Trustees’ Annual Report for the period
From 21[st] October 2020 to 1[st] July 2021 (Registered 21[st] October 2020)
Charity name: The Accessful Foundation
Charity registration number: 1191925
Objectives and Activities
| SORP reference | ||
|---|---|---|
| Summary of the purposes of the charity as set out in its governing document |
Para 1.17 | ‘The prevention or relief of poverty or financial hardship of disabled people living in the United Kingdom, in particular but not exclusively by providing grants, information and advice to provide them with an opportunity to build capacity by establishing and growing a business, becoming self- employed or improving their professional opportunities to relieve their needs and help them to integrate into society.’ |
| Summary of the main activities in relation to those purposes for the public benefit, in particular, the activities, projects or services identified in the accounts. |
Para 1.17 and 1.19 |
As a charity, we understand that our potential beneficiaries are a large and diverse group sharing a protected characteristic but often finding our charity and seeking support via a number of different ways and in return seeking support in often unique and personal circumstances. We are aware that due to this, to meet the purposes of public benefit, our charity needs to be built to be fit for purpose for those seeking short term and ‘light touch’ support, to those requiring a more long term and collaborative level of support. Although, as a brand new and small charity, our projects and services are being slowly (and sustainably) rolled out, we have developed three main activities of support with one overarching wider benefit that underpins what we do. These are: - Support and networking (providing signposting, general information and advice, including webinars) |
| - A mentoring programme - A grant giving programme to support the realisation of projects or part projects as a means of supporting disabled entrepreneurs by providing funding for equipment, services, training or other to individual beneficiaries via an application process (to commence approx. 2023/2024) And, alongside these three key activities, of which are at differing levels of use currently, we have made efforts to engage in activities that: - promote disabled entrepreneurialism as a concept (by highlighting routes, examples, role models and opportunities found within disabled business ownership or self- employment) The charity has a dynamic and beneficiary- led ethos, willing to listen to and understand beneficiary or potential beneficiary feedback and is pleased to use this sort of valuable information to best design and build how our charity looks and operates going forward. We are, however, always understanding of the importance of meeting our public benefit and Charity Commission obligations. |
||
|---|---|---|
| Statement confirming whether the trustees have had regard to the guidance issued by the Charity Commission on public benefit |
Para 1.18 | The trustees of The Accessful Foundation have had regard to the guidance issued by the Charity Commission on public benefit. |
Achievements and Performance
SORP reference
| Summary of the main achievements of the charity, identifying the difference the charity’s work has made to the circumstances of its beneficiaries and any wider benefits to society as a whole. |
Para 1.20 |
As an emerging charity in our infancy, our achievements are qualitative rather than quantitative, however, the trustees would like to draw attention to the following achievements over the year: - Hosting informative and representative webinars, with disabled business leaders (100% of webinar hosts thus far has identified as disabled) with the aim of sharing positive stories of disabled entrepreneurialism. These have enjoyed audiences in the hundreds, receiving positive feedback, and have served as a brilliant introduction to the charity for potential beneficiaries. We are currently in the process of funding applications to improve accessibility of this service. - Being signposted by some or the largest disability charities in the UK as a resource on self-employment. An example beinghttps://www.scope.org.uk/advice-and- support/start-up-a-business/ - Supporting organisations like Innovate UK, the United Kingdom’s innovation agency, and institutions like Birkbeck (University of London) in their research and understanding of inclusive entrepreneurialism and the barriers to disabled self-employment, via invited workshops and events including: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/events/remote_event_view?id=23549 - Founding our one-to-one mentoring programme, now beginning to develop important relationships between disabled entrepreneur mentees and suitable, experienced mentors. This programme is built to be person-centred and as a fully remote programme allows us to partner mentors and mentees from all across the United Kingdom without being locally restricted. - Provided important signposting and information to potential and current beneficiaries, including appropriate places to find further advice and basic and introductory support and answers to common starting a business questions. Within these examples we can see the personal effects our work has for individual beneficiaries and the ability our charity can have, and will continue to improve upon having, personally – for those that seek support with The Accessful Foundation. We are also aware of the impact our charity can have on the wider public benefit. 2021, as a launch year, with limited resources and negotiating a tricky social climate (particularly for disabled people) with the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, has had a potentially limiting effect on how we could work and certain opportunities we could take. As society adapts to new ways of working and potential volunteers assess their own commitments, we have been conscious of the fact this knock on effect could and has impacted our quantity of volunteers, and in turn **the projects and ideas we can say yes or no to. Aneffect of ** |
|---|---|---|
this has been a need to build our charity at a slower rate than envisaged, although a benefit of this is the opportunity to be more sustainable in the programmes we build and to purposefully choose projects that can impact as many beneficiaries as possible in a resource-efficient manner. This can be seen in our work on research with other organisations and our keenness to improve and expand our webinars as we go forward. A significant amount of work this year has been on awareness raising and carefully building our processes to be best suited to be as effective as possible in dealing with a projected higher number of beneficiaries in 2022 and onwards.
