Please click here to book your place.

Pro Bono Operational Research (OR) is a scheme that places professional analysts in short term projects with third sector organisations to assist them in making evidence based decisions for operational improvements.

See more on Pro Bono O.R. and the event on the Voluntary Action Fund blog here.

To hear more about Pro Bono O.R. please register to attend ‘Forging Connections Between Business and the Third Sector’, a free event from VAF and Edinburgh Napier University on Thursday 14th Jan 2016 in Glasgow.

I shall also be presenting at this event on “Addressing the Scotland’s Grand Challenges: The Role of the Scottish Government Business ‘Community’ Pledge”. I look forward to seeing you there.

A delegation from Young Professionals as Trustees had the opportunity to meet the Principal Officer of the U.S. Consulate to discuss young professionals voices and civic participation. It was a fantastic meeting and great how supportive the U.S. Consulate is to our Young Professionals and Trustees initiative.

Published on the Institute of Fundraising Blog (Scotland).

Diversity in the boardroom is certainly a hot topic at present; particularly gender-balance on boards is at the top of the agenda – rightly so. There is one other untapped source of talent; our Young Professionals. With the Charity Commission reporting that the average age of a trustee is 57, and with 67% of all trustees over 60, our boards are generally male, stale and grey.

Let’s not confuse the word ‘young’ with ‘youths’ – this would be a complete injustice to our young professionals. There are rules relating to legal capacity governed by legislation. You might be pleased to learn that we define a ‘young professional’ as anyone 56 or under.  Are you in? If so, by getting on board, one of your contributions will be to reverse this trend. We use the word ‘professional’ as we recognise the unique skill sets that we all have and can be of value to a board.

To read more, go to: http://www.institute-of-fundraising.org.uk/blog/untapped-talent-you-and-our-young-professionals-as-trustees/

VAF and Edinburgh Napier University Business School have been successful in gaining a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP). One of the great things about a KTP is indeed the transfer and application of knowledge from a University to a business or organisation and getting the chance to think systematically through a problem and its solution. Our KTP is looking at the alignment and connectivity between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) / Sustainability polices and the real and emerging challenges of the third sector in Scotland as VAF believes in aligning these more effectively more resources can be brought to the communities in which we work.

See the full post: O wad some Power the giftie gie us, To see oursels as ithers see us! Robert Burns on the Voluntary Action Fund blog.