Communities 1st - Current State Analysis
- Utkarsh Tripathi
- Mar 23, 2025
- 10 min read
The following post is designed to capture the current state or AS-IS of our most recent client, "Communities 1st".
Client Description and Background
Communities 1st is a private charitable company, which works to support the communities within the districts of St. Albans, Hertsmere, Broxbourne & East Herts, particularly the most vulnerable and excluded.
Activities
Communities 1st develops, connects, and supports, local voluntary and community organizations, helping to improve the quality of people's lives across the East of England.
They are home to the St. Albans, Hertsmere, Broxbourne, and East Herts volunteer centres, providing support and guidance for those who want to become volunteers and those who wish to recruit volunteers.
They provide support services for older people and those with vulnerabilities while facilitating various meetings and events regarding health and well-being within the community. They also offer group support resources for new community groups and ongoing information and advice on everything from funding to social media for existing groups in districts of St. Albans and Hertsmere.
They use their real estate assets to offer training services, networking opportunities, room hire, and office rental. They also deliver custom projects within the counties of Hertfordshire, Luton, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, West Essex, and the surrounding areas.
Origin
Communities 1st was born as a merger between two pioneering charities -
Communities Action - Hertsmere
Community Central St. Albans
Both of these organizations, each with a distinguished history of serving local communities, established community voluntary services (CVS) and volunteer centers, becoming lifelines for the people in the mentioned regions.
Community Action Hertsmere, tracing its history to the early 2000s, emerged from a union of Elstree and Borehamwood CVS, Potters Bar CVS, and Borehamwood community partnership. This amalgamation brought together a spectrum of services, significantly impacting individuals and communities.
Recent Developments
In 2019, the company acquired two charities with the inclusion of Hertsmere Community Transport and Aberford Social Club.
In 2021, the Volunteer Centre Broxbourne and East Herts became part of their network. This expanded their capacity to volunteer outreach and engagement, furthering their impact across a broader range of communities.
The latest addition to their family is Para Dance UK, joining them in October 2023.
Sector Overview
The oldest surviving charity in the UK was founded in 597 AD supposedly by St. Augustine. As of today, Bridge house estates is the oldest continually existing charitable establishment since 1282 (Founded by Royal Charter).
The purpose of Bridge house estates was to fund the maintenance of the London Bridge.
In 1601, Elizabeth 1 introduced laws to make the charity sector more accountable. The preamble turned into a detailed list of charitable purposes acceptable by the UK legislation.
Communities 1st works closely with VCFSEs (Voluntary, Community, Faith & Social Enterprise) which refers to an entire sector that operate primarily for social benefit rather than profit-making. The VCFSEs undertake contracts and commissioned activities via public sector contracts from the local authority, such as Prison Services and Police Crime Commissioner.
DCMS (2023) estimates that, of 250,000 VCFSEs active in UK, between 9,200 and 12,500 engage in government contracting each year (close to 3% - 5% of active VCFSEs). These contracts include, statutory (e.g. adult social care, children's services, mental health services, and palliative care) and non-statutory services (such as community development, support for vulnerable groups)
Currently, the VCFSE faces challenges as working conditions are not very lucrative due to the low wage rate (50p less than national average)
The entire VCFSE sector as a whole is funded via a mixed portfolio of grants (e.g. the National Lottery Community Fund OR Trusts and foundations), individual or corporate donations and legacies, fundraising events, trading, membership fees, endowments, investments as well as contracts and commissioning via public sector contracts from the local authority, NHS, HM Prison Service or the Police and Crime Commissioner (NVCO, no date)
It appears in the "The state of the VCFSE sector: lessons from the national picture" published in October 2024, that the NVCO has identified four key financial threats to the VCFSE sector from the cost-of-living crisis:
Increases Running Costs
Increased Salaries
Increased Interest Rates
Lower Public Donations
Due to a close occupational relationship with the VCFSEs, it is possible that some of these threats and concerns may have an impact on Charities as they support the VCFSEs in facing these challenges.