Financial Review
| Financial Review | ||
|---|---|---|
| Review of the charity’s financial position at the end of the period |
Para 1.21 | The charity’s income to date has been community fundraising, although at the time of writing we are diversifying our income sources, through applying to grant-making trusts and foundations to support our work. We have also had a small amount of corporate fundraising support, which we will look to grow in the upcoming financial year A part of the reason for seeking funding specifically now has come from spending our first months and formative year in understanding our funding priorities so that applications for funding may be as impactful as possible. Currently, the charity has very minimal running costs. The trustees acknowledge, however, these costs will increase as we go forward and improving the efficiency of our fundraising is a significant goal for the immediate future. At the time of writing, we believe the charity has the ability to support one full year of zero income, factoring in current and forthcoming costs and potential unexpected costs, and so with that in mind – we consider the charity to be financially competent and secure. We also acknowledge the going concerns within this document and the importance of addressing them for good financial health and sound board governance. |
| Statement explaining the policy for holding reserves stating why they are held |
Para 1.22 | Due to the above very minimal costs, currently our charity reserve policy is to have a minimum of 6 months running costs in reserve, with space for any unexpected forthcoming costs. This is understood as 6 months running costs plus 1 x our greatest expense to date in reserve, to cover an emergency unexpected cost. The key to our reserves policy is a dynamic approach and a commitment to regular review. Although we believe we currently have an appropriate policy, we are aware this may change rapidly and **so have a focus on reviewing often ** |
| Amount of reserves held | Para 1.22 | £700 (Cash at hand is £2319, of this a minimum of £700 will be held as reserves) |
|---|---|---|
| Reasons for holding zero reserves |
Para 1.22 | N/A |
| Details of fund materially in deficit |
Para 1.24 | N/A |
| Explanation of any uncertainties about the charity continuing as a going concern |
Para 1.23 | The trustees do not have any going concerns about the charity continuing at the current date. The trustees would however like to acknowledge that to date our community fundraising, as our key income, has been at a lower level than hoped and understand this can affect our impact. Although confident as awareness of the charity increases so will our community support, we are building coherent fundraising strategies to improve this, including funding applications that we are now at the stage of submitting. We hope that this will lead to a significant improvement financially in the forthcoming year. |
Structure, Governance and Management
| Description of charity’s trusts: |
||
|---|---|---|
| Type of governing document (trust deed, royal charter) |
Para 1.25 |
CIO - FOUNDATION Registered 21 Oct 2020 |
| How is the charity constituted? (e.g unincorporated association, CIO) |
Para 1.25 | CIO |
| Trustee selection methods including details of any constitutional provisions e.g. election to post or name of any person or body entitled to appoint one or more trustees |
Para 1.25 | Within this reporting period, The Accessful Foundation has had a significant trustee recruitment drive that took our charity trustee board from 3 trustees to 7 trustees. As our constitution states: ‘There must be at least three charity trustees. If the number falls below this minimum, the remaining trustee or trustees may act only to call a meeting of the charity trustees, or appoint a new charity trustee.’ We decided, upon formation, to operate with the minimum number of trustees (sourced pre-registration) to allow us space to make external appointments of persons unknown to the current trustees, to promote transparency, accountability and to welcome key skills and experiences. The maximum number of trustees is 12. Apart from the first charity trustees, every trustee must be appointed for a term of three years by a resolution passed at a properly convened meeting of the charity trustees. This has been adhered to. In selecting individuals for appointment as charity trustees, the charity trustees must have regard to the skills, knowledge and experience needed for the effective administration of the CIO. This has been adhered to. As a disability charity, we are particularly keen to promote accessibility and make it possible and realistic for those that would potentially be beneficiaries, i.e disabled people, to become volunteers and decision makers, including trustees. Due to this, our trustee recruitment drive was conducted with accessibility at the forefront, including continually asking for accessibility requirements, |
offering our trustee adverts in other formats, supporting neurodivergent candidates by offering interview questions in advance, asking for promotion of our adverts by other organisations run for and by or supporting disabled people and being genuinely open minded in both our ethos and actions in how to improve this process. We believe this process gave us an excellent range of candidates and now benefit from an experienced and knowledgeable board – however, we also believe this is something we can improve upon too. Trustees were given a multi-part induction process and were offered opportunities to feedback for future improvement.
Reference and Administrative details
| Charity name | The Accessful Foundation |
|---|---|
| Other name the charity uses | |
| Registered charitynumber | 1191925 |
| Charity’s principal address | 608 Green Lane Ilford Essex England IG3 9SQ |
Names of the charity trustees who manage the charity
| 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 |
Trustee name | Office (if any) | Dates acted if not for whole year |
Name of person (or body) entitled to appoint trustee(if any) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Benjamin Nicholson |
Chair | 23rdApril 2021- | ||
| Caroline Stickland | Vice-Chair | 23rdApril 2021- | ||
| Olivia Bamber | ||||
| Daniel Bulmer | 23rdApril 2021- | |||
| Chloe Plummer | 23rdApril 2021 | |||
| Kati Mcdonald | ||||
| David Victor | ||||
– Corporate trustees names of the directors at the date the report was approved
Director name
Name of trustees holding title to property belonging to the charity
Trustee name Dates acted if not for whole year
Funds held as custodian trustees on behalf of others
Description of the assets N/A held in this capacity Name and objects of the N/A charity on whose behalf the assets are held and how this falls within the custodian charity’s objects Details of arrangements for N/A safe custody and segregation of such assets from the charity’s own assets
Name of chief executive or names of senior staff members (Optional information)
Jack Pridmore
Exemptions from disclosure
Reason for non-disclosure of key personnel details
Other optional information
Declarations
The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above.
Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees
Signature(s) B.Nicholson Full name(s) Ben Nicholson Position (eg Secretary, Chair Chair, etc) Date 27/06/2022
Report of the Trustees and
Unaudited Financial Statements for the Year Ended 1 September 2021
for
The Accessful Foundation (CE023057)
Charity No 1191925
The Accessful Foundation (CE023057)
Contents of the Financial Statements for the Year Ended 1 September 2021
| Page | |
|---|---|
| Company Information | 1 |
| Trustees’ Report | 2 |
| Statement of financial activities | 5 |
| Balance Sheet | 6 |
| Notes to the Financial Statements | 8 |
The Accessful Foundation (CE023057)
Company Information for the Year Ended 1 September 2021
TRUSTEES: David John Victor Benjamin Nicholson (Chair) Olivia Bamber Kati McDonald Caroline Stickland Chloe Plummer Daniel Bulmer
PRINCIPAL ADDRESS: 608 Green Lane Ilford Essex IG3 9SQ COMPANY NUMBER: CE023057 (England and Wales)
ACCOUNTANTS: Londongate Accountancy Ltd 608 Green Lane Ilford Essex IG3 9SQ
Page 1
The Accessful Foundation (CE023057)
Trustees Report
for the Year Ended 1 September 2021
The trustees’ present their report with the financial statements of the charity for the Year Ended 1 September 2021.
