How we're governed
We tell you exactly how this works. In the open.
A charity built on the right to be asked cannot be vague about its own accountability. Here is our structure, our funding, and the conflicts we guard against — stated plainly, because transparency is a strength, not a disclosure we were forced into.
STRUCTURETwo phases, one destination
A project first, an independent charity next.
Today, FADA runs as a restricted-fund project of Making It Happen Now CIC — our founders’ community organisation, registered in England and active since 2004. That lets us start supporting families in weeks rather than months, on infrastructure that already exists and has two decades of track record behind it.
We are on a defined path to becoming an independent Charitable Incorporated Organisation in our own right — target, the second half of 2027. When that happens, your membership transfers automatically. Nothing changes for you.
What moves us to independent charity status
We convert once any three of these are true — so the step is earned by real traction, not taken on hope:
- Membership passes 500 families and organisations
- Annual restricted-fund income passes £75,000
- The safeguarding and legal advisor seats are filled
- Twelve months operating as a distinct project
- Multi-year grants secured that favour independent charity status
BOARDWho holds us to account
The FADA Advisory Board.
During this phase, a founding Advisory Board steers every material FADA decision, and the directors of Making It Happen Now CIC hold final legal responsibility. When we become an independent charity, this board becomes our trustee board.
Pa Joof
Chair
Founder. Sets direction and speaks for the movement.
Dr Ancha Bala-Joof
Vice-Chair
Co-founder. Tests every decision against lived experience.
To be confirmed
Specialist Advisor — SEND practice
Brings frontline SEND expertise to programme design.
To be confirmed
Treasurer-Advisor
Owns the restricted-fund ledger and financial controls.
Recruiting
Safeguarding Advisor
A reserved seat — filled before we grow our direct work with families.
Recruiting
Legal Advisor
A reserved seat — reviews constitution, contracts, and risk.
FUNDSHow the money is kept clean
Ring-fenced, reconciled, and reported.
Every pound raised for FADA sits in a formally-segregated restricted fund. It cannot be spent on anything but FADA’s work. It is reconciled quarterly, reviewed by an independent examiner each year, and reported as its own line in a public impact report.
Family membership is free and always will be. Our income comes from professionals, organisations, training, grants, and supporters — never from a family in a fight.
CONFLICTSThe conflicts we guard against
Arm’s length, and we mean it.
Some of the tools a family might one day use are built by companies connected to our founder — Sendara among them. That is a conflict, and we treat it as one. Here is the line, drawn plainly.
What a connected company may do
- Sponsor FADA at market rate, like any other business
- Commission training or evidence content at market rate
- Be named as a service a family may choose — never one they must
What it must never do
- Receive preferential contracting or exclusive rights to our content or member data
- Share an officer, advisor, bank account, staff, or premises with FADA
- Appear anywhere on this site in a promotional way
Everyone who advises FADA declares their interests, and those declarations sit on a Register of Interests. No one advises FADA and draws a wage from a company selling to it at the same time. Where an advisor has an interest in a decision, it is recorded and they step back from it.
If we ever fall short of this, tell us.
We would rather be corrected than trusted blindly. That is the whole point of writing it down.