Building the Back Office: How Unofficial Guides Got the Financial Foundations to Match Their Ambitions

Growth can sneak up on you. In a matter of months, Unofficial Guides went from a promising idea to a mailing list of 4,000 people and workshops reaching over 2,000 participants. The mission was working. But behind the scenes, the financial infrastructure hadn’t kept pace – and with paid services, donations, and funding applications all on the horizon, that needed to change.

The Organisation

Unofficial Guides exists to level the playing field for people from underrepresented backgrounds trying to break into the civil service and wider public sector. Through honest advice, practical tools, and real insider insight, they help people navigate complex recruitment processes with confidence regardless of age, location, or background.

The Challenge

Unofficial Guides was at an important stage of its growth. Demand for its work had grown faster than expected, and the team was preparing to move from offering free resources to introducing paid services, donations and external funding. This meant taking on new financial and compliance responsibilities that needed to be managed properly from the start.

The team needed more than just a spreadsheet. They needed clear budgets, simple systems for tracking money coming in and going out, a better understanding of their responsibilities as a CIC, and advice on accounting tools that could grow with them. They needed practical systems that would support the organisation as it developed.

The Skilled Volunteer

Orion Cartlidge works as a finance professional in the civil service – which gave this particular match a neat symmetry. Someone who understands the sector Unofficial Guides is trying to open up, and who also has deep expertise in exactly the financial disciplines the organisation needed: forecasting, budgeting, financial reporting, risk management, and strategic planning.

Part-qualified and working towards chartered status, Orion brought both technical knowledge and the practical instincts of someone who works with financial systems every day. He worked with Nathan and the team across budgeting and financial planning, helped identify appropriate accounting tools, and put clear workflows in place for managing day-to-day finances as the organisation scales.

Crucially, the project didn’t end with a handover document and a wave goodbye. Orion provided a detailed handover and a clear plan for next steps – making sure the team knew not just what had been set up, but how to use it and where to go from here.

Orion reflected on what the project gave him in return:

“I developed my leadership abilities, felt renewed value in my professional skills, and feel that I’ve made a genuine contribution to the community. It’s left me more confident and more interested in trying new things.”

The Impact

The feedback from Unofficial Guides said it all. The support was described as incredibly helpful and supportive throughout, the quality of work as exceptionally professional – and the impact felt across the organisation’s ability to manage its finances going forward.

What Orion built isn’t just a set of processes. It’s a more robust organisational structure across financial management and governance – the kind of foundation that makes everything else more possible. For a team preparing to handle donations, apply for grants, and launch paid services, that groundwork matters enormously.

Nathan and the team were clear about what comes next:

“This support will help us build strong financial foundations, allowing the team to focus on expanding our impact and assisting more diverse people into civil service roles.”

That link between back-office strength and frontline impact is easy to overlook, but it is real. Every hour the Unofficial Guides team isn’t worrying about financial compliance is an hour spent helping someone from an underrepresented background find their way into a career in public service.

Looking Forward

Unofficial Guides heads into its next phase with the financial systems, the compliance knowledge, and the clarity it needs to grow sustainably. The mailing list will keep growing. The workshops will keep running. And now, the numbers behind all of it will be in good order.

Sometimes the most impactful thing a Skilled Volunteer can do is make sure an organisation never has to stop and untangle its finances at the worst possible moment. Orion made sure Unofficial Guides won’t have to.