Trusts objectives
The principal objective and vision are to create a world in which becoming an entrepreneur is accessible for everyone.
We are doing this by facilitating networking and mentoring, by giving grants, by creating and promoting representation and by being a transparent, diverse and innovative charity that campaigns for positive change. We champion an innovative view of business that is inclusive and allows disabled individuals to define success on their own terms.
Activities and public benefit
As a charity, we understand that our potential beneficiaries are a large and diverse group sharing a protected characteristic but often finding our charity and seeking support via a number of different ways and in return seeking support in often unique and personal circumstances.
We are aware that due to this, to meet the purposes of public benefit, our charity needs to be built to be fit for purpose for those seeking short term and ‘light touch’ support, to those requiring a longer term and collaborative level of support.
Although, as a brand new and small charity, our projects and services are being slowly (and sustainably) rolled out, we have developed three main activities of support with one overarching wider benefit that underpins what we do. These are:
-
Support and networking (providing signposting, general information and advice, including webinars)
-
A mentoring programme
-
A grant giving programme to support the realisation of projects or part projects as a means of supporting disabled entrepreneurs by providing funding for equipment, services, training or other to individual beneficiaries via an application process (to commence approx. 2023/2024)
And, alongside these three key activities, of which are at differing levels of use currently, we have made efforts to engage in activities that:
- promote disabled entrepreneurialism as a concept (by highlighting routes, examples, role models and opportunities found within disabled business ownership or self-employment)
The charity has a dynamic and beneficiary-led ethos, willing to listen to and understand beneficiary or potential beneficiary feedback and is pleased to use this sort of valuable information to best design and build how our charity looks and operates going forward. We are, however, always understanding of the importance of meeting our public benefit and Charity Commission obligations.
Review of main achievements in the period
As an emerging charity in our infancy, our achievements are qualitative rather than quantitative, however, the trustees would like to draw attention to the following achievements over the year:
- Hosting informative and representative webinars, with disabled business leaders (100% of webinar hosts thus far has identified as disabled) with the aim of sharing positive stories of disabled entrepreneurialism. These have enjoyed audiences in the hundreds, receiving positive feedback, and have served as a brilliant introduction to the charity for potential beneficiaries. We are currently in the process of funding applications to improve accessibility of this service.
Page 2
The Accessful Foundation (CE023057)
Trustees Report
for the Year Ended 1 September 2021 - Continued
-
Being signposted by some or the largest disability charities in the UK as a resource on selfemployment. An example being https://www.scope.org.uk/advice-and-support/start-up-a-business/
-
Supporting organisations like Innovate UK, the United Kingdom’s innovation agency, and institutions like Birkbeck (University of London) in their research and understanding of inclusive entrepreneurialism and the barriers to disabled self-employment, via invited workshops and events including:
https://www.bbk.ac.uk/events/remote_event_view?id=23549
-
Founding our one-to-one mentoring programme, now beginning to develop important relationships between disabled entrepreneur mentees and suitable, experienced mentors. This programme is built to be person-centred and as a fully remote programme allows us to partner mentors and mentees from all across the United Kingdom without being locally restricted.
-
Provided important signposting and information to potential and current beneficiaries, including appropriate places to find further advice and basic and introductory support and answers to common starting a business questions.
Within these examples we can see the personal effects our work has for individual beneficiaries and the ability our charity can have, and will continue to improve upon having, personally – for those that seek support with The Accessful Foundation.
