How we run ourselves

Comic Relief is governed by a board of Trustees and also has a series of committees which include professional experts in their chosen fields, giving critical advice and support in all its key business areas.

These groups, the UK and International Grants Committees, Investment, Remuneration and Finance Committees and a Creative Board and Business Advisory Group are voluntary and support in critical ways the work of the full time staff team.

The full-time staff team is managed by a Chief Executive and six Directors who take the lead on carrying out the vision set by the board of Trustees, as well as implementing strategy, planning and delivery of the day to day work. Like any organisation serious about achieving its goals, we have strategies in place - in our case one and four year plans and an outline of a ten year framework scoping out longer term ambitions.

Outside of the Chief Executive's office the six directorates are Marketing, Business, Creative Communications, Innovation, Operations and Grants. Comic Relief is committed to the efficient management of all the funds at its disposal and achieving the best return it can on investments within the risk policy set by its Trustees.

Link to Trustees report on investments.

We are conscious of our position as an organisation that has found a place in the hearts and minds of the public. With this trust and support comes immense responsibility; something we take incredibly seriously.

With this in mind, spending money well is in many ways as hard and complex as raising it and takes time and professionalism to get right. We monitor and evaluate the impact of the social investments made and undertake research of various kinds to ensure that the needs addressed are the right ones and that the public money we are responsible for is genuinely making as big a difference as it possibly can.

One of the most effective ways in which we ensure organisations that are allocated money spend it in the best possible way, is by staggering our payments to them. By doing this we can hold each organisation directly accountable and make sure that each instalment has been spent in the way it should have been before we issue the next one.

Because Comic Relief gives grants in some instances that last up to five years, it is common for us to have substantial money in hand that is already committed to projects.

The combination of our staggered grant-making system and the commitment of long-term grants also allows us to earn interest on the funds we hold, which in turn goes a long way to helping us pay our own running costs. We identify the money that comes in as donations from the public and promise to use all of this on charitable work.

As a funder we look to disburse the money raised by each of our events by the time the next one comes round. So, money from one Red Nose Day is fully committed by the time the next one is over and so on.

Comic Relief is committed to ensuring that our grant making remains relevant, responsive and up to date, and to this end we review our programmes every 4 years. This timeframe allows us to assess the impact of our grant making strategies and consider the difference we have made, take account of the changes in the external world and apply our learning in a systematic way to what we do next.