Getting Started

How do I use it?

In the Capacity Manager you consider ten separate but key support areas for your organisation, and score yourself against the set questions in each. Before you start, you ideally need to assemble some very basic financial information, i.e. essentially your organisation’s budget.

	STEP 1 - Sign up your organisation If you have not already done so, sign up at the Sign Up page. Make sure you respond to the verification email that will be sent to you as part of the sign up process. Consider reading the Getting the most out of Capacity Manager page.
	STEP 2 - Enter basic facts about your organisation At the Organisation Outline page enter some basic information about your organisation.
	STEP 3 - Enter some organisation spend data At the Organisation Spend page enter a very brief estimated breakdown of your organisation's expenditure on overheads.
	STEP 4 - Answer multiple choice questions Starting from the My Capacity Manager page, answer a series of multiple choice questions under 10 different overhead categories or "Chapters". (The Capacity Manager tool gives you contextual help on every question, and also signposts you to additional free online information.)
	STEP 5 - View reports and recommendations The tool uses a traffic light system to score each question. The scores are summarised at the end of each chapter, and all the chapters are summarised at the end of the tool. There are a variety of reports you can then print off and share - all but the Benchmark reports (see below) can be viewed from the Reports page.
	STEP 6 - Compare your organisation If you submit all your organisation's completed profile at the Benchmark page you will be able to compare your organisation with other relevant organisations in the voluntary sector.

Please Note:
The Capacity Manager does make a number of assumptions regarding average organisations. You should therefore ideally read the Concepts page before starting.