We are also aware of the impact our charity can have on the wider public benefit. 2021, as a launch year, with limited resources and negotiating a tricky social climate (particularly for disabled people) with the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, has had a potentially limiting effect on how we could work and certain opportunities we could take. As society adapts to new ways of working and potential volunteers assess their own commitments, we have been conscious of the fact this knock on effect could and has impacted our quantity of volunteers, and in turn the projects and ideas we can say yes or no to. An effect of this has been a need to build our charity at a slower rate than envisaged, although a benefit of this is the opportunity to be more sustainable in the programmes we build and to purposefully choose projects that can impact as many beneficiaries as possible in a resource-efficient manner. This can be seen in our work on research with other organisations and our keenness to improve and expand our webinars as we go forward.
A significant amount of work this year has been on awareness raising and carefully building our processes to be best suited to be as effective as possible in dealing with a projected higher number of beneficiaries in 2022 and onwards.
Page 3
Financial review
There were bank receipts totalling £2,961 which were from donations. This money was used to build cash reserves and to facilitate development of the charity’s website and training.
Reserves
At the year end the charity held cash reserves of £2,319 which is considered sufficient for its current outgoings. However, we expect cash reserves will increase in line with projected increase in beneficiaries in the coming year.
Assessments of risks
The Trustees have examined the major risks that the charity faces and confirm that systems have been established so that the necessary steps can be taken to lessen these risks.
SIGNED ON BEHALF OF THE TRUSTEES:
Benjamin Nicholson Date: 30 June 2022
Page 4
The Accessful Foundation (CE023057)
Statement of Financial Activities
for the Year Ended 1 September 2021
| Note Income and Endowments from: Donations and legacies 2 Expenditure on: Charitable activities 3 Other Total expenditure Net (expenditure)/income Net movement in funds Reconciliation of funds Total funds brought forward Total funds carried forward |
Unrestricted funds £ 2,961 642 - 642 2,319 2,319 - 2,319 |
Restricted funds £ - - - - - - - - |
Total Funds 2021 £ 2,961 642 - 642 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2,319 | |||
| 2,319 | |||
| - | |||
| 2,319 |
The notes form part of these financial statements
Page 5
The Accessful Foundation (CE023057)
Balance Sheet
1 September 2021
| Note Current assets Cash at bank and in hand Creditors: Amounts falling due within one year 5 Net Assets Funds of the charity: Restricted funds Unrestricted funds Total funds |
Unrestricted funds £ 2,669 2,669 350 2,319 - 2,319 2,319 |
Restricted funds £ - - - - - - - |
Total Funds 2021 £ 2,669 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2,669 350 |
|||
| 2,319 | |||
| - 2,319 |
|||
| 2,319 |
The company is entitled to exemption from audit under Section 477 of the Companies Act 2006 for the Year Ended 1 September 2021.
The members have not required the company to obtain an audit of its financial statements for the Year Ended 1 September 2021 in accordance with Section 476 of the Companies Act 2006.
The directors acknowledge their responsibilities for:
-
(a) ensuring that the company keeps accounting records which comply with Sections 386 and 387 of the Companies Act 2006 and
-
(b) preparing financial statements which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the company as at the end of each financial year and of its profit or loss for each financial year in accordance with the requirements of the small companies’ regime and in accordance with FRS102 SORP.
The notes form part of these financial statements
Page 6
continued...
The Accessful Foundation (CE023057) (Registered number: 11322801)
Balance Sheet - continued
1 September 2021
The financial statements were approved by the Board of Trustees and authorised for issue on 30th June 2022 and were signed by one or two trustees on behalf of all the trustees:
Benjamin Nicholson - Trustee
The notes form part of these financial statements
Page 7
The Accessful Foundation (CE023057)
Notes to the Financial Statements
for the Year Ended 1 September 2021
1. ACCOUNTING POLICIES
Statement of compliance
The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) (effective 1 January 2015) - (Charities SORP (FRS 102)), the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) and the Charities Act 2011.
Basis of preparation
The Accessful Foundation meets the definition of a public benefit entity under FRS 102. Assets and liabilities are initially recognised at historical cost or transaction value unless otherwise stated in the relevant accounting policy notes.
