5 ways to save the charity sector. Acting selflessly.

Those of you who are sci-fi geeks please forgive me for nicking the 'save the cheerleader' meme. Appropriately though the programme was Heroes. And hey that's the charity sector right?

I could talk about our worth but let's broadly take that as a given (because the public get it even if a handful of politicians don't). I could rehearse the challenges for the charity sector but they have been made 1000 times over. We can ask funders and donors to give us more money. And yes we need government to value us in both cash and policy terms. But what are we - the greater fixers for society - going to do to save ourselves?

And by saving ourselves I mean the whole charity sector. Not individual organisations. Not even broad causes. How we are going to move from the inward looking 'fund us' mentality to a programme of work that saves the very nature of charities?

I was inspired by this great pieces from Matt Hyde on acting bravely. Love an adverb.

So alongside acting courageously I think that we also need to act selflessly.

5 selfless actions for all charity leaders.

Buy social

We ask others to do it but do we do it ourselves? Selfishly (yes I know I said not to be all 'fund us fund us') if other charities used YHA buildings for meets and away days rather than for-profit hotels this could add six figures to our annual income (and you get the benefit of opening up your door onto a National Park rather than a car park).

And we aren't the only providers that would benefit from a switch in that direction.

Where do charities sit in your supply chain?

Share the wealth

Whenever I say top 20 charities get at least 80% of income people asked me if I have missed the % sign off the 20. That would be bad enough. But I mean 20 charities.

Are they fabulous bodies? Sure. Do we really think that they are doing work so much better or more valuable than the other thousands of charities? Of course not. Does their scale mean they are better - not always. And indeed if the last few years have taught us anything we are re-discovering the value of small, local, community connected and nimble.

In the main these charities just got in earlier on brand, individual giving and investments in fundraising - and have benefitted from a culture that assumes bigger is always better and growth is always the answer.

Let's change this.

• Funders. Stop it. Look beyond brand and scale.
• Big guys. Stop using the small charities as bid candy.
• Look at the supply chain question - could you commission more from charity and communities for all areas of your work?

But possibly the biggest change in building the charity sector could come with how bigger charities value and pay for the input of smaller charity groups and communities into their work.

Two examples.

• One large emergency charity drew on the expertise and experience of small community organisations to help them shape their future plans; to pull together funding bids and to help set out their charity strategy in pursuit of their charitable objects.

The smaller community bodies had much of the delivery expertise and most of the community knowledge.

But. The only people who were paid for their input were staff from the large organisation. The service managers, fundraising staff, policy people etc. from the larger charity were all paid by the larger charity when they sat round the table in meetings. The staff and volunteers from the small charities and community bodies had to fund themselves - even though they were helping the larger organisation.

This is common practice. Large charities often use smaller charities as free consultancy - unpaid labour. It is an unpopular truth but a truth nevertheless.

• At YHA we have been trying a new approach. It isn't perfect and it has thrown up challenges.

Where YHA are working with community groups - particularly in terms of our charitable objective to reach all - we have been paying community groups for their time and input. As they have helped shape our approach to meeting our charitable objects - and indeed our income generation approaches - it is right that we consider them consultants in a way that many charities use the 'big 4' management consultancy firms.

Interestingly - culturally across sector - there is much more challenge and questioning about paying a modest day rate to a community leader for their technical and personal expertise than there is to paying 5 figure sum to a for-profit consultancy.

Promote good work

Yes yours. Great. But what about your competitors? Those working in same cause area. Because competitors they are. They compete for funds, for staff, for volunteers. But maybe you could meet your charitable objects by funding them instead? Maybe they do it better and you could learn from it? At the very least sharing what they are doing builds support for the cause if not for your charity directly.

And also share things from outside of your cause areas that will strengthen the sector - including valid critiques on it from those who are outside of 'mainstream' sector leadership.

I notice this on social. It is one of things I look for in 'sector leaders'. Do they only promote the work of those with a bigger following or voices from an echo chamber? Or do they provide a platform for others.

It is a challenge I set myself - to promote the not for profit 'competition' and to raise the voices outside of the usual suspects. If you think there is something I could share for you then please do send on.

Encourage volunteering (for others)

In our own organisations it is great to have staff running marathons, doing cakes sale and taking forward volunteering efforts.

But how do we encourage staff to run their marathons for other charities? How do we celebrate the volunteering and community actions that our staff take in their own communities? Can we support their PTA work? Do we only encourage senior managers to take on trustee roles or is this something we can help other staff with?

And are their new ideas in this area? Volunteering has changed. How do we use micro volunteering? How do we move on from an idea that a volunteer is 'ours' for life? How might we use exchanges to share skills between organisations? So for example I have volunteering days as part of my reward package at YHA. Is there a not for profit that would like any of those to help with strategy or income generation or marcomms?

Strengthen membership bodies

Membership bodies for sector are important. Do they need rethinking? Yes and some of that has started (and yey more of the biggest now run by women. About time.) Can they be too establishment? Yes of course. And can they sometimes give government a way out by speaking 'for' the sector with a degree of blandness that sometimes does not capture the really tricky stuff or the niche interests? Yep.

But they are a route to capacity building, to campaigning and rethinking.

I have written on them here with a growing list of options.

Please do let me know others to add.

A reminder of the why

Love charity. It is worth saving the sector. No matter how much corporates steal our clothes and develop their ESG agendas. No matter what great work civil servants pull off in the most challenging of times. Charities are different. Their assets are held in trust for their users and their charitable objectives drive them above the demands of shareholders and the whims of Ministers. Perfect no. Good yes.

But. And this is a difficult question. Is the sector maybe too dominated by a few loud voices with limited desire - or indeed the technical ability or personal expertise - to reimagine charity for what it needs to be now and into future? Perhaps.

Models of volunteers, giving, working, delivery need to shift to face new challenges and realities but our structures, funding models, member bodies and profile is barely moving. Some amazing work in areas like participatory grant making; in new approaches to campaigning; in micro volunteering and in movements rather than organisations. But these are still the poor relations in terms of funding they receive, profile the achieve.

So a challenge to us all. If we want to save this sector we love we need to act selflessly - beyond our own charities, causes and careers. We need to act with the firm belief that caritas - love and care - is a movement as well as an organisational model.

We are the fixers. Let's fix. Selflessly.