CFG’s CEO, Caron Bradshaw OBE, tells Risk Conference that traditional approaches are broken. It’s time for change, with a new collaborative leading the charge - and everyone's invited! Emma Abbott reports.
The charity sector’s approach to risk management is broken and it has to change, CFG’s CEO, Caron Bradshaw OBE, told nearly 100 attendees at CFG's Risk Conference today.
Opening the joint presentation, ‘New approaches to Risk Management’, Caron said that for too long charities and non-profit organisations have been held back by overly complex systems that ‘focus on the wrong stuff’.
Following the accepted risk management rules and norms, she said, leads to charities missing crucial opportunities to maximise their impact.
Whilst understanding that advocating for wholesale change by throwing out risk registers and heat maps, won't be for everybody, Caron argued that radical new approaches to risk management are needed for the sector.
Time for change
Attendees were asked in an online poll how satisfied they were that traditional risk management tools, such as risk matrices, heat maps and appetite statements, provide value. No attendees selected ‘very well’, 55% said ‘well’ and 43% said ‘not well’. Two per cent of the attendees chose to ‘burn them all’.
Caron then spoke about the volatile operating environment that charities are now working in, and how charities are doing all they can to remain resilient and adaptable. Urging attendees to watch an “entertaining” TedTalk by extreme kayaker, Steve Fisher, Caron said: “It's okay to change your mind when circumstances change, and you may decide to make different decisions.”
A new risk management framework – RiskPlus - was shared. Adapted from a model first published by Robert Kaplan and Anette Mikes 13 years ago, RiskPlus distinguishes between three different risk types – external, preventable and strategic – and sets out distinct paths and approaches to managing each of them.
Caron first embedded a version of the framework 12 years ago when CFG was embarking on a period of difficult change. It was then, she explained, that CFG’s leaders started to reduce the time they spent talking about scoring and colour coding, and increased the time spent on having richer conversations about their leadership decisions.
Since then, Caron has worked with consultant Nigel Kippax, Director of Charity Leaders, to evolve the framework and share it with other charities.
Nigel explained: “The Kaplan and Mikes model is...something that's come out of the corporate world that we believe is directly applicable to the charity sector.”
Putting people at the centre
Nigel explained that the beauty of RiskPlus is that it puts people at the heart of risk assessment and management by supporting more open discussions and deeper thinking among senior leaders and trustees, shifting the approach away from being just a management exercise.
Echoing Caron’s point that current risk assessment and management tools don’t go far enough to tease out discussions and opportunities, Nigel said:
“At the heart of this is the dialogue and the discussions that people have. One of the challenges that leaders face, of course, is time but we’ve come to realise there’s not just one way of looking at it, and not just one tool that manages risk – we should be encouraging leaders to come together to make the best decisions.”
He added: “We shouldn't be imposing one set of tools on the sector, but we should be encouraging various leaders in different roles to come together and share and learn together in how we make these leadership decisions. This has led to our thinking on collaborating and bringing that group of people together.”
Collaboration is key
Caron revealed a breakthrough moment in 2024 when she and Nigel met with Sabrina Segal – a fraud, risk and audit expert, licensed attorney and doctoral candidate at Bath University whose research focus is risk management in the third sector.
Sabrina is passionate about helping third sector organisations identify opportunities and manage threats. She is an advocate for risk sharing between funders and partners, and an educator and trainer of the objective-centric risk management approach.
Caron revealed that CFG has formed a new partnership and initiative with Sabrina to drive forward their shared vision for "fit for purpose" risk management.
“In partnership with CFG, The Risk Collaborative will help educate stakeholders and advocate for change by approaching the challenges facing our sector through the lens of risk.
“In this dynamic environment, the best way to support the work of third-sector organisations is for all stakeholders to acknowledge and accept that charities and non-profits work in the riskiest space. They are asked to solve complex societal and global problems with little power and fewer resources.”
For the final part of the presentation, Sabrina shared the work she has been doing to urge third sector organisations to think differently about risk management.
Sabrina provided an overview of The Risk Collaborative, explaining that it will be a platform to ‘identify innovative and impactful approaches to restructure, rebuild, and rebalance power in the third sector through the lens of risk.’
Sabrina continued: “By bringing together charity trustees, executives, staff, funders and other interested parties, we aim to create a more resilient and effective non-profit sector that can better manage uncertainty, respond to threats and leverage opportunities.”
The Risk Collaborative will focus on three key areas:
- Convening discussions with funders around risk and how those discussions can lead to tangible resource and power shifts in the sector.
- Empowering trustees to acknowledge and accept risk.
- Supporting charity leadership and management to improve risk awareness and management.
“The government and private sectors have stepped back, and charities and non-profits are consistently expected to do more with less. We want to come together and find third sector solutions to third sector challenges.
"We seek organisations interested in participating in these conversations or helping to fund our launch. Let’s move forward with courage and compassion.”
The new initiative, which is now seeking grant funding, will officially launch at CFG’s Annual Conference in June.
What next?
If you would like to find out more about The Risk Collaborative, please complete this form or scan this QR code:
If you would like to hear more about Caron and Nigel’s risk consultancy work, please contact them via email: caron.bradshaw@cfg.org.uk / nigel.kippax@charityleaders.org.uk.