Why you and we love small, local charities
Julian Lomas
Smaller charities and social enterprises are our passion at Almond Tree Strategic Consulting. We’ve long believed that they are the glue that binds communities together. At their best, countless thousands of smaller, local charities and voluntary groups in the UK are making the most immediate and tangible positive difference to people’s lives. Two recent reports - Public Trust in Charities 2023 and Time Well Spent 2023 suggest that we share this view with many amongst the public at large.
“The public – particularly the less secure part of the population – are much less inclined to trust larger, international, and professionalised charities than smaller, local, volunteer-run concerns.”
“Volunteers continue to contribute to a range of causes, but most commonly to local community and neighbourhood groups.”
The 2021/22 Community Life Survey, reported in our previous blog, supports these conclusions.
Why is this?
The Charity Commission’s report gives some insight, suggesting that the failure of public trust in charities to return to pre-2015 levels indicates that “the legacy of high profile cases involving the governance of large household name charities continues to act as a drag on people’s instinctive willingness to believe that charities can be fully trusted to manage funds and create genuine impact.”
Time Well Spent also suggests that this “is likely to reflect the rise in local activities and new organisations during lockdowns”.
The Charity Commission’s report goes on to say that smaller, local charities “are often easier to identify with and can demonstrate a more straightforward link between donations and impact”.
We wholeheartedly agree. In our work we consistently see that people identify more with local voluntary action, more easily understand its impact and feel that it is easier to help out locally. We never cease to be inspired by amazing people who see a need in their community and want to do something about it.
This makes it all the more baffling that the Charity Commission’s increasingly broad interpretation of its remit to protect public trust and confidence in charities, particularly when considering applications for charity registrations, appears to discriminate against smaller, local charities. As the Charity Commission’s own former legal chief is reported to have said in response to a recent rejected application for registration, “In very broad terms the Commission is discouraging (to the point of refusing to register) small organisations whilst extolling the virtues of large charities.”
In our view it is long past time for change. The law and the regulatory regime cannot be doing our society any good when good people embarking on even the most obviously charitable endeavours are left responding to questions that dumbfound them, causing them to ask “how on earth is that relevant to being a charity”.
It is all too complicated for small charities to navigate? After almost 500 years of evolution of charity law, and it is high time it was looked at afresh.
Meanwhile, small charity trustees will continue to need to expend precious charitable resources on professional advisors to help them manage these risks and complexities, diminishing the impact that these most trusted and impactful of organisations make for their communities.
To find out more about the services we offer, please contact us at julian@almondtreeconsulting.co.uk to arrange free initial telephone discussion.