Covalent for Charities
Covalent helps Charities manage performance more effectively, and so demonstrate many of the Charity Commission's 'Hallmarks of an Effective Charity'.
HALLMARK #1
“Is clear about its objectives, and mission, and how it will achieve them; is accountable to the public and other stakeholders in a way that is transparent and understandable”
Covalent Scorecards are an intuitive, visual way of tracking performance against priorities. Performance information is organised in a hierarchical tree, with traffic-lighting to indicate status on each element in the scorecard. You can link performance indicators and key projects to show how the charity is managing operations to achieve these objectives.
HALLMARK #2
“Sets achievable targets and indicators against which success is measured based on the aims of the charity; Evaluates its achievements and performance against its targets on a regular basis”
Covalent provides a simple way to track key performance metrics. The system is preloaded with a library of Charities PIs (Performance Indicators); you can add as many of your own local indicators as you want. Traffic-lighting and colour-coded gauges show performance against target providing at-a-glance views of current status. Trend charting allows you to view historical performance over time. Covalent also supports performance comparisons against benchmark groups.
Covalent Action Central gives a visual display of progress on key Projects. You can consolidate in one place all the charity's strategic initiatives and action plans, showing who has been assigned various tasks. Traffic-lighting against the deadline date provides a quick overview of progress against key milestones and quickly highlights those completed and those currently overdue. Covalent sends users alerts and reminders for actions still not completed by their deadline date.
HALLMARK #3
“Has well-publicised, effective and timely procedures for dealing with complaints about the charity and its activities”
Recent press reports highlighted that over two thirds of charities don't have complaints procedures in place, so failing to fully account to their service users and use learning from complaints to improve their services. Covalent delivers an integrated solution for managing and tracking complaints, allowing you to assign resolution of a complaint to a staff member and track progress against pre-defined deadlines and processes.
HALLMARK #4
“Has a trustee body that takes responsibility for evaluating its own performance, with systems in place that it can use to monitor performance; Is engaged in a process of continual improvement to improve its own future performance”
Covalent's Personalised views mean that all your team can easily view just information that's relevant for them. These views are continuously updated as new performance results are logged, so you can regularly review the likely impact on future performance. Covalent can also track your improvement action plans and highlight projects that have been completed, or conversely where deadlines have been missed.
Executive Dashboards use customised, easy-to-understand gauges that visually summarise performance across multiple dimensions i.e. not just current performance, but relative to target level or trend level. Managers can drill down from the gauges' summary view to various data and so investigate the reasons for particular outcomes.
HALLMARK #5
“Identifies and assesses the risks that it is exposed to and decides how it will manage them”
Covalent helps charities manage strategic and operational risks more effectively, so that trustees can confidently make a positive statement on risk management in the Annual Report. Covalent consolidates the risk register in one place, and traffic-lights each risk score based on likely Impact and Likelihood of occurrence. The software is pre-populated with template Charity Risk Registers, that holds all supporting profile and internal controls information. You can also create remedial/ preventative actions and progress track completion of those actions, and their effect on the risk score.