Funding struggles to force Spring closure of Small Charities Coalition
Melanie May | 20 December 2021 | News
The Small Charities Coalition has announced that it is to close in the Spring, with a statement published on the charity’s site on Friday saying the decision had been made after its trustees and team had exhausted all possibilities to secure the funding it needs to keep it going.
The statement from its trustees said that securing the charity’s financial sustainability has been a ‘perennial issue’, although it had been fortunate to secure additional COVID-related funding in 2020/2021, which had enabled it to support its members during this challenging time.
However, with a small staff – a current team of three – the amount of time it has taken to try and source sufficient funding made it difficult to also fulfil its commitment to support small charities.
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The aim is to close the charity responsibly in Spring 2022 and secure ongoing support for small charities through other channels and organisations. It currently has over 16,000 members across the UK, made up of groups of volunteers, local community and neighbourhood organisations, registered charities and community interest companies. The trustees also say they will do all they can to support its team of staff.
The statement reads:
“This has been an extremely difficult decision. It has been taken after the Trustees and SCC’s team have exhausted all possibilities to secure funding that would have put the charity on a secure, sustainable financial footing to continue its work in support of thousands of small charities.
“COVID has shown that there was a very real need for our services, including our HelpDesk, training and events, newsletter and mentoring programme. Our dedicated staff team has worked extremely hard during the pandemic to get support out to small charities dealing with all the challenges this crisis has created for them and the causes they support, so we want to say a huge thank you to them. We know that the decision to close SCC affects our current staff of three more than anyone else and we will be doing absolutely everything we can to support them in the coming months.”
The trustees also said they were proud of what everyone involved with SCC has achieved since its inception in 2008, and thanked its funders for making it possible for the team to carry out this work, and prioritising providing support services for small charities.
About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.