Small charities should collaborate to stay afloat says FSI
Melanie May | 15 June 2016 | News
One in ten small UK charities see closure as likely, yet less than 10 per cent are collaborating with other charities to pool resources and deliver services according to figures from The Foundation for Social Improvement (FSI), the charity behind Small Charity Week, which is taking place this week.
The findings are revealed in Collaboration: more than the sum of the parts, a report launched by the FSI today in the House of Lords as part of the week’s Policy Day events.
The report shows that declining funds (26%) combined with a rise in workload (32%) means small charities lack the fundamental resources to stay open, yet despite 66 per cent of respondents claiming to collaborate with other small charities, the report shows that 90 per cent of these are referring to purely networking and not a meaningful partnership, such as a merger (3%) or a joint venture (6%).
It suggests that the key to unlocking the solutions to the social problems today may depend on better collaboration, with the research showing that through collaboration, small charities can deliver more services whilst spending less time delivering them. Eighty nine per cent of those who report to be in a strategic alliance spend less time or an equal amount of time working to deliver the proportion of services covered, according to the FSI.
Pauline Broomhead, CEO at the FSI said:
“The results from the research indicate, quite strongly, that small charities don’t collaborate enough in any meaningful way. This is a real loss for the sector as there is no doubt that small charities are extremely good at coming up with solutions to some of the most serious social problems facing the world today. In isolation, they may be too small to take a great idea or a great solution to a wider beneficiary audience but partnering up with another organisation can set the wheels in motion.”
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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.