The announcement that Reach Volunteering is to close has been a shock to many people in the charity sector and beyond.
I am not close to the organisation, but I have heard no-one question its effectiveness. It has long provided a pipeline of diverse volunteers from different walks of life, not least thousands of trustees, without whom the charitable sector cannot function.
The closure is the result of a multiplicity of negative decisions by funding agencies, none of whom will feel individually responsible for this massive loss, but who are collectively responsible. Grant-giving charitable trusts and foundations, in particular, should consider whether they are collectively accountable for this bad outcome.
A strong case can be made for funding of vital infrastructure of this kind by the government, which should also feel responsible for allowing Reach’s closure to happen. Enlightened corporations should feel some responsibility, too, for letting a service close that many corporate staff use when they turn part-time or retire.
But the charitable foundations are the ones who are least constrained by political considerations, profit or public opinion and specifically exist to support charitable causes, whether or not they are sexy. Their grants sum to £12bn in a year (2024). Yet a crucial piece of infrastructure that benefits all sorts of causes has been allowed to go under.
Foundations’ arguments
I have worked for some years in grant-giving trusts, as well as front line charities and infrastructure bodies. As part of that, I do understand the pressures and dilemmas facing trusts and am familiar with their arguments for not funding continuing infrastructure.
Some would say a long-term funding commitment to one charity (such as an infrastructure body) removes opportunities from others and induces unhealthy dependence.
But some of the most effective grants are relatively long-term, enabling a charity to build capacity in a concentrated way without undue haemorrhage of time and effort into juggling funds and staving off collapse.
The three-year cut-off that is so frequent is damaging to the stability and effectiveness of the sector. Taken too rigidly, the dogma of keeping a foundation’s funds free to flow to frequently changing charities leads to none feeling responsible for maintaining a vital piece of infrastructure.
And as for unhealthy dependence, there is no charity less healthy than the one that has had to close.
Other funders – especially their trustees – may say they want to fund frontline services, not second-tier bureaucracy. That sentiment is worthy of some politicians and members of the public but not of knowledgeable foundations that understand how frontline charities depend on the resources offered by the likes of Reach.
Charities that can’t find the trustees and volunteers they need are not going to do well on the frontline. The distinctive contribution of foundations is precisely that they are free to support organisations that are vital but not necessarily popular.
Limited resources
It is true that foundations have limited resources and will feel they must focus. Increasingly, they like to think they can best change the world by focusing on two or three particular subjects (or places) and making a concentrated effort.
If funders adopt a more scattergun approach, they fear they may end up making not much difference to anything and that it’ll be tough to feel and describe their own impact.
There is plenty of force behind these arguments, but if they lead to foundations generally saying “sorry, infrastructure is not on our list of chosen subjects”, we end up losing key organisations like Reach.
The collateral damage from highly selective subject-based grant-giving is greater than most of its practitioners realise. It excludes other important subjects and means continuing infrastructure is likely to get nothing.
Meanwhile, grant-givers’ hunger for their own known impact in areas chosen by them is given precedence over the potential impact of lots of different charities working in different (including new) subject areas, who are left out in the cold.
Overwhelmed by applications
It is also true enough that many foundations feel overwhelmed with applications and don’t want to spend lots of charitable money on staff to process them.
This leads to some focusing on a few subjects and in some cases refusing to accept unsolicited applications at all.
But if the outcome of this approach is the crumbling of the sector’s infrastructure and the closure of key bodies like Reach, with too many charities barred from access to foundations’ grants altogether, the opportunity costs are becoming too high.
Collective action needed
Many foundations feel no collective responsibility stemming from their unique position in society.
Or, if they do, there is no effective mechanism to turn a shared, collective acknowledgement of, for example, the importance of infrastructure bodies like Reach into actual reliable support.
Individual boards of trustees, setting their priorities in isolation, leave such considerations to someone else – or no-one. That’s in line with their legal status, but not necessarily with the interests of the charitable sector.
All these reasons for not funding continuing infrastructure are real and weighty but they are not enough.
Charitable foundations, perhaps led by the Association of Charitable Foundations, need to ponder the extent to which these considerations have driven others out, and work out how they might achieve a better balance.
To say “how sad” and carry on as before will not meet the challenge, and the charitable sector will be the poorer.