Company Structure
Registered with the UK government under the Companies Act 2006, the company has adopted the model Private (Ltd. by guarantee). According to the company's articles of association, the company's official title is "Communities 1st" and was registered as Charity number 11875362 on 1st October 2018 with the charity commission.
Charitable purposes:
The Charities Act 2006 states that there are 13 charitable 'heads' under which a charity can operate, listed below:
1) The prevention of relief and poverty
2) The advancement of education
3) The advancement of religion
4) the advancement of health or the saving of lives
5) The advancement of citizenship or community development
6) the advancement of the arts, culture, heritage, or science
7) The advancement of amateur sport
8) The advancement of human rights, conflict resolution, or reconciliation, or the promotion of religious or racial harmony or equality and diversity.
9) The advancement of environmental protection or improvement
10) The relief of those in need by reason of youth, age, ill-health, disability, financial hardship or other disadvantages.
11) The advancement of animal welfare
12) The promotion of the efficiency of the armed forces of the crown, or of the efficiency of the police, fire and rescue services or ambulance services.
13) Any other purpose currently recognized as charitable and any new charitable purposes which are similar to another charitable purpose.
You may find more details about the charitable purposes here
The 'charitable purposes' must also be demonstrated as being 'for the public benefit'. there are two key principles of public benefit.
1) There must be an identifiable benefit or benefits
2) The benefit(s) must be to the public, or section of the public.
Currently, the charity commission identifies the following charitable purposes as applicable to Communities 1st:
General Charitable Purposes
Education/Training
The advancement of health and saving of lives
Disability
The prevention or Relief of poverty
Amateur Sport
Economic/Community Development/ Employment
Human Rights/Religious or Racial Harmony/Equality or Diversity
Recreation
Other Charitable Purposes
The beneficiaries include Children/Young People, Elderly/Old people, People with Disabilities, Other Charities or Voluntary Bodies, general public.
Financial Status
Funding model:
Based on the company's statement of accounts as available on gov.uk, for the financial year 2023-2024, the company has received a total of funding of 2,464,977 GBP. Communities' 1st receives funding from sources such as Donation, Grants, Contracts and SLA Donations.
According to the statement of accounts submitted for the financial year 2023-2024, the financial position of Communities 1st relies on the funding sources mentioned above. As stated, "Unrestricted income remains important to the financial sustainability of the charity.".
The statement may suggest that ensuring that a proportion of funds remains unrestricted as a practice, may contribute significantly to the charity's financial stability. The company restricted close to 62,000 GBP for specific programmes and projects, out of a total income of 1,352,470 GBP.
Given below are some other Financial KPIs.
As of 2024, the charity has spent 963,246 GBP as staff costs, and over 1,320,325 GBP as expenditure on charitable activities. These figures suggest that while the fixed costs are well within proportionate range, the expenditure on charitable activities rises as the company expands its operations. It also displays healthy financial management practices by Communities 1st, as by maintaining their fixed cost proportions as against their income and funding, their ability to expand the scale of their charitable activities increases as well.
*Data collected from statements of accounts for years 2019-2024
The company strongly maintains cash liquidity by maintaining their cash reserves well above their total funding available for the year.
Operating Model
The Communities 1st ecosystem comprises of volunteers, member enterprises/organizations, VCFSEs, trainers, and partner organizations. These stakeholders interact with each other to deliver charitable services/contractual services such as:
1- Funding Advice Services
2- Managed Services
3- Social Enterprise Support
4- Health Check-ups
5- Donation Sites
6- Volunteer Recruiting
7- Volunteer Training
8- Employment Support
9- Commute support
There are several other activities that they conduct in order to deliver values such as inclusivity, collaboration, caring, creativity, striving for quality, and integrity.
Data Collection
Methodology
The data was collected via a mixed method i.e primary as well as secondary data collection.
