Reach Volunteering to close due to shifting funder priorities
The 45-year-old organisation, which connected charities with volunteers via its online platform, will close later this year after a “structural shift in funding” caused the organisation to become financially unviable.
The charity, which says it is the UK’s “single biggest source of trustees for the voluntary sector”, said it was embarking on a 12-week managed closure plan, with operations expected to fully cease by 30 November.
Reach Volunteering has 11 staff, all of whom are expected to be made redundant.
The charity, which has helped recruit more than 34,000 volunteers and trustees for the sector, said the closure was due to a “shifting funding landscape”, which had made sustaining its work “increasingly difficult”.
Janet Thorne, chief executive of Reach Volunteering, said in a LinkedIn post: “Over the last few years, there has been a structural shift in funding. Trusts and foundations have narrowed their criteria to specific issues, places and communities, and our breadth – which is a strength in delivery – has become a liability for funding.
“We no longer fit their programmes, and we have come to the end of the road.”
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Major children’s charity drops Living Wage
The Children’s Society has “moved away” from the paying staff Living Wage Foundation-recommended rates due to “income and affordability pressures”.
The charity, which supports vulnerable children and young people, says in its latest annual report, for the year to the end of March 2026, that it stopped paying the Living Wage due to financial pressure.
“We were aligned with the real Living Wage in 2025/26 but have recently moved away from this due to the pressures on our income and affordability. We aim to reconsider recommendations in the future.”
The charity, which employed a monthly average of 861 people in 2025/26, did not disclose how many staff members would be affected by the changes or the savings it expected to make from moving away from paying the Living Wage.
“It wasn’t an easy decision, but we had to weigh it against keeping the charity sustainable so we can continue supporting children and young people,” a spokesperson for The Children’s Society told Third Sector.
“We’ll keep this under review and hope to return to Living Wage Foundation recommendations in future,” they added.
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Organisation that will deliver £11.6m covenant fund revealed
The community organisation membership body Locality has been chosen to run an £11.6m fund that will help charities and local authorities work together more closely.
The government said Locality, in a consortium with the think tank Demos and the consultancies Collaborate CIC and Renaisi-TSIP, would run the England-wide Local Covenant Partnerships Fund over the next three years.
The fund, which was announced in January, will support the implementation of the Civil Society Covenant, the document launched last year by the former Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to reset the relationship between the government and voluntary sector organisations.
The fund, which includes an admin fee, is designed to ensure that more people can access services and support that will ease everyday pressures, close to home.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said the fund would invest targeted grant funding to support local areas to develop and implement new local covenant partnership agreements in 15 local authority district areas.
Tony Armstrong, chief executive of Locality, said: “As the national membership network for local community organisations, we know collaboration between the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector with the public sector is crucial.”
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