Charities more optimistic, despite predicting income falls

Finance | Celina Ribeiro | 22 Feb 2010

Most charities expect the near future to hold further drops in income, but anxiety over cashflow has lessened as the recession came to a close.

But while on the whole fewer charities expect to see a fall in fundraising ahead, the level of anxiety over potential government funding cuts has increased significantly, according to the Managing in a Downturn report released today.

The report, produced by the Institute of Fundraising, CFDG and PricewaterhouseCoopers, polled members of the first two organisations in November 2009 and follows on from an initial survey of the same membership group in May of the same year.

While the survey was undertaken while the UK was still officially in recession, it showed that charities were still planning on investing in fundraising, with 44 per cent planning to invest in major donor fundraising and 40 per cent looking to put money into corporate fundraising.

On the topic of corporate fundraising there was a divergence of opinion between large and small charities, with smaller organisations being far more pessimistic that income from corporations will fall.

Sustainability

The survey authors also suggest that “charities are not being as realistic as the private sector” in its predictions about staffing costs. Sixty-eight per cent of charities expected their wage bill to increase over the next 12 months, whereas 60 per cent of private companies had already imposed a pay freeze, or planned to.

Charities reported using their reserves in order to maintain services, but the report warned that such action may not be sustainable. Organisations need to have fall-back plans - such as for collaborations, mergers or scaling back services – in case reserves dwindle too low.

Directory: Charity Finance Directors' Group (CFDG) | Institute of Fundraising | PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP

Comments

[Cancel] | Reply to:

Name *

Email *

Organisation

Job Title

Comments *

Verification *

* Please read our Community Standards

Close »

Community Standards

The civilsociety.co.uk community and comments board is intended as a platform for informed and civilised debate.

We hope to encourage a broad range of views, however, there are standards that we expect commentators to uphold. We reserve the right to delete or amend any comments that do not adhere to these standards.

We welcome:

Robust but respectful debate
Strongly held opinions
Intelligent relevant discussion
The sharing of relevant experiences
New participants

We will not publish:

Rude, threatening, offensive, obscene or abusive language, or links to such material
Links to commercial organisations or spam postings. The comments board is not an advertising platform
The posting of contact details for yourself or others
Comments intended for malicious purpose or mindless abuse
Comments purporting to be from another person or organisation under false pretences
Gratuitous criticism, commentary or self-promotion
Any material which breaches copyright or privacy laws, or could be considered libellous
The use of the comments board for the pursuit or extension of personal disputes

Be aware:

Views expressed on the comments board are left at users’ discretion and are in no way views held or supported by Civil Society Media
Comments left by others may not be accurate, do not rely on them as fact
You may be misunderstood - sarcasm and humour can easily be taken out of context, try to be clear

Please:

Enjoy the opportunity to express your opinion and respect the right of others to express theirs
Confine your remarks to issues rather than personalities

Together we can keep our community a polite, respectful and intelligent platform for discussion.