Case study: Alice Moore, Real Drama
Interview, 17.9.14
Primary outcomes –
2.4 LEADRSHIP & GOVERNANCE: As a result of the organisation’s activity, local voluntary
organisations and community groups benefit from opportunities to develop high quality
leadership and governance in their organisation.
Secondary outcomes –
2.5 INCOME GENERATION: As a result of the organisation’s activity, local voluntary
organisations and community groups can report that they have increased their incomes as a
result of identifying and accessing a variety of sources and types of income.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1. Who is the case study?
Alice is the Director and founder of Real Drama. Real Drama began in 2007 as a
volunteer run, peer-led drama provision, today Real Drama is a twice award winning
registered charity able to provide paid employment to their peer-leaders. Real Drama
provides free weekly performing arts provision to young people growing up in
deprived communities in South London.
In 7 years Real Drama has reached over 2000 young audience members through
their shows and worked directly with over 300 young people through their
workshops. The aim of Real Drama is to improve social justice and equality through
performing arts provision.
2. What development support have they received from CAS? To address what
issues?
Alice has approached CAS several times and for different reasons. CAS supported
Alice to address many of the issues she faced as the director of Real Drama. On her
interview she mentioned that CAS’ support on issues around safeguarding,
governance and leadership, and fundraising were invaluable and without that
support she would have quit her position at the organisation. She received 1:1
support to register the organisation with Charity Commission [2.4]; Real Drama
took part at the mentoring programme in order to strengthen their income
generation [2.5] and received advices on safeguarding issues [2.4].
3. To what extent did this support improve your governance & leadership?
1
Alice reported that when she founded Real Drama she was very resistant and didn’t
think that her organisation needed to have formal governance structures and
practices in order to carry out activities with youth. After some years running the
activities she realised that she was at risk, as she was responsible for the youths that
were regularly joining the group. She started learning about safeguarding issues and
decided to register the organisation in order to comply with legislative and regulatory
requirements and avoid future problems for her.
While searching for information, she came across a huge load of data and she didn’t
know which direction to go. She even thought about quitting her project and ideas. It
was when she first contacted CAS.
She said that CAS gave her all the support she needed with regards to relevant
insurance, policies and procedures to regularise her situation. With CAS support
Real Drama is now an incorporated and registered charity. [2.4]
As part of the registration process, Alice received support from CAS to improve the
strategy of Real Drama. She said that even though the members of the organisation
had the will to run the activities, there was no strategy set for Real Drama. The lack
of strategy was creating several administrative issues and internal conflicts.
CAS one-to-one support sessions helped Real Drama to set a plan and get
registered. Real Drama didn’t have policies and a governing body. As a result, a
board of trustees and policies were created and the organisation was successfully
registered three years ago.
Alice mentioned that she has not taken all the advice given by CAS. Even though
CAS suggested to Alice to recruit trustees with a range of expertise that could give
her some input and better govern the organisation, Alice decided to recruit some
friends to join the organisation as trustees. She said that as a result, Real Drama is
going through a difficult phase facing several governance issues. This is why Alice
again approached CAS to ask for further advice. CAS is now supporting Real Drama
with the process to recruit a new board of trustees. [2.4]
In addition, Alice had some queries concerning safeguarding issues around
working with vulnerable adults. CAS gave her the contact details of relevant
person at the council and suggested Real Drama take part in safeguarding
training
2
offered by the council. CAS provided information and useful tools on the subject.
[2.4]
‘CAS has been an invaluable resource for my career as a project manager and for
Real drama as an organisation.’ [2.4]
4. To what extent did CAS help them identify and apply for appropriate sources
and income? Were they successful with any?
Real Drama is run solely through volunteers. A Development Officer (volunteer) was
recruited to be responsible for fundraising. The person recruited had no previous
experience with fundraising, but wanted to help the organisation progress. Alice
suggested the volunteer approach CAS to ask for advice. According to Alice, CAS
provided a wide range of information on how to generate income for the
organisation, which led to a few successful partnerships enabling some of the peerleaders to be paid [2.5].
‘I remember having this great meeting [with the CAS development team] and I
couldn’t believe that this service was free. I got this hour, I was there in the room
with her and she gave me incredible advice, she documented and took notes of
everything we said and later she sent me this informative email afterwards with
everything I needed to follow up. She put me on a fundraising database and I
started receiving regular funding emails. And that was just brilliant. It couldn’t have
been more helpful. She helped me to map all the organisations I could seek
support of … stuff like that. Well, I was a fan [of CAS] since day one.’
Real Drama joined CAS’ mentoring project and received the support of a mentor
organisation to help the group. CAS has also given her information about external
funding. Unfortunately, Real Drama has not been successful with any of the
applications for funding they have submitted to date.
5. How has this support enabled your organisation to be sustainable? What
concrete changes have you made as a result of CAS support? What value did
CAS add? How would you have otherwise improved in these areas without
CAS?
(These three questions are grouped here as Alice answered them together.)
Due to the support given by CAS, Real Drama is now incorporated and
registered with the Charity Commission. Without this support, Real Drama
would have
3
stopped its activities four years ago. Even though Real Drama has been having
issues with the current trustees, Alice feels safe to keep running the organisation as
CAS is always there when she needs support. CAS has been giving advice on how
to improve the relationship among trustees and other important advice [2.4].
Alice said that if it was not for the support she received from CAS, she would have
stopped the organisation many years ago. The process to register the organisation
can be quite overwhelming if you are a volunteer working part-time, and such a
process scares people. Alice said that she could not believe that the support she
received was free, and she recommends other volunteers to seek support from CAS
when they face similar issues with their own organisations.
Alice stressed that the one-to-one personalised support offered by CAS is invaluable
and she hopes that CAS will keep providing this type of support even if CAS grows
and starts assisting a larger number of groups.
Interviewee contact details
Alice is happy to have her name related to this interview as long as the issues with
the trustees are not mentioned.
Alice Moore, Real Drama, [E] [email protected] [T]
07712100542
Community Action Southwark - 1 Addington Square, Camberwell, London SE5 0HF | t: 0207 7358
7020 | w: casouthwark.org.uk | e: [email protected] | Twitter: @casouthwark | Reg charity no:
1105835 | Company Ltd by guarantee no: 5090324
4