Charity & Social Enterprise Governance Consultancy

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Eastside People

A community of experienced professionals from diverse industries and backgrounds focused on helping social sector leaders to build the capacity and impact of their organisations.

Eastside People

Charity mergers and partnerships and specialist services

Case Studies

Read our stories and learn more about how we have helped social sector organisations across the UK.

Case Studies

What Our Clients Say

We ask all our clients for feedback, find out what they have to say.

What Our Clients Say

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Our partnerships with specialist social sector organisations help us to deliver the best possible services to our clients.

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Eastside Primetimers Foundation

Funded from a variety of sources including income from Eastside People and donations, the goal of the Foundation is to help young people better understand and engage with organisations in the not-for-profit sector.

Eastside Primetimers Foundation

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The latest from Eastside People

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Get in touch if you'd like to speak to one of our experts.

Eastside People Community Charity recruitment and interim management executive search and board search

Consultancy Services

What can our community of experienced professionals help your social sector organisation to achieve?

Consultancy Services

Our Consultants

Find out about our brilliant group of highly skilled and experienced individuals who are passionate about using their skills and knowledge to bring about social change.

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Interim Management

Source senior level talent for your charity or social enterprise on an interim basis.

Interim Management

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Board Recruitment

Source top quality candidates for your charity or social enterprise board.

Board Recruitment

Executive Search

Source senior level talent for your charity or social enterprise on a permanent basis.

Executive Search

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Vacancies

Charity and social enterprise vacancies.

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We operate as a community of professionals with shared values and a shared ambition to help social sector leaders build the capacity and impact of their organisations.

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Our central office team are passionate about providing management, finance and back-office functions so that we can deliver an excellent service to clients.

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Find out about our brilliant group of highly skilled and experienced individuals who are passionate about using their skills and knowledge to bring about social change.

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Join Us

While our consultancy team is full, we are keen to recruit new consultants with experiences where our team is under represented. Applications from individuals from the global majority, who are disabled or represent the LGBTQ+ community are welcomed. The more inclusive and diverse we are, the better our work will be.

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News & Insights

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Why Eastside People?

Did you know that the Charity Governance Code (S5.8.2) recommends that charity boards of all charities with income >£1m:

Run an internal review of their own, individual trustees and chair’s performance once a year
Hold an external evaluation of their own, individual trustees and chair’s performance every three years.

Evaluations typically cover the board’s balance of skills, experience and knowledge, its diversity, how it works together and its overall effectiveness.

While this may sound like a daunting proposition, Eastside People’s team of charity governance experts can help you deliver a comprehensive, independent and confidential review.

We’re currently offering charity leaders a free consultation to discuss reviewing and improving your governance and a checklist on ‘10 hallmarks towards great governance’ so you can self-assess where you are in your journey and have clarity on the next steps.

Contact Us to book your consultation.

Whether you want to boost governance performance or fill key roles, we offer a comprehensive approach with advice and insights and an unparalleled recruitment service to bring the right people to your Board.

Our full Governance Services include:

Reviewing the strengths of your governance practice against principles in the Code
Evaluating the board’s balance of skills, experience and diversity
Benchmarking your governance practices against your peers
Providing a safe space to explore how the board works together
Delivering recommendations on how to build stronger governance effectiveness
Managing identified recruitment needs for example to strengthen board composition and improve diversity, skills and knowledge.

It's not well-known that the Charity Governance Code (S5.8.2) recommends that boards of all charities with income >£1m run an external review every 3 years.

Richard Litchfield, CEO

Additional Governance Services

Governance Review

We use the Charity Governance Code as the spine for governance reviews (and other regulatory bodies when relevant), but will take a proportionate view choosing together areas for particular focus. We design our approach to be inclusive and provide practical and realistic recommendations for you to implement. We will gather information through desk-based research, robust surveys, conversations with staff and trustees, and group discussions. We will produce and present an independent report with an action plan for improvements, making sure that key individuals are regularly involved and aware of emerging recommendations throughout the project.

Skills Audit

We work together with Boards to understand objectively the current blend of skills/experience at their disposal, where their strengths lie (and also weaknesses) and then put in place a plan to resolve the gaps in a sensible and timely manner. While there are a million ‘standard’ trustee skills audit templates out there, we find it more effective to tailor skills audits to a charity’s strategy and we have a well-worked process to do this. With a very good understanding of the recruitment market we are also able to make sure recommendations for Board development are based on sensible and realistic timetables.

Board Recruitment

The highest performing boards are diverse with a good mix of skills aligned to an organisation’s strategy. Our board recruitment service specialises in bringing high-level individuals with business or cross-sector backgrounds onto Boards. We ensure that our approach is fully inclusive by using Applied’s Job Description Analysis Tool and partnering with Action for Trustee Racial Diversity and others to reach a diverse range of potential candidates. We pride ourselves on a simple consistent process, being as thorough and professional as when hiring for paid roles, and spreading the net widely to produce a diverse range of candidates.

Data Protection Service

Our data protection service is particularly relevant for small and medium size organisations who want to outsource the governance of their data processing by appointing a Data Protection Officer (DPO). Working with one of our dedicated data protection officers we will provide:

Regular security audits to ensure compliance and address potential problems
Communication support with the Information Commissioners Office (ICO)
Professional advice on all data protection matters
Keep you informed on changes in data protection legislation
Keep records of all data processing activities
Review and negotiate your agreements/contracts with data processors
Keep your data subjects informed about how their data is being used, and coordinating their requests
Coordinate your response to any data breaches.

What Our Clients Say

We ask all our clients for feedback, find out what they have to say.

It was super helpful to have you facilitating the day, we both agreed that we got further than expected and I think we are very upbeat and motivated about the next steps.

Margaret Davies, Chair of Charity Board

Devon Air Ambulance

EP understood what we needed and delivered.

Jo Walker, Governance Support Executive

Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation

We are a homelessness charity in East London and we recently brought in Eastside People's consultant Mike Griffin to support us to update our data protection policies and procedures so they are in line with the new regulation (GDPR). We have greatly appreciated Mike's knowledge and expertise on the subject, but also his ability to articulate recommendations in a clear, concise way. He takes the time to understand the organisation and provides very practical and pragmatic advice. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Eastside People to any other organisation looking for data protection consultancy.

Nicola Robson, Marketing Manager

Providence Row

As a chief executive with limited experience of mergers, I very much valued working with Eastside People. They allowed SRUK to tap into a range of expertise, gave us independent and unbiased assessments of the situation and brought to the table their extensive knowledge and insights from supporting previous mergers.

Sue Farrington, Chief Executive

Scleroderma & Raynauds UK (SRUK)

Eastside People supported us with new trustee integration and the facilitation they provided was a very good start to this important process for us. It enabled our board to have fully informed discussions and make better decisions on important organisational priorities we were considering at the time.

Graham Duncan, CEO

AFK

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Speak to our Team

Contact us to find out how our team of charity, social enterprise & not-for-profit consultants and recruiters can help your organisation.

Call, send an email or complete our simple contact form.

Phone: +44 (0) 203 821 6174
Email: [email protected]

Governance

Why Eastside People?

Additional Governance Services

Governance Review

Skills Audit

Board Recruitment

Data Protection Service

What Our Clients Say

Service Experts

Related Resources

Speak to our Team