Category Archives: Youthwork

Press Release

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Young People As Prophets

www.ypap.org.uk

To coincide with the launch of the Grove Booklet, Young People As Prophets, Frontier Youth Trust (FYT) is delighted to launch a new web site initiative to help young people speak out on issues that are important. Bishop Roger Sainsbury (chair of NYA and CYM) is one of the authors and he says, “I hope this booklet and web site will be used by youth workers to encourage young people to speak out in the tradition of the young biblical prophets on issues such as poverty, racism, the environment, injustice, peace and the worship of money and power. Our world needs their revolutionary voices as much today as it did in biblical times.�

Young people are often denied the opportunity to have their say. Even when they do speak their voices are often pushed to the margins and paid lip service. The YPAP web site gives the opportunity for young people’s voices to be both seen and heard and also enables young people to see what other young people are saying.

Dave Wiles, Chief Executive Officer of FYT and co-author of the YPAP Grove Booklet is delighted that the new web site has been officially launched. “This web site is a valuable tool in helping to get young people’s voices heard. I would encourage all those who work with young people to invite them to make use of the site.�

The web site is free, easy to use and also offers youth workers some free resources and tools to help young people take advantage of the opportunity to speak out. The Young People as Prophets web site can be found at www.ypap.org.uk

The ‘Young People as Prophets’ Booklet can be purchased from Grove Booklets on 01223 464 784 or e-mail: sales@grovebooks.co.uk

Further Information from:

Frontier Youth Trust

Unit 208b

The Big Peg

120 Vyse Street

Birmingham

B18 6NF

0121 687 3505

www.fyt.org.uk

Frontier Youth Trust is a Christian network dedicated to advancing the Kingdom of God by supporting, resourcing and training those working with and on behalf of disadvantaged young people. FYT is working with young people at risk towards justice, equality and community. Company Number 3264908 Registered Charity number 1059328.

Charity Fundraising Costs

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As we all know, most charities spend a proportion of their income on generating further income. Also, we are aware that charities cannot spend 100% of their income on fundraising, otherwise they would not be spending any money on their charitable purpose. So there must be a level at which fundraising expenses are acceptable.

However, there are hidden fundraising ‘costs’ that are not on the accounts sheet. For example Christian Aid displays the following figures on their site:
Out of every pound we receive, we spend:
* 52p on long-term development projects
* 17p on responding to emergencies
* 12p on campaigning and education
* 18p on fundraising
* 1p on administration

The unseen item is how much resource do external fundraisers contribute. We can see that Christian Aid spend 18p in the pound on fundraising, but in addition to that we have the time and money that external fundraisers (the people who do sponsored bungee jumps, etc) commit to fundraising for Christian Aid. This time and money only adds to the 18p in the pound fundraising figure above – the money raised is already accounted for in the above figures. So even though these people are acting on behalf of Christian Aid, their expenses (and time) are conveniently off the accounting sheet.

To better appreciate the amount of resource that a charity (including it’s supporters) is actually spending on fundraising you need to estimate the time and money that is off the record.

From the figures available for Christian Aid (for example) it is very difficult to assess this cost as their income stream does not differentiate between income from external fundraisers and income from fundraising where the costs are directly to the Charity itself (e.g. the cost of letters asking for money).

For the estimate it is worth including both the time and money of the external fundraisers (this is what is accounted for if the fundraiser is an employee of the charity, after all). If we monetise the time spent by fundraisers then at a guess I would estimate that the final figures must fall into the range of 20p to 35p in the pound compared to the 18p in the pound published figure.

Please don’t assume that I’m questioning the published figure – I’m not. I’m just trying to add to that figure the fundraising costs that are external to the official Christian Aid organisation as incurred by it’s external fundraisers.

So, if we could actually have a reliable estimate of the true costs of fundraising by charities what would our response be? Charities that spend a large proportion of income on fundraising are criticised for that and they usually attempt to reduce that proportion.

There are probably some charities that have no ‘off account’ expenses for fundraising, but probably also other charities that have no ‘accounted for’ fundraising costs because it’s members freely give of their own time and resources to fundraising (i.e. it is all ‘off account’). Just because they can claim zero pence in the pound fundraising costs does not mean that they (in the larger sense than just the accounted for organisation) has zero fundraising costs – it always costs money to receive money even if it is just to check your bank statement and to write it into the accounts. The time and money of voluntary fundraisers should be taken into account by donors, in just the same way donors are interested in the official figures.

