A wave of attacks on “woke” charities by rightwing politicians has “backfired”, generating an outpouring of public support for the targeted charities and helping drive a surge in social justice activism, say campaigners.

An annual survey of social campaigning suggests many charities feel increasingly emboldened to speak out on contested issues, including race, immigration and the environment, despite attacks they feel are designed to intimidate them into silence.

The findings of the Sheila McKechnie Foundation survey come as charities report huge concern over the “chilling” impact on civil society of a raft of proposed legislation designed to restrict public protest and legal challenge.

Campaigners said they have faced an increasingly hostile political environment – 78% said they felt politicians were hostile to civil society campaigning, up from 63% the previous year. A majority said attacks by politicians and the media were a threat to charities’ right to speak out and campaign.

UK residents are hoarding an estimated £50m in loose change, with little sign of it all being spent as Covid restrictions ease.

Nearly six in 10 people are holding coins at home, according to a survey by banking trade body UK Finance.

People tend to hold on to 1p, 2p, 5p and 10p coins.

The findings have prompted pleas for this money to be given to charity, as cash donations dropped during the Covid crisis.

UK Finance data suggests that people have been holding on to cash three times longer than they used to owing, in part, to the coronavirus lockdowns.

THE campaign week – now in its 4^th year – is set to take place 25 to 29 January and will feature online events, videos, podcasts, and blogs showcasing the history of village halls and the benefits they have derived for rural communities over the years.  

The initiative is being led nationally by Action with Communities in Rural England (ACRE) and echoed by the 38 county-based rural development charities which make up the ACRE Network.

Deborah Clarke, ACRE’s Rural Evidence and Village Halls Manager said:

“The past year has been one of the most challenging periods for village halls on record. Many closed due to the government’s coronavirus restrictions, yet the volunteers who manage these buildings applied for emergency funding and put in place COVID-19 Secure measures so they could carry on providing a safe space for their community when it was most needed. Village Halls Week 2021 is in many ways, a celebration of the fact these halls are true survivors!”

Managed by volunteers, England’s 10,000+ village and community halls support a diverse range of community activities from exercise classes to coffee mornings and are routinely hired out for private parties and weddings. Some host community shops and post offices.

In a survey undertaken by ACRE last year, it was found that 60% of village halls provide the only meeting space in the local community. An estimated 50,000 individuals are reliant on the use of village halls to make a living.

One in four community groups in rural areas said the pandemic is threatening their future financial viability.

Such organisations have provided vital services in recent weeks, providing telephone support, checking on the elderly and vulnerable people and delivering food and medicines.

An umbrella body said it would have expected more of its 225 members to be under financial pressure.

It said bigger organisations are facing more problems than smaller ones.

That is because they tend to own a premises and employ full-time staff whereas the smaller organisations rely on a volunteer workforce.

The findings were in a survey for the Rural Community Network.

“Groups in rural communities have really stepped into the breach in terms of responding to need during the lockdown,” said policy officer Aidan Campbell.

“The government couldn’t have done it without them, but the concern has to be how long that can keep going.”

The chancellor has announced £750m of extra funding for frontline charities across the UK, a move that is unlikely to go far enough to save some third sector organisations from collapse.

The announcement, made by Rishi Sunak in Downing Street’s daily coronavirus briefing, came after widespread calls to extend government financial help offered to small- and medium-sized businesses to the charity sector.

Some of the best-known national charities are in dire straits as revenue from charity shops and fundraising events dries up during the coronavirus lockdown. The Labour MP Stephen Doughty tweeted that the new funding fell well short of what was needed, pointing out that the cancellation of the London marathon alone cost the sector £66m.

The Treasury said on Wednesday that £360m would be directly allocated by government departments to charities providing key services and supporting vulnerable people during the Covid-19 crisis.

Another £370m for small- and medium-sized charities would be available for community organisations that are providing services such as delivering food, essential medicines and providing financial advice. Of this, £60m will be allocated through the Barnett formula to those in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The government will also match donations made to the National Emergencies Trust as part of the BBC’s Big Night In fundraiser later this month, pledging a minimum of £20m.

There cannot be that many things in national life to celebrate for those who still worship the Norse gods.

Pagan druids and their followers might gather at Stonehenge every solstice, but there is no special national holiday to celebrate either Odin and those who live with him in Asgard, the home of the gods.

But now, after years of being ignored, the Odinists and those who still look to Norse mythology for inspiration and guidance, have finally got something to smile about.

