Chairperson's Annual Report to
the Company's Annual General Meeting

November 2005 click here

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November 2003

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CHAIRPERSON’S REPORT TO THE COMPANY AGM 2005

OVERVIEW
Since the last AGM we have been very busy on the Board and Staff with the development of a new five-year strategy. We have negotiated a new six year funding agreement with DFID and launched several new projects which all promise to offer us exciting new challenges. The accounts for the year end showed a small surplus which is an improvement on the previous two years and reflects careful financial management and a rigorous approach to keeping overheads down.

PROGRAMME MATTERS
The five country programmes have all produced country strategy papers based on the five-year plan. Each country will focus on two out of our three target groups and this means developing new partnerships in the fields of disability, children’s rights and women’s organisations. We are building on a firm foundation of existing work but also branching out into new areas which offer us some very interesting challenges. These vary from working with deaf children in Brazil, supporting street kids in Bolivia through influencing the policy of municipalities, increasing the capacity of micro-finance providers to build sustainable livelihoods for Burkinabe women, networking organisations focussing on HIV/AIDS in Mali to highlight the social issues and improving the quality of rehab provision in Palestine.

Overall our programme numbers have not increased partly due to a budgetary enforced slow-down in 2004/5 but also due to a drop-off in quality applications for development worker posts which we are seeking to address. Given the new initiatives we have launched the field offices have been very busy and we are now poised to begin steady growth based on a sound strategic framework and strong organisational direction.

FUNDING PICTURE
The most encouraging news of the year was the increase in our DFID grant of 27% for three years with a further three years funding agreed subject to negotiation and satisfactory performance. The new PPA has given us clear targets to work to which fit within our new strategy and whilst these targets will stretch us, we believe that we will make good progress against them and relish the challenge they present!
Overall the funding picture has been mixed with increased funding from Ireland compensating for a drop-off in funds from the National Lottery. Comic Relief have provided seed money for a new initiative in Africa based on mainstreaming disability which we hope will lead to a larger grant in the near future. Trust income has been steady and a proposed new initiative on increasing our core funding had to be put on hold due to the tragic death of Tristan Long, our new fund-raiser.
We have now recruited Sarah Disney who starts work at IS in October and she will be looking at increasing core funding, working on corporate funding and also focussing on EU funding. New funding contacts from the Downing Street reception continue to hold promise although the time taken between initial contact and eventual grant is rather longer than we expected!

NEW INITIATIVES
Following the launch of our Corporate Forum in 2004 we have developed several new initiatives with the support of the Forum’s members. These have offered us the opportunity of getting our message across to new audiences, a key PPA target, as well as accessing potential new funders. They have also significantly raised our profile.

STUDY TOURS – These were launched as a means of raising awareness of our programmes amongst senior managers and journalists leading to funding opportunities and enhanced publicity. The first one took place in February 2005 when the head of Nationwide Building Society and 3 other delegates went to Mali and Burkina Faso on a micro-finance study tour. The tour went exceptionally well and has led to increasing our involvement with Nationwide, several articles in specialist press and fund-raising activities which are on-going. The second tour is due to take place in November to Bolivia and this will receive national coverage in the quality press.

HUMAN RIGHTS AWARDS – The second International Service Human Rights Awards were held in the House of Commons in November 2004 hosted by Jon Snow. These were well attended and led to interviews on national radio and good press coverage.

CONFERENCE ON THE VALUE OF EMPLOYEE VOLUNTEERING – this will take place at Cranfield in October chaired by Joe Nellis, Dean of Cranfield and member of the Corporate Forum. This has been organised with a view to a) raising our profile, b) leading us to new corporate supporters and c) providing a focus for the Corporate Forum as well as being a way in which International Service, as Chair of BVALG, can make a meaningful contribution to the Year of the Volunteer.

NEW MODELS OF PLACEMENT – In order to provide a more flexible approach to the needs of our partners and the interests of our sponsors, we have begun to pilot several new models of placement. These include internships whereby research students can spend a few months on a specific assignment based with a partner organisation, they include consultancy style assignments for experienced development workers and also include an as yet untested idea currently known as the “Development Taster”. We are looking at adapting this so that it can become an accredited management training qualification aimed at high flying managers who would benefit from a one month placement in a project to gain an in-depth insight into the challenges of development at grass-roots level. A small group of trustees are working with Charlotte and myself on this.

COACHING FOR HOPE – The biggest new initiative to be launched this year with the backing of the FA and Nationwide, is our Coaching for Hope project. This uses football coaching as a tool to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS and gives children access to art as part of an approach which looks at children’s rights in the round. The first school took place in Burkina Faso with coaches from three English clubs taking part and was an unqualified success. The second school took place in Mali with 2 senior FA coaches. At the time of writing this has only just finished and it looks as if, overall, it went well. This scheme has allowed us to break new ground in terms of development awareness work as articles have appeared in football programmes, Club websites and Football Community magazines. The FA have also organised for two top football journalists to cover the Mali school and hopefully these articles will have appeared by the time of this meeting.

As you can see from the above, all these new projects have kept the staff and Board very busy and we are hoping that we can continue to gradually expand our work based on our clear new direction in a way that benefits the poorest people of the world.

Malcolm Harper Chairperson, International Service September, 2005

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