About us
In 2017, we were commissioned to carry out a unit costing amongst voluntary and community organisations in one of London’s richest boroughs. Through this work, an analysis of participants’ actual costs compared to what they were being funded showed just how dire the situation was.
With the smallest VCOs being disproportionately underfunded (some receiving as little as a quarter of their actual costs) it was no wonder the leaders of these VCOs were burnt out, unable to grow their income and were often working for little or sometimes no pay. Scarily, most leaders had no idea how underfunded their services were. In the absence of any understanding of their unit costs and hence charge out rates, this meant that even when they were securing income, they were over-promising, and as a result lost money in the delivery of that project or service.
It became evident from this work that our methodology for calculating unit costs should be user friendly, thereby empowering sector leaders to have confidence in their organisation’s finances and enabling them to make more informed management decisions that would ultimately assure financial sustainability.
Enter Ampacc…
Why this matters to us
At Clear Thinking Consultancy, we have long known – and this has been highlighted by the Covid-19 pandemic – how some of the smallest, most at-risk voluntary and community organisations are so effective at reaching the most vulnerable sections of our society. We believe that the only way to realise our vision of enabling communities to thrive is by ensuring that the those who are supporting the most disadvantaged are themselves thriving, not just (barely) surviving. In this way we can reduce some of the alarming inequalities that exist and start to contribute to a more level playing field.
We believe that a thriving voluntary and community sector = thriving communities
Ampacc is owned by Clear Thinking Consultancy Limited and delivered with the support of Firefly IT Systems.