So bear in mind that a charity with a zero fundraising cost may, in this slightly different way of looking at things, actually have a 50% or higher fundraising cost.

Here the Charity Commission states that it will take up complaints where people identify that “fund-raising or administration costs that are excessive”.

Exactly Who is Doing the Giving?

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Bartley brings up the issue of Government funding the church to carry out welfare services. This is a hot topic for many missions of the church including youthwork.

Whilst there are many considerations around the matter, I would like to merely ask: Who is doing the giving?

This is a hard question, but we all need to be careful that we consider it and are aware of it in our own situations.

As Christians, God has asked us to give our lives, as a sacrifice, to put others first. We show love in what we do, because it is our resource that we are giving.

If I give and in my giving I employ someone else to do the work, is it me who is giving or is it my employee? Well, it is me – surely. Sure, there may be the case where my employee is adding his giving on top of mine, perhaps putting in extra hours. That would be the his giving, not mine.

Our love needs to consist of giving of what we have got. Being a ‘professional Christian’ doesn’t mean that you are giving anything – it is only when you go beyond your job that you are giving, or when you receive ‘tiny pay’ (I knew that there was a good reason for such low pay! 🙂 ) – just the same as a shelf-stacking job down at Tesco’s, it is only when you go beyond the requirements of your job that you begin to give.

(note: how fantastically tax efficient it is to be a low paid youthworker and to make your giving your time rather than your money! Alternatively you could give money, but be taxed on the extra income you would need to receive before giving the money away. There isn’t a rule on this though – we just individually have to know God’s calling, and sometimes that can be to make money, possibly…)

When we think about giving let’s start by looking at what we have to give. It doesn’t need to be ‘silver and gold’ of which you may ‘have none’, but it does need to be something that you have.

Don’t seek merely to be an unloving, ungenerous, ungiving conduity of someone else’s love or giving. Don’t seek to merely be an paid arm of the state, or a paid arm of other Christians.

Sure, join with others who want to give, join with those who want to fund (as long as they have the same ultimate aims and wish to use the same methods as you), but don’t forget where your giving ends and someone else’s giving begins.

Ultimately it is giving what God has freely given us that matters.

Youthwork is a fantastically important thing to be doing – do make sure that the youth can see that you are not just giving other’s resources, but that you are giving your own too. It is that that gives you authenticity.

As an aside, I’ve just come across a case where (non-church) parents were given a letter by the youthwork explaining that as so much money went on upkeep of the church building it would be useful for parents to contribute to the youth activities. I was a bit bemused that the church felt it worth saying that the building was a higher priority than the people and that, whilst the church was willing to spend hundreds of pounds a week on the building, it wasn’t willing to spend a much smaller amount on people…

I think I met a saint last week

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I was asked to speak at a ladies group last week by a fantastic older lady (maybe just in her eightys). Mary had been running the group for about 40 years. It started because after she had been running a crusaders group on the local estate, she wanted to reach out to the parents of the girls she was working with. Forty years later I turned up at her flat (having moved several years ago) and the ladies (70-80yrs old now) from the estate were bussed in, with some of the orginal members of the crusaders group (in their 50’s) and some of Marys new neighbours to hear about FYT.

Several times I have come across a few older ladies like Mary, whose faithfullness is humbling, and whose passion is as real as it always was. When we speak glibly about servanthood, long term work, incarnation and relationships, we need to remember the Marys of the world. I am SURE I met a saint last week.

Federation of Detached Workers

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At a meeting called by the Federation of detached workers today. Very good and for any detached workers in the voluntary sector well worth checking out.

If you visiting sunday papers looking for the strategy stuff you will find the Meet them where they’re slides under talks and presentations on the right.

If you dont want to wade through the slides here is an abridged version

1. SURVELLENCE -Working out which geographical areas or groups of young people to engage

2 COLD CONTACT. Visual stage where we acknowledge the groups

3 COLD CONTACT. Introductions where we introduce ourselves and the project

4. AREA BASED WORK This is when starting in an area or patch and a wide variety of contacts are being made.

5. PEER GROUP WORK This happens as the work becomes more defined and consists of natural groupings of young people. This stage is often where larger groups are identified usually around a shared interest. e.g. football or hanging out and may be too many work with or inconsistant attendance.

