Mentoring


Building financial confidence one chat at a time


Mentoring


"Excellent for distilling complex information into simple terms"



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Congratulations!


You are now leading a small or medium charity as a CEO, Chair, Treasurer, Trustee or the all important finance lead. You want to get your head around the finances generally or you need to talk through a particular finance challenge or opportunity with a qualified and experienced small charity finance professional. Worry not. We've got you.


What is professional mentoring?


Professional mentoring is when skills, knowledge and experience are shared with peers for professional development reasons. Professional mentoring is a cost effective way to fill knowledge gaps, get guidance specific to your organisation and build financial confidence.


Is professional mentoring the same as professional advice?


No. At Embrace Finance we do not give professional advice. For formal advice relating to accounting, investments, tax, pensions and payroll etc we recommend that you contact a relevant firm providing professional services (and do the usual due diligence). However, if you would like to talk to a senior level, experienced finance professional with over 20 years experience of financial management, financial decision making and financial governance in small charities, professional mentoring is a great way to get senior level support and signposting on a budget friendly basis.


How does it work?


You come with your mentoring query and we workshop it together ensuring we model best practice and take into consideration compliance matters. All of the work is done in the session and there is no need to send information in advance. We ask that you do have access to any relevant information in the session. As a minimum this is your regular finance reports. We spend the initial part of the session doing a diagnostic and familiarisation exercise and then we move onto exploring your query.

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'Your support has been truly transformative! I've gone from feeling overwhelmed and uncertain about how to proceed, to feeling clear and confident - we have broken through some huge challenges!


I found it so helpful that we could explore things in detail, and then agree a step-by-step process/action plan. I also love how you work in a holistic way, and helped us focus in on the area we needed to work on first whilst connecting it to the bigger picture of finance strategy and governance. 


You are  generous with your time and the resources you share. You listen carefully and facilitate discussion in a sensitive and attuned way. I really appreciated how you took the lead - you were able to pinpoint what we needed when I was finding things overwhelming. I felt in safe and caring hands throughout.


Jennifer Raven, CEO, Fairbeats


Our approach


We use the Embrace Finance Small Charity Finance Universe framework to shape our time together. This ensures that we take an holistic 360 view of whatever it is that you would like to work on and we explore your issue from top to bottom.


You can use your session to do a general overview of charity finance or to do a deep dive into a particular issue that you may have. 


At the end of the session, we triage any development points that might be needed and co-create an action plan for you to take forward. After the session, we share with you a bullet point summary of what we have covered.


You bring your charity finance questions. We provide guidance, templates and signposting.

Small Charity Finance Universe


In finance, we have three jobs if our charity is to survive and thrive

Job one


We need to know what the numbers are


All those things we typically think of, bookkeeping, budgeting and accounting.


Done well, this will tell us what the numbers are.


Do we have the right financial management?


Job two


We need to know what the numbers mean


What is our financial position and where are we headed? Are we covering our costs? Is grant spend on track? Are reserves going up or down?


Do we have the right financial reporting?


Job three


We need to know we taking sound financial decisions


Do we have a clear financial plan? And good financial governance? Are we compliant? Are we managing our financial risks?


Are we leading with financial confidence?


Our mentors


At Embrace Finance, we have mentored many, many social leaders at all stages of their journey, though start-up, difficulty and growth.


We explain finance in a clear and jargon free way, we signpost to relevant regulatory guidance, we provide free templates. We spend time getting to know you and your organisation and work hard to understand what is going on for you.


Our mentors are qualified, experienced, small charity finance specialists who have been small charity finance leads at senior Executive and Board level.



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"This really was exactly what we needed. Liz was incredibly helpful and accessible from the first contact and throughout.  Liz had spent time reading and understanding our latest accounts so when we'd finished with the theory bit she knew exactly how all of that could be applied to our real-life situation. We now have a consistent, clear and shared vision of what we need to to next by Board, by the exec team, by budget holders.


I never thought I'd hear myself say this but I am so excited about taking our financial and organisational resilience to the next level. I'm also really proud of what we've achieved and where we are, I don't think we give ourselves enough credit for steering a pretty water tight ship through the choppiest of waters year on year, month on month. Liz helped us recognise that". 

Rachel Rowlands, CEO,  Age Connects Morgannwg

Logistics and Fees


Our sessions are half day sessions. This means you can access qualified, experienced support in bite size chunks as you need it. Sessions are delivered online with 5-10 minute breaks each hour.


Half day session fees:


  • Small charity (less than £1mk pa) £250
  • Large charity (more than £1m) £350


How many sessions do we need?


Small charities normally have tight budgets and need to crack through issues quickly. It is surprising how much can be covered in a single half day session. Over the years, we have successfully talked through roles and responsibilities, reviewed forecasts and clarified options in a single session. If budget is tight then this is a great place to start.


If your issue feels a bit more complex or there is more than one person attending it can often be better to have a full day or more.


It really depends on the issue and your starting point. If you are unsure, give us a brief outline on booking and we can let you know what you can realistically expect.


In any event, we always take care to manage sessions so that come the end we have made good progress, you have a clear set of actions and next steps with relevant signposting.


Please email us to arrange a session.



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