What might "levelling up" mean for charities?

We’ve been here before. A major government commissioned report into the role of civil society in delivering government objectives. This time it is Danny Kruger MP’s report Levelling up our communities: proposals for a new social covenant, released in September 2020.

Written in response to a request from the Prime Minister for proposals on how to sustain the community spirit of the lockdown, the report claims to set out “a vision for a more local, more human, less bureaucratic, less centralised society in which people are supported and empowered to play an active role in their neighbourhoods”.

Some might argue it is too little too late. From our clients are telling us, much of the community spirit of lockdown had evaporated by the time the report came out. Worse still, many of the community groups that existed before lockdown have folded or remain dormant. Far from a sustained upsurge in community volunteering, lockdown may have triggered an unprecedented collapse in social capital, particularly in small, isolated communities (be they rural or minorities).

Needless to say, we aren’t that pessimistic, although we share these concerns. The report does include some valuable ideas on how the third sector can have a much more meaningful role in policy making, public service delivery and, of course, rebuilding social capital after the crisis abates.

There are variations on old ways to pull the usual governmental levers such as legislating to enshrine a role for civil society in policy making, promoting/enabling more volunteering, changing some of the charity registration regime, re-emphsising the importance of social value etc. In our view these are just headline grabbing “tangible” policy ideas and they won’t have a major impact unless there is genuine buy in across Whitehall (having been a Senior Civil Servant, our Director bears the scars of previous unilateral attempts to address such issues by one or another government department).

There is also a major risk that the agenda will be too focused on the big charities and leave no space for grassroots community groups to influence the environment in which they operate (from the government’s standpoint, it’s just too difficult to get a representative view).

The real excitement from our perspective is that there is a once in a lifetime opportunity for the sector to reinvent itself to meet the challenges of the new normal. There will, inevitably, be some follow through in funding and policy initiatives to support the sector; with so much change having happened so quickly, there is genuine space for innovation. New models of volunteering. New methods of service delivery. New alliances within the sector to bridge gaps in provision left behind by the impacts of lockdowns.

In our view, now is the time for charities, particularly the smaller end of the sector, to invest time and headspace in assessing the impact of the crisis on their beneficiaries, appraising the effectiveness of their responses and exploring creative ideas for revitalising their offer (in partnership with others wherever possible). This can’t be done in the margins of the day job, it needs dedicated time and attention. It’s not about “silver bullets”, but it is about embracing radical change; letting go of embedded orthodoxies to ensure not only that your charity survives but that the communities it serves thrive as the world settles down to the new normal (whatever that ends up looking like).

Over the last few months we have thoroughly enjoyed working with our clients to help them explore what future scenarios might look like and to reimagine their offer and their communities in ways that meet the challenges inherent in those scenarios. No-one yet knows what the future will really be like, but some pointers are emerging and now is the time to do the thinking so that proposals are well advanced when the funding comes on stream (and all the signals are that it will).

To explore how we could help your charity or social enterprise develop your ideas for the future please contact us at julian@almondtreeconsulting.co.uk to arrange free initial discussion.