46 CONTEXT 188 : JUNE 2026 our Corporate Plan model explains just how that role aligns with our current charity – and, potentially future charter – duties. The key principle for the coming years is, as noted, to respond to our charter-linked consultations’ key message, and to just do our job better. This call ranges from promoting conservation practice – which we have been advancing through our competences and conservation cycle work – to improving standards across our accreditation infrastructure: CPD services, recording and review; disciplinary and allied processes around standards; and better, practice-focused and more accessible practice-linked advice and support. Building essential partnerships is critical to our outreach too: from the formality of MOUs to the most informal link-ups, such as our ‘School Friends’ arrangements. For this year the RTPI link offers our most substantial School partnership to date, including the offer to its members of IHBC-member rates at our Virtual School. All the above helps our new ambitions, alongside even better support for our branches: expanded branch consultant support; central learning resources, better co-ordinated so they can be better targeted; and continuing the recent rapid evolutions in our member-focused Council, such as our blended Council at the London Charterhouse and, this year, the local government focus in our online Council that will lead to a briefing in Westminster and – soon to be revealed – an unexpectedly substantial international context. From that, too, we aim to build better ties to government (more briefings); advance our credentials in the science of and research into conservation (more RICHeS); and celebrate our volunteers (more recognition). And, of course, there is the 30th anniversary (more maturity!). All this will take funds. Where might these come from? Our business-led trading arm, IHBC Enterprises, is the obvious centrepiece for income generation in the coming years. However, it focuses first internally, on our own members’ sectors, and all of these are terribly pressed and face even tighter finances. So opportunities for drawing in more funding from there are, inevitably, slim. Instead we aim to pivot to other parts of our roles and networks – old and new – in our corporate planning as we look to draw in the resources to deliver on these ambitions. Those other parts are captured in our corporate plans as those where we ‘help conservation’ and ‘help people’. To avoid the sometimes nuanced distinctions between these sector priorities, below are listed some areas that we are looking to for the resources to deliver on our ambitions. This is also where the sub-themes of the new draft kick in. In essence we aim to enhance ‘access’, and so improve how we ‘engage’, and from that – suitably managed – expand resources to achieve even more ‘impact’. In that context, our planned actions and improvements cover: • Upgrading our Parliamentary engagement, with high-level briefings, in Westminster and across our national branches, alongside supporting our England (and even our overseas) branches, and possibly even a new All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG). • Making more of our CREATIVE Conservation Fund, extending its capacity and reach by more effectively encouraging charitable donations and contributions, including new income streams and (critically, if we get the funds) more substantial disbursement plans. • Upgrading our National Office infrastructure. Core operations, barely different from those in play when I arrived way back in 2004, are now focused on a new digitised member/event management resource, a so-called customer relationship management (CRM) system. • Promoting our own corporate focus on public benefits, tied to our charity obligations and any charter prospects, to expand our reach, credibility and allied resources (especially resonant in a wider environment increasingly sceptical of public interest principles and, consequently, in need of both leadership and guidance) from promoting our own member’s achievements to stakeholders who do not yet know what IHBC means. There is a great deal of detail to work through there. All of it will advance under the oversight of the board and, not least (at AGMs) through our members. But, given our progress over the last 29 years, I am confident that we have both the capacity and the heart to deliver on all of it. Seán O’Reilly, director@ihbc.org.uk
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