YAC Branch Finances

Bank accounts

If your club charges fees to your members, then it must have a separate bank account to handle the money. YAC money should never be kept in personal accounts. In cases where clubs are run in conjunction with a local authority, museum or other body, the club should have a separate budget heading within the organisation’s overall accounts.

YAC HQ can provide general advice on getting up a bank account, but we recommend that you speak to your local bank to find out what type of account is best. This will vary from bank to bank, but many have special types of account for community groups. We recommend that you have three signatories on the account, to make sure the club is able to access its money even if one volunteer moves on. If a signatory does move on, make sure you have the account details updated as soon as possible to still have three signatories. Your signatories should be your club volunteers. When you set up your account, and if any of the details change, please let YAC HQ have a copy of the account details including who the signatories are.

When setting up a bank account, your bank may require specific paperwork from the Council for British Archaeology (CBA) to demonstrate that you are part of the YAC network and fall under our registered charity number. YAC HQ will be happy to assist with this.

Financial records and reports

Keeping proper financial records is very important as YAC clubs are part of the Council for British Archaeology (CBA) and must meet statutory requirements of the CBA’s charitable status. It is up to you to decide how to keep these records. A proforma finance record is included in the Paperwork section of the website, but if you prefer to keep your own account book or spreadsheet that’s fine.

Every CBA-managed club is asked to send YAC HQ an annual financial report. We must report to the Charities Commission about the monies that you receive and pay out from your club’s bank account over the course of the financial year.

This is a very simple record of the club’s incoming and outgoing money for the past year. YAC HQ sends out a form for this each March; you can either use the form or just send us a copy of your bank statements, account book, or spreadsheet depending on what you use.   

You can use this simple template to help you to manage your club’s finances. You might also like to set up a spreadsheet. If you need any advice about recording and managing your club’s finances, drop us an email to yac@yac-uk.org

Local meeting and annual membership fees

YAC clubs are free to decide what rates they wish to charge their local members, but we ask you to keep in mind that cost can be a barrier to many children attending. You should only charge what you need to charge to keep the club going, and should not build up large reserves in the club account. Many clubs have an annual membership fee in the region of £10-£15 which they collect when membership forms are due for renewal, as well as charging a small per session fee of between £1-£5. Other clubs only charge when they need to: for example, sessions at their regular venue might be free but a charge would be made to cover the costs of a trip. YAC volunteers often become very skilled in getting freebies!

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Fundraising for YAC

Fundraising can be a fun part of YAC branch activities and many branches already build a fundraising drive into their annual programme of activities. This can be both to raise money for the ongoing work of your own branch and to support the wider YAC network. Several branches have also been successful in applying for larger amounts of funding of around £10,000 for specific projects from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and other funders and we want to encourage this type of funding for branch activities as well.

North Wiltshire YAC raised £1,000 with a sponsored walk. Their Leader, Katy, had these five Top Tips to share:

1. Set up a fundraising page (for example with JustGiving): it’s really convenient for your adult supporters to donate to you, to get the gift aid and manage the cash donations automatically. 
2. Use social media to tell people that you are fundraising: we had some very generous donations from complete strangers who nevertheless support CBA/YAC aims.
3. Keep telling people what you are doing: this is also very easy via social media, and you can maintain interest by posting different things, e.g. new photos with your requests for sponsorship.
4. Think up a name or tag line for your activity: we came up with “YAC North Wiltshire 6k6k” for our walk (6,000 years in 6,000 metres, that is, archaeology from the Neolithic onwards over a four-mile walk). This caught the imagination of the adults who did most of the sponsoring!
5. Think up a different idea for next time… we want to avoid “sponsorship fatigue” (asking our friends and family yet again for sponsorship) so maybe we’ll take a few loads to a car boot, or try to do a bag pack at our local supermarket.

The full costs of running YAC are around £120,000 a year and inevitably most of this covers staff time, including the direct services from the YAC team to back-office and senior management support. While CBA staff work to bring in income from a range of sources including building CBA membership, applying for grants, and taking part in sponsored activities, our current financial forecasts show there is still likely to be a shortfall over the coming years, so the support of branches is also important if we are to continue to build a sustainable future for YAC.