Going concern
The Trustees consider that there are no material uncertainties about the charity's ability to continue as a going concern.
Income and endowments
Voluntary income including donations, gifts, legacies and grants that provide core funding or are of a general nature is recognised when the charity has entitlement to the income, it is probable that the income will be received, and the amount can be measured with sufficient reliability.
Donations and legacies
Donations and legacies are recognised on a receivable basis when receipt is probable, and the amount can be reliably measured.
Gifts in kind
Gifts in kind are recognised in different ways dependent on how they are used by the charity:
(i) Those donated for resale produce income when they are sold. They are valued at the amount actually realised.
(ii) Those donated for onward transmission to beneficiaries are included in the Statement of Financial Activities as incoming resources and resources expended when they are distributed. They are valued at the amount the charity would have had to pay to acquire them.
(iii) Those donated for use by the charity itself are included when receivable. They are valued at the amount the charity would have had to pay to acquire them.
Gift aid
Income tax recoverable in relation to donations received under Gift Aid or deeds of covenant is recognised at the time of the donation.
Expenditure
All expenditure is recognised once there is a legal or constructive obligation to that expenditure, it is probable settlement is required and the amount can be measured reliably. All costs are allocated to the applicable expenditure heading that aggregate similar costs to that category.
Charitable activities
Charitable expenditure comprises those costs incurred by the charity in the delivery of its activities and services for its beneficiaries. It includes both costs that can be allocated directly to such activities and those costs of an indirect nature necessary to support them.
Page 8
The Accessful Foundation (CE023057)
Notes to the Financial Statements - Continued for the Year Ended 1 September 2021
Debtors
Trade and other debtors are recognised at the settlement amount after any trade discount offered. Prepayments are valued at the amount prepaid net of any trade discounts due.
Cash and cash equivalents
Cash and cash equivalents comprise cash on hand and call deposits, and other short-term highly liquid investments that are readily convertible to a known amount of cash and are subject to an insignificant risk of change in value.
Liabilities
Liabilities are recognised when there is an obligation at the Balance sheet date as a result of a past event, it is probable that a transfer of economic benefit will be required in settlement, and the amount of the settlement can be estimated reliably.
Liabilities are recognised at the amount that the company anticipates it will pay to settle the debt or the amount it has received as advanced payments for the goods or services it must provide.
Fund structure
Unrestricted income funds are general funds that are available for use at the Trustees' discretion in furtherance of the objectives of the charity.
Restricted income funds are those donated for use in a particular area or for specific purposes, the use of which is restricted to that area or purpose.
2. INCOME FROM DONATIONS AND LEGACIES
| Unrestricted | Restricted | Total Funds | |
|---|---|---|---|
| funds | funds | 2021 | |
| £ | £ | £ | |
| Donations and legacies: | |||
| Donations | 2,961 | - | 2,961 |
| Gifts in Kind | - | - | - |
| 2,961 | - | 2,961 |
Page 9
The Accessful Foundation (CE023057)
Notes to the Financial Statements - Continued for the Year Ended 1 September 2021
3. EXPENDITURE ON CHARITABLE ACTIVITIES
| Unrestricted | Restricted | Total Funds | |
|---|---|---|---|
| funds | funds | 2021 | |
| £ | £ | £ | |
| Expenditure: | |||
| Professional fees | 404 | - | 404 |
| Bank Charges | 64 | - | 64 |
| Marketing | 159 | - | 159 |
| Training | 15 | - | 15 |
| 642 | - | 642 |
4. TRUSTEES REMUNERATION AND EXPENSES
No Trustees, nor any persons connected with them, have received any remuneration from the charity during the year.
No Trustees have received any reimbursed expenses or any other benefits from the charity during the year.
5. CREDITORS: AMOUNTS FALLING DUE WITHIN ONE YEAR
| Unrestricted | Restricted | 2021 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| funds | funds | £ | |
| £ | £ | ||
| Accruals | 404 | - | 350 |
Page 10