Brilliant grassroots charities still closing

From the frontlines: July 2024

As reported in the CSJF’s recent paper ‘Underfunded and Overlooked’, too many excellent grassroots charities are at risk of closure or have already had to shut their doors. Over 97 per cent of charities that close are small or medium-sized. This does not reflect the amazing work of such charities, but instead reflects a charity sector which does not operate to support charities of all sizes.

In recent weeks, some local charities have even had to resort to writing letters of complaint to those awarding public contracts. Such is the extent that they feel their service was overlooked unfairly, and that the local community will lose out as a result of an effective grassroots charity not being awarded a public contract.

Since the publication of ‘Underfunded and Overlooked’ we have continued to collect stories from the frontlines to further campaign on this issue, stories from Exeter to Edinburgh show us that more needs to be done.

There do also exist innovative solutions which level the charity playing field. St Giles, a previous CSJ award winner, who are now considered a large charity have created a process of true partnership to lift up excellent local charities and enable them to gain contracts they would not be able to win on their own. They already have an example of how this can work in Northampton, where the local community has benefitted greatly from a grassroots charity gaining the investment it deserves.

With a new Labour government in place, which has the most charity experience of any cabinet in UK government history, the CSJ will continue to campaign for a levelling of the playing field in the charity sector. As well as embarking on a ‘Future of Philanthropy’ project, to recommend how to grow the amount of overall investment going into brilliant grassroots charities.

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