Charities are not investing enough in themselves, particularly around trustee development, an event has heard.
Speaking at the Findings From Third Sector Trends event in central London yesterday, Tony Chapman, professor at St Chad’s College in Durham University, said a new report of the same name published at the event showed charities were autonomous and responsible for their own destiny but they did not always see it that way.
The event, which was hosted by Community Foundation North East, launched the publication, which rounded up a set of Third Sector Trends reports released between October and February.
Chapman, who led the research, said the feeling in the sector that “money is the answer to all problems” meant charities did not invest in themselves as much as they should.
“When I normally speak to the sector about these issues, the ones which are really good at investing in themselves are the ones who say: ‘Oh, I’m really worried about what you said,’” he said.
“I know that I don’t need to worry about them because they’re worried. It’s the ones who don’t worry, who are more fatalistic, which can be more problematic.
“Money’s not always the answer, but it certainly is the top priority.”
The report showed that 88 per cent of charities with an annual income of more than £1m said they wanted training on income generation but only 40 per cent wanted training on trustee development.
“That’s actually a bit of a worry, really, and I’ve been digging beneath the surface with all of that as well to see why people are not investing in themselves,” said Chapman.
He also said that about 40 per cent of organisations had not recovered their regular volunteer numbers from before the Covid-19 pandemic but relied more on volunteers now than five years ago.
“There’s been a gradual increase in the number of organisations that rely on volunteers to commit time on a regular basis. They rely on them to work unsupervised and they couldn’t keep going without them,” Chapman said.
“The worry is that they are putting pressure on them now, there’s fewer of them, they’re hard to get hold of, they’re harder to retain, but they’re relying more on them.
“This could cause a bit of a difficult spiral unless there’s a conversation about what to expect of volunteers and how to support them.”