News & Events

The next Board Chairs’ Network Meeting will take place on May 17th 2023, 6pm-8pm, Davy Group, Dawson Street, Dublin D02 PY05.

Facilitated by Carmichael, the purpose of the network is to provide a space for nonprofit board chairs to meet each other, share experiences and discuss topics of mutual interest including key concepts and issues with nonprofit governance. The network meets in person once per year and online 3 times per year.

This event is only open to Chairs and Vice Chairs of nonprofit Boards.

Sign up here.

If you would like to join the Board Chairs’ Network and/or attend the next meeting, contact Roisin@carmichaelireland.ie.

We are looking for a catering supervisor to join the team here at Carmichael.

Please see here for full job description:

Carmichael Catering Supervisor

To apply please submit a CV of no more than 2 pages and a Cover Letter of no more than one page which addresses your catering experience to roisin@carmichaelireland.ie by May 8^th.

Office Accommodation Available in Carmichael 

Across our two buildings on North Brunswick St and Coleraine St in Dublin 7, Carmichael is home to 44 Resident Nonprofits which benefit from affordable office accommodation, shared facilities and access to knowledge sharing with other Resident Nonprofits and Carmichael’s staff. 

A bright and spacious office currently equipped for 7 people, with potential to accommodate more, has come available in Coleraine House. The annual fee is €16,685, charged quarterly in advance at €4,171. Carmichael hopes to have a new Resident Nonprofit in place on or before June 1st. 

Please contact roisin@carmichaelireland.ie if you would be interested in arranging a viewing or have any questions. 

Webinar March 29th 2.30pm

Join Carmichael CEO Diarmaid Ó Corrbuí, Patrick Downes and Edward Rees to hear best practices on how your governing board can increase its effectiveness.

Board effectiveness holds many definitions depending on the industry, mission, organisation size, local legislature, challenges and tasks at hand, and more. However, there are some common factors all governing boards must adhere to to be successfully effective.

Register for Board Effect‘s 30-minute panel discussion webinar to get the latest insights on how to increase board effectiveness in mission driven organisations. Industry experts will discuss, provide tips, and share best practices on:

• Defining board effectiveness
• Board member recruitment, onboarding, and annual reviews
• Information sharing structure and processes
• Board member communications, engagement, and more!

Governing boards are expected to be more engaged, more knowledgeable and more effective than ever. The good news? There are ways to achieve this by implementing the right tools and best practices.

Sign up here.

Wednesday, April 26th, 1.10pm-2pm 

In this webinar our panel of experts will discuss a real governance issue which an Irish nonprofit has faced and suggest actions to take. There will also be an opportunity for the audience to ask governance-related questions. Book your place here. 

This webinar is a live discussion based on Carmichael’s Governance Dilemma newsletter, formerly the Trustees’ Quandary. In each edition, we look at a real-life challenge that a nonprofit Board has faced and considers a range of responses. The scenarios are anonymised so as not to identify any particular nonprofit.

If you would like to sign up to this mailing list, see here.

The panel consists of: 

Gerry Egan, consultant and trainer. Gerry works with a variety of commercial and non-profit clients specialising in corporate governance, data protection and strategy and change. 

Andrew Madden, Head of Training, Consultancy & Communications at Carmichael. Andrew enjoys working in the non-profit sector where he sees people motivated by a desire to make a real and positive difference. He is particularly passionate about governance in non-profit organisations as he believes that well-governed organisations are best placed to achieve and realise their own objectives to the fullest. 

Jillian van Turnhout, consultant, Chartered Director and certified by INSEAD in corporate governance. Jillian has been a CEO, Chair and is an experienced Director (State, Charity and Commercial).  

The panel will be chaired by Diarmaid Ó Corrbuí, CEO of Carmichael. Diarmaid has extensive experience as a board chair and a board member in a number of charities and with working with boards and providing governance support and advice. He is actively involved in the Good Governance Awards, Mentoring and the Board Chairs Network initiatives led by Carmichael. 

Carmichael is seeking voluntary assessors to join the panel for the Good Governance Awards 2023. Assessors score up to a maximum of 4 annual reports between June 1st to September 29th, with September 18th-29th expected to be the busiest period. Assessors attend a briefing session and then use a scoring template provided by Carmichael to mark the reports against several criteria.  

The assessors come from a range of backgrounds and professions including the nonprofit sector itself, accountancy, consultancy and law. Assessors are permitted to be involved with a nonprofit organisation which enters the awards provided this is disclosed in line with the Good Governance Awards conflict of interest policy so that the assessor will not be asked to score other entrants in the same category. 

Now in its eighth year, the Good Governance Awards is an initiative that recognises and encourages adherence to good governance practice by nonprofits in Ireland, particularly in terms of annual reporting. The awards were developed by Carmichael with the support of our partners and leading national bodies in the nonprofit sector. 

Each year more than 100 nonprofits (including community groups, charities, sports bodies and social enterprises) enter their annual reports into the awards. These annual reports are then assessed by a voluntary assessor from Carmichael’s panel of assessors.  

There are 7 categories of entry distinguished by annual income which range from under €100,000 at the lowest end and over €50,000,000 at the highest end. The highest scored entries in each category progress to a full technical assessment of their financial statements and the shortlisted entries are then assessed by a panel of judges who ultimately select the winner in each category. 

If you are interested in becoming a voluntary assessor, please contact roisin@carmichaelireland.ie with your full name, your profession, and where you heard about the awards. 

