Finance | 29 Jun 2009

Nearly a thousand charities in the UK shut between 2007 and 2008, according to a Charity Commission report published in March. In May, Russam GMS surveyed over 450 interim managers who work at a senior level in the UK charity sector to understand how the sector was faring in the recession. Of the respondents, 76 per cent reported that income levels have fallen in charities across the UK since the start of the financial crisis, 20 per cent claimed they were stable and just 4 per cent said they had increased. It is clear that a major challenge facing many UK charities is how to cope in light of reduced donations and tougher competition for funding, find new income streams and improve operational efficiencies to save costs.

Another challenge highlighted by over half of interim managers was that key business projects have been put on hold, 20 per cent claimed that recruitment efforts have been frozen, 15 per cent said IT investment had been put on the back burner and 10 per cent said that marketing plans had been shelved. On top of that, 74 per cent of interims also said that job cuts had already been made in the organisations in which they worked.