Yoke is a year old: ten things we have learnt about charities

Yoke and Company is officially one year old. The company founders are a lot older and we are amazed that the year has gone in a flash.  So what have we learnt and what has changed?

1.      Regardless of all the Charity Commission’s advice on financial governance, it remains normal for trustees to say ‘I don’t do money’. If it’s baffling, it is usually just because the issue has been badly explained.

2.      Being regulated means Yoke never hesitates about the investment advice we give, which goes beyond simply comparing managers; The FCA’s review on investment consultants having conflicts of interest or not being regulated highlighted many issues that have yet to be addressed.

3.      Charity decision-making lurches from one quarterly meeting to another. They always have, and probably always will. Difficult decisions often get deferred. No decision is a decision in itself and it is usually the wrong one.

4.      Too many charities regard success as a growing pile of money. Surely this is a measure of failure because the money is there to be spent on charitable purposes.

5.      Charities tend to be cautious; trustees should take more risk for their beneficiaries, just as a parent would for their children. The parents don’t enjoy the rewards, but that’s not why they do it.

6.      Penny wise and pound foolish – investment managers can be expensive but not that different from each other. Getting your risk budget right is free and makes you most of your returns. Obtaining help in this area difficult to find.

7.      The rewards in winning new investment business are huge, so the industry is incentivised to get trustees to change managers frequently. Less change will provide better long-term results. 

8.      The public trust in charities has declined after successive years of media attention and bad practice from a few poorly run organisations. Kid’s Company is becoming a distant memory after Oxfam, but charities need to be less defensive and bolder about the great work they do.

9.      We continue to meet so many amazing charity executives who have passion and bold ideas. The problems manifest when these ideas are passed to the trustee board who struggle to share the confidence to take controlled risks with their assets.

10.   We keep looking for someone else offering independent financial assistance to charities, concentrating on the ‘upstream’ problems that concern the overall financial decisions. Combining this with regulated and totally independent investment advice to charities of all sizes. This currently makes Yoke fairly unique in the UK.