To put this into context, it costs:  

• £32 to provide one of our volunteer leaders with basic child protection training.
• £250 to allow us to recruit a new volunteer
• £160 to cover the cost of first aid training for a volunteer
• £1000 to help us set up a new YAC club and support it for a year

We are currently working with more than 80 YAC branches across the UK and around 500 volunteers, so your help in fundraising really is important. For example, if each YAC branch raised just over £250 a year to contribute to the costs of running YAC this would cover almost 20 per cent of the total running costs.  

Sponsored events

If you wish to fundraise, there are many things you can do. To fundraise small amounts, you might like to consider running a sponsored event. You can use our YAC sponsorship form:

The following are examples of things you can do:

• Join up with your CBA regional group and/or other local YAC branches to put on a public event where you encourage people to donate.
• Sponsored trails – preparing a trail with questions dotted around some specific sites is great day out. The trail can be run as your usual monthly YAC meeting, with friends and families sponsoring YAC members to complete the trail.
• Sponsored walks – you could even consider dressing up. YAC and CBA staff undertook a sponsored walk around York’s City Walls… in full Roman costume!
• Bag packing at a local supermarket.
• Bake sales.
• A clever YAC Leader even used her pregnancy to great effect, with a ‘guess the baby’s weight’ competition and JustGiving page!

There are a few types of fundraising you should not do, to comply with charity regulations:

• House-to-house collections
• Raffles or tombolas (there are exceptions to this, get in touch with YAC HQ for more info)
• Street collections

Collecting the money

Cash – simply collect any donations or sponsorship monies and deposit them into your YAC branch’s bank account. Once you have collected your sponsorship money, please forward any donations to the CBA at our usual address. Cheques should be made payable to ‘Council for British Archaeology’ – please mark that the money is a donation to YAC to ensure that the amount is allocated to the YAC budget. You will receive a receipt from the CBA for your records. Alternatively, we can supply you with the BACS information if you would prefer an online transfer.

JustGiving – if you wish to fundraise through the JustGiving website, you can easily set up a page using the CBA Charity number (England and Wales (287815) and in Scotland (SC041971). Please note, however that the CBA finance team will not be notified that the donation is for YAC funds when it is received from JustGiving. Simply notify us directly of how much your fundraising generated, and we will ensure that the money is corrected allocated to central YAC funds. Only use JustGiving to collect sponsorship if you are planning to donate the whole amount raised to YAC HQ at the CBA. If you wish to keep some of the money towards your own branch’s sessions and materials, JustGiving is not appropriate, and you should collect sponsorship monies as cash or cheques made out to your own branch’s bank account.

Approaching local businesses

If you are wishing to acquire a specific piece of equipment, cover the costs of an expensive trip, or even if you want to replenish your stationery supplies, you might like to consider writing to local organisations or businesses. Many supermarkets, for example, have ‘community champions’ who liaise with local community groups and are available to assist with fundraising or donations of materials. If you do opt to approach businesses or organisations, please adhere to the following:

Write your letter on headed paper; if you are a CBA-managed YAC branch ensure that this includes the YAC and CBA logos and the CBA’s charity numbers. If your branch is an affiliated YAC, please use your organisation’s own headed paper, and include the following statement:

**** YAC is an affiliated branch of the Council for British Archaeology’s Young Archaeologists’ Club. The CBA is a registered charity in England and Wales (287815) and a charity registered in Scotland (SCO41971).

• Clearly explain what the donated money or items will be used for.
• Ensure that you include local contact details for your own branch.
• Remember to thank any businesses or organisations that do support your fundraising. Mentions on social media are a good idea! If their help has enabled your members to undertake a specific activity, you might like to send them some photographs after it has taken place.

Applying for grant funding or to charitable trusts

YAC branches are encouraged to apply to charitable trusts and/or for grant funding for specific projects or activities. There are a range of different opportunities and sources of funding, including the National Lottery Heritage Fund, that are appropriate for you to approach.

If you are considering making an application to a charitable trust or grant-giving body, please contact us before you start your application. We will be able to advise you on the process, and assist your application with supporting documents and statements. While affiliated YAC branches will usually make funding applications in the name of the organisation they are affiliated to, for all other branches we must agree with you in advance in whose name the funding application is being made as your branch is part of the CBA and our wider charitable activity. In some cases, the application will need to be in the name of the CBA and grant funding is claimed on your behalf and then forwarded onto your branch to cover the costs of the project or activity for which it was secured. 

Good luck with your fundraising and grant applications! Do remember that we’re available on the end of the phone or email if you need any help or support. And please remember to contact us before beginning any grant applications!