After reading our blog “Is your charity ready to emerge from lockdown?” (published on 1 May 2020), our colleague Bryan Thomas of CPB Projects wrote a response which he has kindly agreed we can publish.  We hope you enjoy reading Bryan’s thought-provoking insights.  Do please get in touch if you’d like to discuss further the challenging question of “what next?”.

Bryan’s response:

As always, I enjoy reading your posts, this one is very strategic and thought-provoking indeed.  I particularly like the questions you’ve posed which capture the essential challenges which are facing organisations in a crisis.

There is perhaps also a more timeless question that is all the more important to consider right now.  We have touched upon this in almost every project we have ever discussed and it is the one key question people should consider now: “what has lockdown taught us about who values our work?”.  It is a question about what we as individuals and as a society truly value and what we understand about the people we seek to serve.  It works equally well as a question about what we value.  

As a society, we’ve had an object lesson in the things that are truly important - the NHS, delivery drivers, supermarket staff, teachers… The list goes on but it does not necessarily include professions or disciplines that were highly valued in esteem, pay and privileges before the virus hit.   Many professions are suddenly brought to the sharp realisation that in the circumstances there’s no immediate need for their work.

However, while the crisis draws attention from its immediacy, the world will one day emerge from lock-down.  We expect that, however tough it is now, certain things will still be there.  We expect services and experiences to bounce back just as we seek to return to whatever the ‘new normal’ looks like.  The crisis, by its nature, is temporary even if the pain of the crisis feels catastrophic.  It is this characteristic that makes strategizing in a time of crisis difficult; the strategic mindset is by definition long-term but the crisis is near at hand and demands practical action right now.  

Which prompts the question about who now truly values their charity(ies) of choice (hopefully in the plural).  There are things which we all care passionately about to the extent that we wish them to survive – the Times Heritage in Ruinspiece makes the point about risk, but the essential question is “who really cares and values what we do enough to help see us through the tough period?”

This is not about subsidy or a free lunch, it is about investment and, as Seth Godin, might put it finding your tribe.  There are charities that look after or provide something which is not immediately relevant to the crisis and yet some of us will seriously miss if it is not there when the crisis abates.  

There are also things that are every bit as vital but are knocked out of our consciousness by the spotlight thrown on Covid; the very detailed scrutiny of deaths from Covid seems compelling and yet other diseases and illnesses have not gone away, nor has the research funded by charities to tackle them.  Many of these illnesses have a much longer provenance.  They were a threat to humanity before Covid, they continue to be now and they continue to be afterwards.  This prompts the existential question “Who now can see the need to ensure we/our organisation/our service/our sites/our collections are there after the crisis passes?” and critically “how do we reach them?”.

The charities/organisations that survive will be those that find and connect with people who do not want to see their work/asset/provision lost forever and who will step up in a time of crisis to help; to invest in its future.  Those who can, often do – to take two examples:

•  Last week I watched one man ask 170,000 plus people on YouTube for help in backing his creation of a virtual pub quiz – within 10 minutes, what had been an early lockdown transition from pub quiz to on-line phenomenon became a venture which was important enough to generate huge support.  One simple act for a small community clearly meant a lot to many people he probably didn’t realise were there…

• The National Theatre has long been progressing with its online and live-streaming approach; thankfully National Theatre Live provides both much needed food for the soul and also a resource base to underpin fund-raising efforts.

We expanded on this a little further in our recent joint blog on the dilemma facing charities that rely on visitor footfallwho are facing catastrophic loss of income during lockdown.

The crisis will pass, disruption is transient and, even if it does bring about a radical change or a ‘new normal’, there are timeless human needs which are still there now and will be there afterwards – our need for education, for culture, for a sense-purpose, for a sense of giving or supporting our community (or ‘tribe’).  Fixation on crisis should not obscure the opportunities which also exist – we all need to connect with things that are purposeful and important to us. 

My view on the nitty-gritty of business models is that it is fundamentally about the sustainability of an organisation.  However, at the heart of those models is a critical point about purpose and connecting that purpose to the people who really value and respect it (a timeless quality in many cases).  It is this point which elevates the debate from “how do we survive” to “how do we thrive”. 

Necessity is the mother of invention and the learning from this crisis should not be allowed to go to waste.  I’m sure some organisations will not make it and, however tragic, that will be because they did not have or could not find the answers to this existential question.  I used to think that tragic beyond words but it is not, it is worse to live in a zombie state.  Those who can answer this question and see it as defining will be there on the other side and they will find their tribe; the people who truly value what they do.