The Officers’ Association (OA) is committed to ensuring that former military officers together with their partners and dependants live with dignity and independence. They support beneficiaries in many ways including helping officers to find employment, providing advice and offering financial support.
Through their partnership with Family Fund Business Services (FFBS), OA are achieving value for money across their grant-making programme, helping them to provide effective financial support to beneficiaries while keeping administrative costs down.
Their challenges
The OA wanted to diversify its support to beneficiaries. For many, debt can be an issue and despite the urgent requirement for essential goods and services, any cash support is often easily swallowed up by an overdraft or other pressing debts. The desire to provide a holistic grant scheme in order to make better use of benevolent funds, whilst minimising overarching administration costs was a key factor in choosing to partner with FFBS.
Our solution
FFBS worked in partnership with OA to advise on the possible fulfilment options which would add value to their grant making activities. Through established supplier relationships, FFBS were able to provide access to white goods, furniture, computers and household items. The provision of Argos cards was also included to offer flexibility for their beneficiaries, allowing them to choose the products most suited to their requirements, ensuring their individual needs were a priority throughout the process.
With all goods available to order through the FFBS online procurement portal, OA are able to access a ‘one stop-shop’ for hundreds of pre-determined grant-awarded items. One order and access point, one contract and one invoice, ensuring that the OA grants team could maximise their time spent talking to beneficiaries and dealing with casework, rather than completing onerous paperwork.
The partnership has also meant that OA are able to benefit from FFBS’ and Family Fund’s collective buying power, accessing guaranteed discounted goods through product rebates. This was particularly attractive as the money saved is helping the OA to reduce administrative costs associated with each case.
Results
Introducing the FFBS online procurement portal is helping the OA’s grant-making programme move forward. The partnership is enhancing the way OA are able to support their beneficiaries and provides peace of mind that their specific needs are addressed. Nahid Malik, Deputy Head of Benevolence at Officers’ Association said:
“We’re delighted to be working with FFBS. The service and support they provide has allowed us to develop the ways in which we can help our beneficiaries without introducing challenges from increased supplier relationships and administration.
“As a charity, we strive to add value and enhance the lives of former-officers and their dependants, and FFBS have contributed towards this. We have assurance that the full benefit of our awards will be felt; with awarded goods delivered straight to our beneficiaries’ door.
“By choosing FFBS we’re also able to support the fantastic work of their charity, Family Fund, meaning that our work will make a difference to both our charities’ beneficiaries.”
From pre-payment cards to white goods, we make procuring and distributing practical support to households easy. Find out how we can help your organisation save time and money by getting in touch at businessdevelopment@familyfundservices.co.uk.
