Who will be responsible for managing and driving the campaign?

Today's competitive funding climate means that befriending staff (and their Boards) are having to take on new roles in order to secure new funding. Securing new funding can mean campaigning - campaigning to raise your profile, campaigning against cuts, campaigning for continuation funding.

However, befriending services exist to befriend, not campaign. Most befriending services are very small - just one or two paid members of staff, and an annual income of less than £60,000. Very few befriending organisations will have a Campaigns Officer, or even a staff member who can take on the role for more than a handful of hours a week, unless they have been lucky enough to secure a separate source of funding or have been able to recruit someone with campaigning experience onto their Board.

If a befriending organisation is about to embark on a campaign, its success will rely on everyone in the organisation understanding what their role is in the campaign and knowing how their campaigning role is going to fit in with the rest of their job.