The ‘Community Health Check’ is a 3 hour face to face Social Business review that has been designed to examine every part of your Organisation.

From the answers that you give, we will be able to identify where specific attention needs to be focused to

improve your income generation, potential cost savings and your Organisation’s development.

 The Community Health Check has up to 7 sections…

1. Mapping the Future

2. Organisation Review

3. Relationship Footprint

4. Skills Audit

5. Summary Report

6. Assist with the production of an Organisational Development Plan

7. Progression towards a Quality Standard

Who is it for?

Community Groups of all sizes, Public Sector Organisations, Commercial Organisations, in fact any

group or business large or small.

How is the Health Check delivered?

The Health Check is a face to face session with people from your Organisation, usually the Trustees

and/or the Management Team, and facilitated by Can Do Communities. To ensure everybody can

participate, we project onto a large screen, this way the Health Check ensures the interaction between all

participants.

What are the benefits?

• Give the people in your organisation the opportunity to speak openly about the plans for the future

• Help the Trustees and Management Team clarify its current situation and its future plans

• Give your Trustees and Management Team confidence that the organisation is running on a sound

footing

• Highlight some development needs that require addressing

• Provide a clear way forward in the form of a Summary Report to improve aspects of your organisation

• Increase your chances of obtaining funding

• Give you a plan to improve relationships with other Organisations.

 

We have delivered our Community Health Check, which is an interactive Business Organisational review over 50 times in the last 8 months including for all sizes of groups & orgs including: Voluntary Norfolk, Stevenage CVS, Community Action Peterborough, Cheshunt Extended Services, Stevenage Borough Council and Community Matters contracts- please see some feedback comments below:

 

Community Health Check Customer Quotes

We commissioned Can Do Communities to facilitate Health Checks for 10 of our Community Centres. This exercise creates a space for busy organisations to stop, reflect and plan for the future. The Heath Check is a quick and fun way for community groups to focus on what is important and involves those who are key to developing the organisation.

Colleen Murphy, Neighbourhood Development Manager, Stevenage Borough Council.

 

“Just to let you know that we found this a brilliant exercise – making everyone look objectively at the Scheme in considered and cohesive detail.  Well worth doing – I would recommend it to any organisation”

Faye Lloyd, Centre Manager, Stevenage Furniture Recycling Scheme.

 

“Sixteen of our Community Centres received a Health Check thanks to a successful bid from us to the Awards for All fund, as a federation we can now examine the results and common areas of need have been flagged up, the Can Do team also have made recommendations and suggested solutions to the issues the groups face, we were delighted with the face to face conversational sessions, it was an enjoyable format watching the results displayed on the big screen”

Ray Baker, Chairman, Community Action Peterborough.

 

“At Stevenage CVS we were successful with an Awards for All grant, we commissioned ‘Can Do Communities’ to Health Check 10 of our Community Groups, it has enabled us to offer unbiased third party support and expertise to the capacity building and strategic planning locally. It has meant that a relatively small body such as ourselves can extend our reach and offer this key support at very low cost (thanks to Lottery funding) to our members”

Ann Jansz, Chief Executive, Stevenage CVS

 

“Excellent, I thought it was a really good process, very easy to use, very helpful guys who came and took the session, they made it very relaxed so people felt able to speak their minds”

Elaine Connolly, Irish Network.

“As a result of the recommendations made after our Community Health Check we have set up sub groups to lead on Communication, Funding and Planning. Our new Communications Group then presented our Sustainability Plan to local agencies and our Planning Team are leading the collection of evidence for a Quality Mark, all as a result of the Health Check recommendations.”

Patrick Kadaware, Chair, Huntingdon Community Group.

“We approached Can Do Communities to undertake a Health Check on our organisation to enable a smooth transition from voluntary group to registered charity. A number of areas were identified during the health check that needed focussed development. This process enabled us to access legal support and guidance that moved the process through very quickly.”

Mick Oliver, CARTS Youth Charity.

 

“The Community Health check covers all the areas that Community Matters feel are important for community groups to regularly review, and the results should help them plan their future with confidence.”

Richard Bridge, Head of Consultancy, Community Matters- National Federation of Community Groups.

 

CASE STUDY 2013.. Arbury Community Centre is an established community centre which opened in 1974. After a long period of popularity, usage started to dwindle in the mid 1990s to the extent that in 1999 the trustees felt that the Centre was becoming unsustainable and they all resigned and a call went out to the local community to try and save the centre. A new committee took over and worked hard to rekindle the interest of the local community. They made good progress, revitalising the centre and generating the revenue required to make the centre sustainable and building reserves BUT had become so engrossed with growing the business, the systems and procedures were overlooked resulting in them being not robust enough and fit for continued growth. The trustees decided to carry out an Organisational Health Check with a grant from Awards for all and chose Can Do Communities as the project deliverer because of their innovative approach.

The health check was a live session conducted with our Committee, Staff and Volunteers facilitated through group conversation and examined our people, skills, business planning, marketing & finance. Through this lively informal process we identified the strengths and weaknesses of the organisation and clearly identified the areas we needed to work on as follows. 1) We improved our marketing and publicity and as a result the first AGM after our health check attracted so many attendees that we were able to fill all trustee vacancies with people who had some excellent skills. 2) Our policies were out of date and as a result of the health check we have updated and expanded them together with procedures. 3) Trustees, paid staff and volunteers have a much clearer idea of every ones tasks and responsibilities which has created much better team working within the organisation. 4) Since carrying out the health check we have attracted more volunteers, increased usage and income. We plan much more strategically than before and have put the organisation on a firmer footing. There is no end to this project and we continue to use the Health Check tools to improve and grow. Alan Soer – June 2013

 

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What is it[2]Community Health Check

 

To find out more information or to book your Organisation’s Community Health Check call 01733 200906.

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