Appendix 2 - working with referrals
It is worth considering if/ how you might approach external requests for help.
All our partners are listed on this page on our website: https://www.acts435.org.uk/partners/ which means that people in need may choose to contact you directly as a result of seeing you listed there. We hope you will take this as an opportunity to engage with new people in need in your local community, but there is no expectation on you to do so. If you would prefer not to appear in this listing, please let us know and we can remove it. Acts 435 will sometimes receive a direct request for help, and we would direct these enquiries towards the Partners list on our website.
You may wish to seek out referrals as a way of reaching out further into your local community! If so, you might consider making new contacts such as with the local school, family support workers, probation officers, children’s centres, and local projects.
There is no hard and fast rule on how you set up a working relationship with a referring organisation. We want to be flexible.
Meeting with referrals
Our preference is that organisations send the actual people in need to your church or charity so that you can meet with them, assess their need and see if you can help via Acts 435. This works best where there is high Advocate availability (eg. the Advocate also works at the church Monday to Friday, or has trained someone at the church to meet with potential applicants and take necessary details).
However, we accept that this is not always possible or appropriate. An alternative option would be to act as a “middle man” between the referral and Acts 435. In such situations you would rely on the fact that the referring case worker has the relationship with the Applicant and they would simply pass the necessary information to you in order to post an Acts 435 request. You would therefore not meet the Applicant until the funds are received, or indeed once you have received funds you could arrange to send them straight to the referring organisation for them to manage the spend and ask them to send in a signed form or receipt to you.
Limits on referrals
You may want to put a limit on the number of referrals, especially if you are concerned you will be flooded with requests. 5 or 10 a month is a good guide.
You need to look at what works best for the referring organisation without adding unnecessary layers of bureaucracy to Acts 435. We want the money to get quickly to those in need (within 2 weeks of it being sent to the church). If they can’t facilitate that then they should instead simply let the person in need know your church contact details so that they can come to you directly for help.