Ten months into the Covid 19 Pandemic, most charities have yet to report on the impact Covid has made on their services and finances.

Yes, those with 31st March 2020 year ends reporting in late 2020 have been able to report some of the impact as a post balance sheet event but it is in 2021 that the full effects will be reported on.

For many it has been a disaster; for some an opportunity. Nevertheless, what and how you report can have a significant impact going forward in how the outside world views your charity, particularly for grants, awards, contracts and future funding.

Let me be perfectly clear. You must report the facts exactly as they have occurred, warts and all. This is a requirement of the Charities SORP. However, it is also an opportunity, as any charity which has survived to date must have been doing a lot that is good and here is a golden opportunity to show, not only how you have survived, but to tell your story and why your efforts should be worthy of support in the future. Explain the challenges you have faced and overcome as well as those challenges that are still there in front of you. If the demands on your resources from your beneficiaries have increased, show how and who you have helped. If you have pivoted to say home working, show the challenges your staff have been faced with and how they have overcome them. If you have had to downsize and make cuts in the services, explain how you have managed the process and what you have achieved with fewer resources.

You will also need to rethink your reserves policy. I suspect for most charities, this has gone out of the window. Even in those grant making charities that have had increased requests for assistance, you need to take account of the demands that have been made on you and how that might impact on your decision making going forward. In a previous blog on reserves, I said that no two charities are the same and even apparently identical charities can have different reserves policies which could relate to trustees’ attitude to risk. Likewise, those charities with little or no reserves (and that will include many reading this article) will need to think about how they can rebuild their reserves going forward. For rebuild you will have to do as the vaccine starts to bring the benefits, we all hope it will.

Finally, this means a rethink of both your long-term strategy and your governance procedures which will have taken a battering since the first lockdown in March 2020. This will need to be demonstrated in your Trustee’s Report to show that the lessons learned during lockdown and your operational changes are being considered in your plans which again form part of your annual reporting.

Your Trustee’s Report which in my eyes has always been an essential tool of a charity, this year will be more important than ever, so you need to get it right.