Have charities weathered the worst of the storms? The forecast is mixed
The voluntary and community sector sits at the heart of many strategies to address the challenge of public sector austerity in rural areas. Very often the work is done by charities. This article tells us:
The word is that Sir Stuart Etherington, chief executive of the National Council of Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), is going to be upbeat when he gives his “state of the sector” address to the annual conference of the voluntary sector umbrella group on Thursday 20 April. Curious, then, that the motivational speaker following later is survivalist Bear Grylls.
Will the assembled charity leaders be captivated more by Etherington’s reasons to be cheerful or by Grylls’ tips for wrestling alligators? After seven years of austerity, many charity bosses must feel up to their armpits in the latter.
Yet there’s good reason for Etherington to accentuate the positives. Of late, he has played an important, if often unpopular, role in spelling out some home truths to a sector seemingly in denial about the dangers of questionable fundraising practices and opaque senior pay policies. The worst of those storms now appear to have been weathered.
If charities are to play a key part in shaping the UK’s Brexit settlement – and Etherington has acknowledged that they failed to make their voices heard sufficiently ahead of the referendum – they need to regain their composure and confidence.
Latest survey findings suggest grounds for doing so. According to the Charities Aid Foundation’s annual UK Giving report, donations to charity are holding steady at £9.7bn a year despite Brexit uncertainty. Intriguingly, though, there has been a marked rise in the proportion of people saying they did something charitable – giving money or goods, or volunteering – last year, up to 89%, compared with 79% in 2015.
In addition, 56% of people say they signed a petition in 2016 and 6%, equivalent to 3 million of us, went on a demonstration. Is Brexit stirring activism?