Yesterday Dame Suzi Leather issued a warning to charities that much will change when present contractual arrangements end in 2011. She is right, and for more reasons than she gave.

Yes, there is a credit crunch, and yes it will inevitably impact. There is also an election.

In the wake of the expenses scandal, unprecedented numbers of Members of Parliament will leave voluntarily at the election. Others – and who knows how many - will leave involuntarily, dismissed by their electorate. The new Parliament will certainly see more new members than any since 1945. Yet there is no guarantee that any single party will win an overall majority.  ‘Political Betting’ website – a shrewd judge – admits the real possibility of a hung parliament. The tone of the new administration, whatever it may be, will be very different from post-Blairite Labour.

And that tone makes a difference to us. There is no point in being in power if you don’t exercise it, and each of the last two incoming administrations (all there have been since 1979!) has made seismic changes to the relationship between charities and state.

In 1979 when Mrs Thatcher took over from the last Labour government funding was withdrawn very swiftly from many domestic charities, causing a great deal of pain and unhappiness; but even she recognised that funding large overseas aid charities offered good value besides compromising their ability and willingness to criticise government.

More recently, Claire Short’s decisions at DfID caused a massive shake-up in overseas aid charities as targeting was changed and the means of distributing government aid were ‘restructured’. This is not just about the quantity of money, it is about what government intends to achieve through its partnership with charities. The new government will simply have new objectives.

If your organisation’s de facto mission is to take government money and implement government policy rather than to pursue your own distinct objectives, then now is the time to start planning for change; your real difficulty is in knowing what the new government may be and thus what objectives it might adopt. But if you are a charity with a clear mission of your own - check the health of your fundraising roots now. Fundraised income is your only secure guarantee that your work will continue, whether or not your interests coincide with those of this incoming government, or the next.