.

There used to be a book. An enormous green bible. You borrowed it from your local voluntary action organisation and worked through it page by page. That world is gone. And nobody told most small charities what replaced it. New post and free download this

We planted onions in April. Apparently nobody told them that was wrong. He spotted them in the shop, we stuck them in the ground, and this morning there were actual sprouts. The joy on that kid's face. Worth every raised eyebrow from anyone who knows.

I get a version of this call regularly. Someone set up a CIC. Followed the advice. Applied for funding. Got rejected. Now they're ringing me. Within ten minutes of looking at their documents, I can see exactly what happened. Some of it is fixable. Some of it isn't. All of it was avoidable. #CIC #GrantFunding #SocialEnterprise #ThirdSector #CommunityInterestCompany

The Beautiful, Exhausting Chaos of a Full House

The "New Year, New You" circus is a total shit idea. ​There’s massive pressure to "perform" a fresh start, but sprinting while the world is frozen is biological gaslighting. If you aren't on the bandwagon, the circus says you're failing.

My Christmas OOO is live! Trading emails for mince pies, and deadlines for delightful chaos (mostly from the kids, but watch out for the husband's 'discoveries'). Feast your eyes on the totally authentic and not at all AI-generated visual representation of my life right now, and read my full manifesto on surviving the holidays with humor and a laptop-shield #ChristmasChaos #FosterCare #TheArtOfStupidity #OOO #AImadeMeDoIt #ChaosElves

This time last year, I wrote about surviving Christmas as a working parent. Turns out, people needed to hear it. Here's the 2025 version—self-employment chaos, teenage band geeks, foster care reality, and my Boxing Day kitchen boycott. My deadline: 12pm Friday 19th. After that? It waits until January 6th. My family needs me rested more than my clients need perfection. Lower your standards. Raise your boundaries. Good enough IS good enough. Tell me I'm not the only one doing nothing in the kitchen on Boxing Day. Link below.

Stop filing paper accounts! 🛑 The new ECCTA mandate is a non-negotiable deadline for grassroots UK charities. If your charity is a Company Limited by Guarantee, Companies House will soon reject all non-software submissions. The stupidity is thinking Excel and a PDF scan are enough. You need digital tagging (XBRL) only compliance software provides. Avoid fines. Action Item: Ask your Treasurer what system they use. If it's 'Excel and scanner,' you have a governance issue. #ArtOfStupidity #ComplianceFail

The £200,000 question: When is 'free' money actually too expensive? We've all faced the tempting grant that doesn't quite fit our mission. But chasing trends over expertise is the fastest route to mediocrity. Before you apply, ask these three questions: 1. What are we actually brilliant at? 2. Does this funding help us do that one thing better? 3. What happens when the funding ends? Clarity and focus are your competitive edge. #NonprofitStrategy #CharityLeadership #FundingDecisions #MissionDriven #StrategicFocus