6. BASIC SMALL GROUP WORK As key young people are identified the work should be forward to this stage. This group is made up from the groups that exist within the larger peer group.

7. RISKY SMALL GROUP WORK This is about taking calculated risks to move the work and relationships forward such as 1-1 work, a relaxing , perhaps having a meal with the young people etc. However this is not about putting yourself or the young people at risk.

8. EXPOSURE AND EXPLORATION OF SPIRITUALITY AND ISSUES Young people should be introduced to aspects of spirituality in practical supportive ways. It can range from events to raise their consciousness of Bigger things, e.g. watching the sunrise, exploring creation, to going to an event. The worker should explain some of the things that may happen at events and translate what is happening at the event and use the opportunity to explore spiritual issues in a supportive way.

9. PEER EDUCATION WORK AND/OR RELATIONAL BASED EXPRESSION OF CHURCH This refers to supporting the young people in local churches or relevant groups, and developing new groups based around the young people developing their own expression of a discipleship group with the worker. For young people not interested in this it is vital that as part of good professional practice contact is continued and developed and often this can take the form Peer education work or responding with the young people on local issues.

Between each stage there are tools or mechanisms that enables work to progress from stage to stage. These are varied and depend on the interests of the young people you are working with it could be kite flying, sports, hobbies, issues explored, trips etc Anything you do as group together that helps the relationships deepen.
It is possible to identify the groups you are working with and guestimate where you are on the development plan. From there decide where you wish the group to be in six months time and how you propose to get there, e.g. explore doing a residential. This enables you to gauge your progress in some way.

Taken from Meet them where They’re at

looking for some feedback

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I am preparing an article on detached work. One of the questions I have is about the values of detached work. Many of these are drawn from notions of journey, core youth work values, incarnation, relationship theology etc. When i started christian detached work in the early 1990’s (how old am I) these values were still quite fresh and my observations were that they were not the same as i observed in many other christian projects. The growth of writing about relational youth work (Ward etc) and the growth of professional christian training seems to have moved the values I saw in detached work to being more a part of mainstream christian youth work. Is this true in your experience? Any help please?

Love fear and detached

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Tony and I have been having a bit of a chat (if comments after a blog constitute a chat) based on some his reflections on Zacceus. It started about Jesus inviting himself to the party and making the first move, but for us this is a fearful thing to do. Tony commented on 1 john 4:18 says that perfect love casts out all fear. If God is perfect love, then there is no room or even possibility of fear in him. so, if he loves us perfectly, then why would he be afraid to make the first move?

Got me thinking about the link with detached work and how it’s the cold contact thing that people still find most frightening. I was wondering about some sort of image people based on jn 4.18 that people could hold when the make those first tentative steps towards a bunch of young people. Yet whilst this could help it is the experience of God’s perfect love that can’t be pinned down to an image that will release us from fear. In the training how do I communicate that personal experience, of God meeting with you personally and perfectly that sustains the whole of life not just enables the cold contact. Maybe it about my story being part of the story and people discovering their own part in the story, and not something that can be communicated.

Slope and Control

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With regards to Richard’s piece on ‘slope‘ and the comments about it:

I was thinking about the time I spend with the youth of our local church. Am I:
1. Running a group with the agenda of communicating Christ to them
OR
2. Running a group with the sole agenda of enabling them to be a group and have their own agenda’s, and just being Christ to them.

Certainly the pressure is on me (from tradition) to do (1) and sure I hope that I do communicate Christ to them, but is that my agenda?

Hmmm, is there a condition that I attach to attendance that they must allow me to control a certain amount of the time we spend together? If so, do they come in spite of that? If so, is that a positive thing?

Would it be better to relinquish any attempt to control and just to be there on their terms?

Whilst I’m tending toward the idea of a lack of control I’m not sure that this is a lack of slope. Surely if I practise ‘being Christ to people’ then I am always a slope, always a way in?

But this is slope without hidden agenda, without control, without events – just me being the new me.

Hmmm…