Thank you to all who attended the recent Lunch and Learn webinar.

Please find link to access the recording.

https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/tmfXNsE0fo37m5qtNs4-S6am13Sq8DI7QUifC2UXQb5u-0bOcPzcT_XLNw74D3ku.Es4kUaKtE_pGi7fV?startTime=1675948236000

If you have any questions please contact roisin@carmichaelireland.ie

 The Position: Board Member (Trustee & Director) with Governance Experience

The board of Carmichael, in line with its succession plan, is seeking to recruit a new board member with strong governance experience to join the Board in June 2023. The candidate should be operating at a senior level in a governance-related role such as Company Secretary or a role related to risk management, compliance or regulation. The candidate should also have a very good understanding of and interest in the nonprofit sector.

There are currently 12 members on the Board of Carmichael with two due to retire and be replaced at the upcoming June AGM. The maximum size of the board is 12. The board meets around 7 times a year. Board meetings are normally held online with at least two meetings per year held in-person in Carmichael House, North Brunswick Street, Dublin 7 from 5pm-7pm on a Tuesday.

The new board member would also be required to be a member of the board’s risk and governance sub-committee which meets online 7 times per year on a Tuesday from 8.00am to 9.00am in advance of the Board meetings. The estimated time commitment of the board member is 8-10 hours per month.

The initial term of office for Carmichael Board members is 3 years, with an opportunity to serve a second 3-year term subject to Board approval.

Carmichael is the leading provider of governance training and supports to nonprofits in Ireland and has an excellent reputation for the quality of the supports it provides.  Carmichael’s Board members have an essential role to play in contributing to good governance in Carmichael itself and the wider nonprofit the sector. As a governance expert, the successful candidate will perform an important role in ensuring that Carmichael operates to the highest governance standards.

About the organisation  

The Carmichael Centre for Voluntary Groups (Carmichael) is a registered charity, established in 1990 and is Ireland’s first and largest shared facility for community and voluntary groups. The Centre consists of around 19,000 square feet of office space located in two buildings in Dublin’s North Inner City. It provides office accommodation, meeting rooms, shared facilities, payroll, IT, training and consultancy support services.

The Centre is home to 44 nonprofit organisations who are based in the Centre. We are committed to building stronger charitable, community and voluntary groups nationwide. Carmichael was founded on the core belief that by co-locating in a shared space and by pooling resources, resident members in our Centre can save time, reduce cost, up-skill and thereby, focus on delivering quality services to their beneficiaries.

We work not only with the 44 resident members who are based in the Centre, but also with 100s of groups around the country. We work with boards and management committees on governance issues and in helping them to implement best practice and quality standards.

We provide a mentoring service for CEOs of voluntary organisations, a support network for board chairpersons, information seminars and disseminate articles and practical guides on good governance practice. The Good Governance Awards, the Carmichael Mentoring Programme and the Board Chairs Network are some of the examples of our work to provide support and guidance to nonprofit organisations.

Using Carmichael’s quality and cost effective back-office services, its accommodation services and its training/ capacity building services enable nonprofit organisations to:

• Focus more attention on their core mission activities;
• Reduce their reporting and compliance costs;
• Improve the quality of their financial information and meet the reporting requirements of funders  and regulators;
• Improve capacity, competencies and operational efficiencies;
• Divert the resulting monetary and time savings into furthering and enhancing their frontline service delivery.

Over the last 5 years, we have substantially expanded the scope and scale of the training and consulting support we deliver nationwide to include scheduled training workshops, customised training and eLearning modules. In 2022, we delivered customised training to 2,765 participants and scheduled training to 563 participants.

We are working to implement our current strategy (2022-25), and we aim to utilise and leverage our experience gained over the last 30 years, to implement the necessary actions to ensure that Carmichael has a sustainable business model and that it continues to deliver high quality and value-for-money services that meets real needs of both its resident members and those of nonprofit organisations nationwide.

Carmichael adheres to principles of equality, diversity and inclusion in all appointments including Board appointments.

To apply 

Please send a CV of no more than 2 pages and a cover letter of no more than one page through Board Match or directly to roisin@carmichaelireland.ie before March 27th. Your application should detail any relevant governance, nonprofit and Board experience.

Interviews are expected to take place online between 5.00pm and 8.00pm on April 19^th and 20^th.

For more information on the board vacancy or Carmichael, please contact the Executive Assistant to the CEO Róisín McGuigan at roisin@carmichaelireland.ie.

Carmichael is inviting interested parties to submit proposals to review the overall effectiveness of how our Board does its work and how its structures and processes align with the implementation of our Strategy.

It is expected that through desk research, questionnaire, a series of engagements with the board, its sub-committees and other relevant people from the executive, the consultant appointed will complete their work with a report which contains a series of recommendations to improve Carmichael’s Board Effectiveness.

The closing date for receipt of tenders is February 19th 2023.

Tenders should be emailed to Róisín McGuigan (roisin@carmichaelireland.ie)

Please see Request For Tender document attached for detail.
Board Evaluation Request for Tender 2023

Improving Your Nonprofit’s Annual Report February 9th 2023 13.10-14.00

Carmichael is delighted to provide free training webinars on relevant themes for nonprofits. In this webinar nonprofits of all sizes will gain tips and advice from an expert panel on how to improve the content and narrative of their Annual Report.