Governance 

Trustees are mindful of the particular challenges of establishing and growing a new charity. As the charity moves beyond our launch phase and has successfully generated funding for launch, it is important we have a clear reserves policy so that our partners and funders can see : 

 

• We have processes to govern our resources in line with the long term aims of the charity.

• We have the clear policies to deliver a sustainable charity.

• That we forward plan for growth. 

• That we identify the biggest risks we see and plan resilience accordingly. 

 

 

 

Trustees have a bi-annual cycle of reviewing our reserves :

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• At the start of our financial year (April) so that the latest view can be published within our annual report in June.

• Formally again at the half year (October) to check our assumptions are correct or whether they need to be changed given our income performance, expenditures, risks and plans. 

 

 

Our reserves position has changed since the annual report last published (April 2026) as our charity evolves quickly.  

 

The 3 main principles that drive Trustee thinking are : 

 

• The need to balance supporting people now vs building resilience for the future (inc resource resilience).

• The need to understand the solidity of our funding, retaining sufficient funds to ensure continuity of service in the areas we serve.  

• The need to plan for growth : especially new areas / NHS Talking Therapy teams.

 

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The key issues impacting on our policy 

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1. Income - our funding to date has nearly all been “one off donations”, charitable fundraising and events. Our future funding needs to change to longer term commitments to give the charity a stronger platform for sustainability. Until we have such partners we have to be very cautious with our reserves to ensure we can maintain our service in our current geography. 

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2.  Demand - the outreach success has delivered 3.5x the number of applications initially forecasted. Demand remains fluid with potentially more upside from our current area. We therefore must maintain strong cash balances to ensure we can meet demand and embed our partner relationships for the long term. 

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3. Other material risks - aside from income risks in point 1, we need to manage the risks around resource. The charity is dependent on the extensive time of the founder which is planned to continue. However we feel it prudent to carry a designated fund for “resource risk”. In the event that key people are unable to support the charity due to illness or other reasons, service continuity can be maintained for at least a year with additional “paid” resource. 

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4. Whilst our Number 1 priority is the current area we serve and its continuity, we are mindful that we have a charity that can help people in many more areas. We wish to build the funds to help more people in new areas, or new outreach methods to help more people. We therefore have a designated fund for “growth” and aim to put 10% of our annual income into this fund each year, subject to the needs of our establishment area being secure and funded. 

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5. The charity looks closely at it’s run rate operating costs to predict the financial resources required to continue operations in our current area. These are currently running at £42k p/annum to service 416 applications for support, resource the charity, govern the charity and conduct modest levels of charitable fundraising. 

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New Reserves Policy as at October 14th 2026 : Balances and reserves

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Restricted funds (Note 1)                      £7.5k 

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Unrestricted Funds                                £71.1k

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Trustee Designated Funds :

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Growth fund (Note 2)                            £8k 

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York and Selby Project (Note 3)           £52k

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Resource resilience (Note 4)                 £10k 

   

Free Reserves                                        £1.1k

 

 

Note 1 : We have received funding from David Skaith, Mayor of York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority. This is restricted to physical activity provision. 

 

Note 2 : This is crudely 10% of our income in Years 1 and 2. This designated fund could be used to expand into new areas or leverage new outreach methods. 

 

Note 3 : This reflects 17 months of continued operation in the York and Selby area (total cost £59.5k), based on run rate demand and costs. The £7.5k of available restricted funds is added to this (as they can be used for this project). 

 

Note 4 : This is the incremental cost of having the charity “paid for” resource increased to 37 hours per week. Currently the charity is resourced at 25 per week. This would be the bare minimum resource to ensure we can continue to support beneficiaries and would increase our annual resource cost to £31k, alongside our volunteer team, should our founders time need to dramatically change for personal or health reasons. This resource resilience is essential for continuity planning. 

 

 

Conclusions from this policy 

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It is clear the charity is some distance away from having the resources / funding to consider area expansion and must find new funding and supporters to do so. 

 

Developing partnerships with longer term funders will allow us over time to “tighten” the Trustee designated funds required for areas we serve. 

 

This policy mitigates the key evident risks of uncertainty in future income streams, giving us time to develop partnerships with scale supporters. It also mitigates the key operational risk of being heavily reliant on a narrow group of resources and the founder in particular.

 

This policy will be next reviewed at the April 2027 Trustee Board meeting.