News

All the resources produced by the Performance Hub over the past two-and-a-half years will continue to be made available, and many of them are free. They can be ordered from Charities Evaluation Services (CES) and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO). The Performance Hub website has been archived so that many of its resources remain available.

The Supporting Performance e-community will be continuing to run as part of the National Performance Programme. You can use this free service to share ideas and experiences about how to support frontline organisations to improve their performance, with others in similar support roles across the country. The web portal has been made easier to navigate, and there are some quick fact sheets on how to use the site.

A report from an action research study has found that peer review is effective as a way to help organisations improve their performance. This approach is a valuable option for organisations to make use of the skills and expertise of people working in a similar environment, in order to identify better ways of doing things. A range of guiding principles to effective peer review have been identified.

A shared indicators bank for the sector could be beneficial, according to findings from new Performance Hub research. This revealed that some third sector organisations are already sharing common outcomes, but a bank of common indicators including those for soft outcomes (such as changes in attitudes or soft skills) and elements of social change, would be particularly beneficial, especially with clear accompanying guidance on how to use them.

Five think pieces addressing some of the main strategic choices facing third sector leaders and managers today, have been launched by the Hub. Each briefing takes a different strategic issue, exploring theory and practice to help you consider your approach. The titles are:
1 Renewing your strategy
2 Involving users a sound strategy?
3 Steering through the funding environment
4 Compete or collaborate?
5 Imagining the future using visions and scenarios

A new Performance Hub report investigates the links between organisational culture, funding and the use of outcomes measurement systems within housing and homelessness organisations.

Future Focus 3: How will we use new technologies in five years' time? The latest pocket guide in this Performance Hub series helps you think about ways that individual and organisational behaviour may change as a result of using new technologies, from how we communicate, to making choices to where we work.

The Performance Hub is looking for infrastructure organisations to join an e-reading group to contribute ideas, examples and experiences to inform new national guidance on performance and the funding relationship. This opportunity is open to local, county-wide and regional infrastructure bodies, generic and specialist.

The findings from the Performance Hub's action research project on how to form a good strategy, is full of practical tips and learning from the experiences of the five third sector organisations involved.

The Performance Hub’s free mentoring service is for anyone who supports organisations to improve their performance. It aims to increase your ability and confidence to give advice and support on performance improvement. It also aims to increase your knowledge of the tools and practical techniques you can use when supporting your client groups. The Performance Hub can provide practical advice to help you with a particular situation or a specific challenge you may be facing as you support organisations to achieve more. Mentoring might take the form of face to face meetings, or telephone and email support.

Seven different workshops can be delivered free at events and conferences across England. There are four one-hour interactive workshops for development workers, covering strategic planning, monitoring and evaluation, quality assurance and benchmarking. Three further workshops are suitable for frontline third sector organisations or funders covering strategic planning or funding performance.

Future Focus 2 is the second in a series of guides for small and medium-sized third sector organisations.  It looks at how volunteers are changing: who they are, what they do and what they expect. It explores the effects this might have on organisations and suggests ways to use this information to help make strategic choices and plan ahead to retain, recruit and manage volunteers successfully in the years to come.

The Performance Hub e-community remit has been expanded to include a new ‘Find A Partner’ service for those keen to benchmark any aspect of organisational development. The ‘Find A Partner’ writeboard allows e-community members to upload their details with a brief description of the benchmarking exercises they are interested in setting up.

The Support Finder is an online searchable database which helps third sector organisations in England find support to improve their performance. They will be able to search by topic, type of service, region and type of organisation. Organisations can register their details in the database via an online form.  

Supporting Performance Visits Programme - if you wish to visit an organisation as part of your benchmarking excercise, you and your benchmarking partner may be eligible for Supporting Performance Visit Programme bursaries. The remit of this scheme has been widened and you can now use the Visits Programme to explore any aspect of performance improvement within your organisation, as well as the support services you may be offering to help frontline organisations to achieve more.

Guidance on three additional areas will be offered by the Performance Hub in 2007-2008:

• getting ready to focus on performance - guidance on ways to map out the resources needed for performance improvement;
• market research into user needs and communicating success - promoting the value of marketing, of market research, and of pro-active communications;
• operational planning - focus on researching and signposting to existing resources.

A bank of common indicators is being established through research undertaken by the New Economics Foundation. Organisations are needed to take part in the research through a 30 minute telephone interview. The aim is to understand whether the task of measuring what matters could be made easier and clearer through creating a bank of shared indicators (ways of knowing that an outcome has happened).

A strategic planning course for development workers has been launched, exploring how to support frontline organisations with implementing a strategic plan.

A Performance Hub publication 'Funding Better Performance' examines how funders and third sector organisations can work together to achieve more.  The six case studies featured in the report show how working together to improve performance can help funders make their money go further, whilst enabling third sector organisations to learn and develop.

Action learning sets - provide an opportunity for development workers to exchange experience and learning with others further afield. The 'Traditional' action learning sets will focus on reaching smaller groups, benchmarking and providing services (£250 per person). These will be supplemented by a pilot of online supporting performance action learning sets at only £40 per person.

Downloads and links for material from the Kit Yourself Out event are available on the Hub website.

New diversity and equality performance research supported by the Performance Hub is being led by Olmec, a London-based community investment foundation. It is considering the need and potential of producing a resource for organisations to more effectively monitor, measure and set performance targets around diversity and equality. From this research it is  planned to develop a 'Total Equalities System' tool that will help organisations address equality and diversity issues.

The Performance e-community offers the opportunity to participate in monthly e-surgeries on particular performance improvement topics, allowing users to post questions to an expert in a certain field. Performance e-community is an email forum for those supporting frontline organisations with performance improvement.. This free service can be used to share ideas and experiences with others in similar roles across the country. There is a category for sharing case studies. To help colleagues to network and identify people with experience in a topic of interest, there are details of member performance improvement support work areas.