Primary data collection includes online meetings with client.
Secondary data collection includes sector reports, and company documents available publicly.
Upon engagement with the client, data was collected over a series of personal interactions with Head of Well-Being, Juli Riley and Chief Executive, Stephen Cracker. For convenience, a data directory was built in order to have desired information available as and when needed, along with ownership and other details. A pictorial representation of the data directory is given below.
Members
Currently, there are 155 members (VCFSEs) at 25 locations within the Northern London region. The following pictorial representation is derived from a PowerBI dashboard created for Communities 1st using their member data. The data was extracted from their official website (members' directory*) using web scraping methods
While analyzing the members' data, it has been observed that potential areas for expansion combined with the local demographics of the current and potential locations may aid the targeting for both Volunteers and VCFSEs.
Volunteering Domains
There are several volunteering domains that are made available to the volunteers by Communities 1st through their members. The large array of options provides the members with a choice to pursue suitable opportunities. There are a total of 42 unique volunteering domains represented in the PowerBI dashboard below:
The data used for the above dashboard was scraped from the company's volunteer application form* available online on their webpage
*The data is publicly accessible as the website does not implement cyber security measures.
Key KPIs and Facts
As of today, Communities 1st has achieved the following KPIs:
257,000 GBP secured by the VCFSE associates post Communities 1st involvement.
157 VCFSE organizations provided with 1:1 development and funding advice
90+ Attendees at their annual conference
2400+ Enquiries dealt with via the volunteer centre
213 volunteer applicants
190 hours of employer related volunteering
180+ volunteers available to members for hiring
5400+ consumers for Volunteer Centre Newsletter
180 placements
51,000 visited the managed community centres
7,211 passenger journeys
More such KPIs available on further inquiry. Other KPIs include specific footfalls for all initiatives such as individual training programs, interest in health support initiatives, and etc.
Business Needs
The charitable organization released their action plan for the year 2024-2025 outlining goals, objectives and tasks to implement their strategies. The figures below include the objectives laid out in order to attain the outcomes for every goal along with the responsible stakeholders across the organizational structure.
Goal 1: A more resilient, effective, and representative local voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise (VCFSE) sector.
Goal 2: Improved Community and Personal Development through volunteering
Goal 3: Improved health and well-being for all, where individuals facing barriers or experiencing health inequalities are supported and resilient.
Goal 4: Being a sustainable, responsible organization driven by our values.
*Created using Microsoft Visio with reference data "Business Action Plan 24-25" shared by Communities 1st Team.
Pain Points
One of the primary priorities of the company is to gain external capacity. In order to gain external capacity, they have prepared to progress towards the following objectives:
Impact Measurement
Communities 1st collects data on service delivery, volunteer contributions, and community engagement, but this is not centralized or visually engaging for internal or external stakeholders.
They look to utilize their KPI data, CRM data, participant journeys, organisational collaborations, feedback from volunteer and members, and service impact metrics.
Training and Supported Employment Programme Business Case
Communities 1st runs successful training programmes (e.g., 'A New You') and supported employment projects like the Coffee Cart initiative, which provides practical work experience for individuals with employment barriers. However, there is a need to formalise and expand these offerings into a cohesive, scalable programme informed by client research and tailored to meet evolving needs.
Company has current programme outcomes, participant feedback, operational details of the coffee cart initiative, and insights from the related employment projects available as data to be used.
Social Supermarket Feasibility Study
They require a clear, actionable roadmap to establish the supermarket, build partnerships, and secure funding for their social supermarket initiative.
In order for them to develop a roadmap, information such as estimated costs, potential user demographics, and input from stakeholders during the feasibility phase is required.
Better Business Programme Development
The Better Business Programme currently facilitates relationships between local businesses and the voluntary sector, but it lacks an online platform to broker support effectively.
They intend to use current programme participation metrics, case studies for successful business-voluntary sector collaborations, CRM data on interactions, and insights from similar platforms.
