A campaign has been launched to urge black and minority ethnic voluntary and community groups to promote the work they do during a time of public spending cuts. It also aims to get the organisations to think about better ways to deliver services.

The Promote Performance campaign will encourage BME third sector organisations to put forward evidence of the value of their work. It has been launched by Voice4Change England and the Charities Evaluation Services and follows a pilot project carried out with 10 organisations across England.

The campaigners say that against a background of public spending cuts the organisations need to be better at showing what they do and to think about finding the most effective ways to deliver their services to increase their chances of survival and sustainability. They will help organisations to recognise the importance of performance improvement as a way to deliver better services as well as to communicate better and to keep trustees and stakeholders informed. The groups involved will also get help to write more successful applications for funding.

A series of four fact sheets have been created with details of different methods of performance improvement. They outline scenarios on strategic planning, monitoring and evaluation, benchmarking and quality assurance. Jemma Grieve, policy and research officer at V4CE, said the campaign recognised that for most BME organisations improving performance was not about starting from scratch but about recognising and building on what they were already doing and to make sure their work was effective.

The facts sheets can be seen at www.voice4change-england.co.uk/performance and a campaign pack will be available later this week.