The Traidcraft Foundation once again wishes to thank Traidcraft, in all its forms, for the clear and "in depth" Social Accounts provided for the financial year 2007/08.
The new format was particularly welcomed, although Trustees felt that the volume of information in some areas made it even more important to review the Accounts on the website!
The Foundation Trustees were able to review both the Audit Statement of Just Assurance and the Accounts themselves. Whilst Just Assurance provided reassurance of Traidcraft’s transparency and focus, the Foundation has reviewed the Accounts against the Foundation Principles of the organisation.
Traidcraft as a Christian response to poverty
In reviewing the Accounts, Trustees welcomed the clear and unapologetic statement of Christian identity and commitment to working with all faiths.
Trustees felt that Traidcraft had worked hard at opening up new opportunities to develop links with other Christian organisations, and were pleased to see work with Oasis and the Salvation Army, for example. It is suggested that Traidcraft could explore working with Five Talents and the Transformational Business Network, with whom Traidcraft has had only limited contacts.
Trustees were also keen to see more speaking opportunities developed, within the Christian community, particularly at Christian Events such as New Wine and Soul Survivor. It was recognised these were not always easy to come by, but Trustees will use any contacts they have to encourage this, as they want to encourage Traidcraft to be proactive in this area.
It was noted that in the East Africa survey three funders questioned said they were not aware of Traidcraft’s Christian identity. The Trustees accepted that this may have been because desk officers weren’t the same as those who may have approved funding already. The Trustees felt that whether or not Traidcraft’s Foundation Principles should be referred to in regular reports to funders depended on particular circumstances recognising that in some cases this may be counterproductive.
Trustees were a little disappointed that the Overseas Committees of Reference were still not established, though they noted that work had been done on drawing up terms of reference and identifying possible members for an East African committee. Trustees recognised the difficulty associated with selecting the right members without alienating others or creating expectations of support for particular groups, and that it was important to get things right rather than rushing into creating an unsatisfactory arrangement.
Traidcraft’s mission is fighting poverty through trade
Traidcraft’s model is to combine trading, support and influencing activities to make trade work in the interests of the poor. We therefore set out our comments under those three headings.
a) Trade
Although it is encouraging that some growth in volumes has been seen, this has clearly not been as fast as the growth in the UK market for fair trade overall, as supermarkets and other big companies have begun to offer their own Fairtrade products. However, the Trustees believe that Traidcraft losing market share should in fact be seen as a positive indication of success given its primary role of acting as a catalyst in the market place. However, Trustees would like to congratulate the Chief Executive and the reorganized management team for an excellent recovery of sales and profitability after last year's poorer figures. The efforts his team has increased benefits for both producers and Fair Traders.
Trustees were very pleased to see that the producer voice was reflected more fully, as had been requested previously. The section setting out producer comments raised a number of significant issues, especially in relation to setting a fair price and capacity building, with mixed views being reported. It was useful to have better tools now to help assess areas on which Traidcraft should work more actively. The importance of consistent orders for producers was noted.
Trustees felt that Just Assurance’s comments about the need to improve assessment of Traidcraft’s impact on all its fair trade suppliers was an important challenge and urge Traidcraft Executives to work on this area.
b) Support
The growth of TX programmes and recent fund-raising successes were greatly welcomed by Trustees. Trustees felt that the new programme focus was helpful both in terms of presentation and more importantly in giving more direction to efforts. In particular, Trustees commended the growth and quality of the programme in India. However, the need to build up the scale of activity in East Africa, Bangladesh and South East Asia was also noted.
c) Influence
Trustees felt that the Policy Unit had been overly conservative in their reporting, and whilst respecting their rigour, they should be encouraged to be more forthcoming about the exciting ways in which they were clearly having impact. The importance of securing a funded programme of future activity and retaining the strong team was noted.
The effective engagement of Traidcraft with other parts of the Fair Trade movement was important and encouraging, as was evidence of pioneering activity in taking fair trade into new areas. The need to differentiate Traidcraft from wider fair trade was noted, and the targeting of key potential supporter groups for brand recognition (especially churchgoers, women 40-60 and 16-24 year olds) was seen as important and in line with the Traidcraft strategy. It was pleasing to note that the survey commissioned by Traidcraft indicated the age profile of Fair Traders was younger and better spread than some had assumed, but at the same time it was recognised that Traidcraft needed to give more thought to its youth communication strategies and relations with universities. It was important to relate to younger people, but challenging in terms of resources required.
Traidcraft respect all people and the environment
As Foundation Trustees we have commented on Traidcraft’s relations with its producer beneficiaries elsewhere, but recognise also the importance of Traidcraft modelling good relations with its own staff. Trustees felt that the Staff Survey actually contained many positive messages, despite the apparent slight decline in scores. The identification of a need to work more on communication and consultation at the middle management level was perhaps the key finding.
Good progress on environmental issues seemed to be being made, and the quality of reporting on this area had clearly improved. Trustees welcomed the much closer internal scrutiny of environmental indicators. Just Assurance’s comments on setting out the rationale for Traidcraft’s environmental approaches more fully were noted.
Traidcraft abide by and promote fair business practices
As well as Traidcraft’s work to promote Fair Trade, and its pioneering of best practices within Fair Trade, Trustees particularly noted the important work the Policy Unit has undertaken in encouraging more responsible purchasing practices by larger companies. We were also pleased that Traidcraft was prepared to take the risk of submitting evidence on supermarket practices to the Competition Commission’s enquiry, and it has been encouraging to see the way Traidcraft’s recommendations have directly influenced some of the Commission’s conclusions.
Traidcraft strive to be transparent and accountable
Trustees felt that the Social Accounts commendation was welcome, and the comments about Traidcraft’s openness and transparency were especially noteworthy and commendable.
Trustees felt that some targets would benefit from being more tightly expressed. If commercially sensitive, then Traidcraft should state that as reason for not giving specific numbers, but then report on whether the outcome was in line with budgets/targets set. Benchmarking against comparable organisations, and giving clearer indications of whether achievements were regarded as pleasing, acceptable or disappointing would be useful.
Conclusion
Overall, the Trustees feel that, despite the difficult climate presented last year, these social accounts underline the fact Traidcraft has continued to make exciting progress on many fronts, through the commitment of a strong team of stakeholders. We would like to congratulate and thank all those stakeholders for their exceptional achievements.
Reg Bailey
Chair
Traidcraft Foundation
September 2008