The Royal Mail is to issue a ‘pagan’ stamp next month, depicting the Norse god Thor, the hammer wielding god of thunder and protector of mankind.

Admittedly it forms part of a set of stamps commemorating Marvel Comics superheroes – of whom Thor is one, enjoying his own comic series and film spin offs – rather than the original figure of Germanic mythology.

But the Odinist Fellowship are pretty pleased all the same.

They are a registered charity that exists to “promote the original old religion of the English people and the native faith of the northern lands”, so they naturally welcome any celebration of Norse mythology.

The Odinists – who worship at a Grade II listed former almshouse in Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, dating back to the Tudor period – are so pleased they aren’t even complaining that the Thor shown in the stamps is the one created by an American comic publisher rather than the traditional depiction of him.

Responding to a consultation on cash and digital payments, the Institute of Fundraising says many charities need time to adapt as the role of cash diminishes.

Any changes to government policy on using cash should be carefully managed to avoid a “cliff edge” that would create problems for charities, the Institute of Fundraising has said.

In its response to the government’s consultation on cash and digital payments in the new economy, which closes today, the IoF says many charities will need time to adapt as the role of cash diminishes over time.

A survey of IoF members carried out for the consultation response found that, of the 247 respondents, 70 per cent had reported an overall fall in the percentage of overall donations made by cash in the past three years, and 86 per cent expected a further decrease in the next five years.

But the survey found that much depended on the size of the charity: of charities with annual incomes of less than £1m, 75 per cent thought there would be a falls in cash donations in the next five years, while 97 per cent of charities with incomes of more than £10m held this view.

A charity leader has said voluntary organisations are too frightened to speak out about key policies during the election campaign and called on politicians to urgently “reset the negative environment” facing her sector.

Vicky Browning, who heads Acevo, which represents more than 1,000 charity chief executives, said many of her members had reported being “too nervous, too anxious and too scared about the repercussions” to enter the political debate.

She spoke of a chilling effect driven not just by 2014 lobbying legislation, sometimes referred to as the gagging law, but also an ominous culture in which charities fear being “slapped down” for speaking out.

Government, funders and large charities must take urgent action if small charities are to survive turbulent times ahead according to new analysis published by Lloyds Bank Foundation for England & Wales.

Facing Forward presents a candid analysis of the ten-upcoming political, economic, social and technological changes which will dramatically affect the operating landscape for the 65,000 small and medium charities working at the heart of communities across England and Wales.

With the impact of Brexit, economic uncertainty and growing pressures on local government adding unprecedented uncertainty for their futures, the analysis offers small charities a robust framework of how they can take action and adapt by diversifying their income, developing collaborations and sustaining their staff, before it’s too late.

The report also calls for clear and decisive action from other stakeholders whose actions influence the survival of small charities:

• National and local government must use appropriate commissioning processes when securing public services
• Funders must fund charities to build their capacity and effectiveness rather than constantly seeking innovation and
• Larger charities must seek to collaborate with small charities rather than compete against them for public service contracts

Aimed at the pressured, time poor CEO or Trustee of any small to medium sized charity, Facing Forward makes for essential reading for those charities battling on the frontline of public service delivery. It paints an alarming picture of a future with small charities closing and communities losing vital support at a time of growing need, if charities themselves and other stakeholders do not take action.

The message is clear – change is happening and the survival of small charities depends on their ability to prepare for the future and the support they need from others.

Think of it as a £2bn reality check. That’s probably what charities have lost over the past five or six years in terms of reduced net income from contracts for delivering public services. It’s a far cry from some of the giddy growth forecasts that were still being made even as austerity kicked in. As recently as 2011 Tory peer and sometime government “big society” adviser Nat Wei was predicting that the value of payment-by-results contracts to voluntary organisations could rise to £60bn a year, dwarfing any revenue lost through cuts in conventional funding. As it is, charities’ total revenue from national and local government bodies is at its lowest level since 2007-08. According to voluntary sector umbrella body NCVO it stood at £13.3bn in 2012-13, with income from contracts and fees accounting for 83% of that. This figure is down £1.7bn from 2009-10. The corresponding preliminary estimate for 2013-14 is £12.9bn total revenue, pointing to a £2bn drop in contract and fee income since 2009-10. When you combine that with the high-profile collapse of Kids Company, and the far lower-profile but arguably more alarming closure of adoption and fostering charity BAAF, it seems clear that the sustainability of the contracting model is under strain.