History of a Charity in Twenty Objects - #13
#13. Policies and Procedures (2000 to Forever)
Okay, we’ll admit it. Policies and procedures may not be edge-of-your-seat stuff. We see you rolling your eyes... in fact, will you please nudge that gentleman in the back? His snoring is waking up all the other readers.
(If you really can’t bear to learn about our policies and procedures, then feel free to skip forward to Object #14, which you might find more entertaining.)
Still here? Fantastic.
The fact is policies and procedures aren’t fun, but they are fundamental. They serve as constitution, rule book, encyclopedia and supervisor. They tell us what we can and can’t do, as well as how we do what we do.
They are as important to us as rivets are to an airplane.
We have a whole raft of policies now, but this wasn’t always the case. We collected them one-by-one, starting with our Child Protection Policy. That’s the biggie, which continues to develop as our work grows, or when new laws are passed.
Policy #2 was a Data Protection Policy, which seems like an anomaly, until you discover that one of our long-standing supporters, Bridget Treacy, is a data protection expert.
Each time we embarked on a new venture, we’d write a policy to support and govern it. Like rings on a tree stump, we can count our growth by the number of policies we have.
Being an educational organisation, we developed an Education Policy.
When we bought a computer, we needed a Computer Use Policy.
When we rented our first office, we wrote a Health & Safety Policy.
With each big step, we made a policy.
We’ve got a Risk Policy, an Equal Opportunities Policy, a Fundraising Policy, an Investment Policy, a robust Business Continuity Plan… and then there’s the Operations Manual. It includes details for every aspect of our work, from trustee induction to where we store the biscuits and tea*.
You may be thinking, “Guy Fox is such a tiny organisation. Do you really need such an extensive collection of policies and procedures?”
It’s precisely because we are a small team that we need it. We don’t have an IT Department who can solve our wi-fi problem. We don’t have an Accounts Team who focuses on collecting past due invoices. We don’t have a Printing Specialist who can fix our printer when it jams.
(But then again, it’s doubtful that anybody could fix our printer when it jams. The printer jams a lot.)
Guy Fox History Project functions with a tiny team – often only one person – who might have to be the IT Department, Accounts Team and Printer Gladiator all before noon. With the support of the Operations Manual, we can do all of those jobs, eat our lunch, and still have time to do our REAL work in the afternoon.
It’s about efficiency, you see. These policies and procedures help us save lots of time, so that we can focus on the creative, fun stuff.
And speaking of fun stuff, we’ll let you mosey along to Object #14. As we said, it’s a lot more entertaining.
*In case you’re wondering, the biscuits and tea are kept in the lower middle cabinet.