The Charity Finance Group broke even last year after three successive deficits, latest figures show.
The membership body’s accounts for the year to the end of March 2023 show it had recorded income and spending of £1.5m.
The CFG had recorded deficits in each of the three previous years, totalling more than £400,000 over the same period.
But Caron Bradshaw and Gary Forster, chief executive and chair, respectively, of the CFG, said in their introduction to the latest accounts that “in this report, you will see an organisation that has turned a corner, post-pandemic”.
Total income was up from just under £1.3m in the previous year and the charity ended 2022/23 with free unrestricted reserves of £177,895.
“Whilst the year saw the closure of some trusted partners like the Small Charities Coalition in 2022 and the FSI in 2023, the collaboration, innovation and flexibility of the last few years has become the calling card of infrastructure and CFG is no different,” said Bradshaw and Forster.
The return of face-to-face events post-Covid-19 helped the CFG’s income levels, with 86 events being staged over the course of the year compared with just 30 in the previous year and 29 in the year before that.
The report shows the number of charity members fell by 33 during the course of the year to 1,466.
The CFG said it had made “significant changes” to its membership fees strategy, which meant that charity members were moved to a rolling membership.
This has meant a reduction in manual processes and freed up more staff time, the accounts say.
The charity’s average headcount during the course of the year fell from 20.2 in 2021/22 to 18 last year, the accounts show.
The CFG has given up the lease on its central London office and moved to more flexible office space operated by the social enterprise Canopi.
“As we establish a more remote team that needs to work in different ways, we are embracing the flexibility this offers and being more intentional in how and when we bring the entire CFG staff team together,” the report says.
“For the foreseeable future, we believe uncertainty will be the only certainty,” Bradshaw and Forster said.
“Yet, while we live in challenging times – where political, economic and environmental pressures continue to dial up – we see time and again the sector’s resilience, fortitude and adaptability.”