Kirsty Weakley takes a look at some of the issues charities can expect to be grappling with in the coming year. 

Making predictions is a difficult and dangerous business, and if 2016 taught us anything it was that relying on polling can be very dangerous. That said, here are some things that might happen.

Data, data, data and more data

How charities collect, store and use information about individual supporters is only going to become more of a focus over the coming year, with new European Union rules requiring all organisations to ensure that they have “explicit consent” set to come in in early 2018. 

Towards the end of the last year the Information Commissioner’s Office fined two large charities after finding they had misused supporter data over a sustained period. Many more investigations are ongoing.

So if you get it wrong it’s costly, both in financial and reputational terms. It took a while, but many big charities have come around to the idea that they have to get their house in order, and quite quickly. 

Media pressure 

The Daily Mail has been running an increasingly vitriolic campaign against the international aid sector for the last year. It has certainly been difficult to escape the almost daily front page attacks on those that work for aid charities or the Department for International Development. 

With Development Secretary Priti Patel seemingly sympathetic to the Mail, this looks set to continue through 2017. It’s unlikely the Mail will give it up until DfID is abolished and it can declare victory.

Other sectors should take note of the systematic and organised way that the Mail has gone about building its case against the international aid sector. If it can happen to aid, what’s to say the next target won’t be the environment? Or children's charities? 

It’s worth noting that this is part of a wider and ongoing issue about the charity sector’s relationship with the media. Is the media attacking the sector? Is it right to do so? And what effect is this having on public trust in individual chariites and in the wider sector? 

These are likely to rumble on throughout the year. I’m afraid I don’t have any answers. 

Charity Commission will use its new powers  

As part of the Charities Act last year the Charity Commission was awarded new powers to warn charities and disqualify people from trusteeship.

These powers came into force in the autumn. But the initial draft of its guidance on both these issues was met with widespread concern from sector umbrella bodies. 

Sector representatives were much happier with the tone and content of revised guidance published at the end of the year. 

The challenge now will be to see how these powers are used in practice. 

Big challenges for the Fundraising Regulator 

The brand spanking new Fundraising Regulator came into existence last year. It has the support of government, umbrella bodies and fellow regulatory bodies but now has to get genuine buy-in from the fundraising sector. 

Letters asking charities to pay the levy started going out in the autumn – the regulator now needs the sector to pay up, and to do what it tells them. 

Another significant challenge for the regulator will be the setting up of the Fundraising Preference Service – which many believe to be a crucial part of getting the public to trust fundraisers again. The deadline on this has already been pushed back from April 2017, and the regulator will now only say it is expected at some point in the year. 

Relationship with government 

The charity sector’s relationship with government hit something of a low point when the Cabinet Office proposed introducing a new clause to grant contracts that would prevent charities using government money to campaign. 

For a long while it seemed the government was ignoring the concerns of the sector, with a letter signed by more than 100 charity chief executives going unanswered, and Rob Wilson, the minister for civil society, largely absent from voluntary sector events at the Conservative Party Conference.  

However new Prime Minister Theresa May has spoken supportively of the sector. While the Office for Civil Society has been shunted from the centre of government to the Department for Culture Media and Sport, Wilson went to great pains to stress that it was still very much at the heart of government. 

May has also appointed Charlotte Lawson, previously development and strategic partnerships director at the Centre for Social Justice, to run a new policy unit within Number Ten, although details are few about what this unit will do. 

The anti-advocacy clause ended up being watered down and incorporated into a broader set of government grant standards, which NCVO, Acevo and Social Enterprise UK said marked a step in the right direction. 

So it seems that the sector and the new government are enjoying something of a honeymoon period, though how long this will last is anyone’s guess. 

The sector should be alert to the possibility that as government begins the unwieldly process of leaving the European Union that issues they're concerned about could be sidelined.

Then again there’s also less opportunity for the government to inadvertently do something detrimental.