Analysis & Summary
Methodology
For the purpose of analysis, tools such as PowerBI, Microsoft Excel, and Generative AI (ChatGPT) were used. A combination of document analysis, and data analysis was used to develop observations and draw conclusions.
Summary
The following observations have been made over the first phase of client interactions:
There is financial scope for growth given sound financial practices by Communities 1st. Balanced cost management, retention of unrestricted funds, and due attention to cash flow requirements can be observed via analysis of their statement of accounts. This shows that the company is capable of envisioning as well as relying upon their financial reserves to fulfill the requirements of their targets and objectives.
While missing links have been identified during data collection efforts, large volumes of data is available w.r.t to processes, feedbacks, and outcomes. The challenge with their data collection practices might organization of information for the purpose of extracting insights and drawing novel conclusions.
New data collection streams need to be communicated and created in order to build stronger foundations for future state development.
Ethical Considerations
While conducting the elicitation process, few considerations such as ensuring public availability of information, maintenance of interaction logs, and creation of data directory with stakeholder access were followed with clear understanding of ownership amongst all stakeholders. Any technical consideration such as use of web scraping for extraction of form field data, and members' directory was duly communicated with POC Juli Riley.
References
Esmene, S., Leyshon, C., Leyshon, M. and Leyshon, M., 2024. The state of the VCFSE Sector: lessons from the national picture. A scoping report of the national situation and implications for Spark Somerset's strategy. [online] Quay Research. Available at: <Lessons-from-the-National-Picture.pdf> [Accessed 20 Mar. 2025].
Companies House, 2019. Certificate of Incorporation for Communities 1st (Company No. 11875362). [online] Available at: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/11875362/filing-history?page=2 [Accessed 18 Mar. 2025].
GOV.UK, 2013. Charitable purposes. [online] Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/charitable-purposes/charitable-purposes [Accessed 14 Mar. 2025].
Companies House, 2020–2024. Statements of accounts for Communities 1st (Company No. 11875362) for financial years 2019–2020 to 2023–2024. [online] Available at: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/11875362/filing-history?page=1 [Accessed 18 Mar. 2025].
Tripathi U., n.d. Power BI Dashboard – Work in Progress. [online] Power BI. Available at: https://app.powerbi.com/groups/c2b9e85c-1a7e-4a37-ad19-075ff346d8f9/reports/849b97d9-6c90-4eb4-8d99-25b261dfddba/bfde853a99b4a33dfd7b?ctid=93e6beba-c4aa-4731-af5d-d735b097eadb&experience=power-bi [Accessed 23 Mar. 2025].
Tripathi, U., n.d. Data Directory. [online] Available at: https://herts365-my.sharepoint.com/:x:/r/personal/ut24aab_herts_ac_uk/_layouts/15/doc2.aspx?sourcedoc=%7B8E9DB812-4AEE-4AC5-BA36-47C83F0D8611%7D&file=Data%20Directory.xlsx&action=default&mobileredirect=true&wdOrigin=OFFICE-OFFICE-METAOS.FILEBROWSER.FILES-FOLDER [Accessed 23 Mar. 2025].
Communities 1st, n.d. Submission to UHBS Postgraduate Student Scheme. [online] Unpublished manuscript submitted to the University of Hertfordshire Business School. Available at: https://herts365-my.sharepoint.com/:w:/g/personal/ut24aab_herts_ac_uk/EcJKC-wK5HZOkFiV23M2P1UBeC0e_gAkDNrJkhJ5YleM2Q?e=zBXxi0 [Accessed 23 Mar. 2025].
Communities 1st, 2024. Business Plan 24–25. [online] Available at: https://herts365-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/ut24aab_herts_ac_uk/ERkf4mRxRgxOjiXIaRZq4V0BjYKWBZLE_c4IIBVJhHx0xw?e=Eom7sr [Accessed 23 Mar. 2025].
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