Directory of Social Change to be wound up
The training and publishing charity has appointed an insolvency practitioner and will be closed down.
The organisation, which employs 25 people, said it had been “squeezed by the huge financial pressures facing the sector”.
A joint statement from William Butler and Debra Allcock Tyler, chair and chief executive of the charity respectively, said “a funding landscape that does not favour causes as unexciting and never-ending as infrastructure” was among the factors that led to the organisation’s demise.
“Our income-generating model enabled us to survive through five decades of charity infrastructure turmoil, and meant we could cross-subsidise our crucial policy and campaigning work with our own independent resources,” it said.
But it added tighter budgets for the DSC’s beneficiaries, rising supplier and National Insurance costs, increased competition and the growth of AI had also played a part in its closure.
“Despite the very best efforts of our staff and trustees, and appeals to key funders, we have been unable to find a way to continue,” it said.
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Charities facing ‘coordinated intent’ to undermine their work, Acevo chief warns
Speaking as part of a panel at the Charity Commission’s annual public meeting in central London, Jane Ide was asked about the operating difficulties facing charities today and whether there had been a shift in the landscape.
Ide said she was always wary of saying things are worse nowadays because Acevo was founded 40 years ago by a group of chief executives who came together to support each other.
“But it does feel to me, and certainly based on conversations I’ve had with so many other people in the sector, that there is something different,” she said.
“Something has shifted. Charity has always worked in contended spaces, that’s part of what we’re there for.
But she said there was a sense now in those contended spaces, that “there is a deliberate intent, a coordinated intent to undermine what charity stands for”.
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Government consults on automatic trustee ban for people with hate crime conviction
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said that under the proposals, which were first announced in March, people convicted of hate-related offences would be automatically disqualified from being a trustee or senior manager at a charity until their conviction is spent.
The DCMS is also proposing giving the Charity Commission additional powers to disqualify people “where there is evidence that they have promoted violence or racial or religious hatred”.
The 10-week consultation invites views on how the powers should operate in practice, including how they can protect charities while safeguarding legitimate debate, campaigning and freedom of expression.
The proposed new laws, which would apply in England and Wales, say anyone who is convicted of committing a hate crime under the Public Order Act 1986 or the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 cannot serve as a trustee or senior manager until their conviction is spent.
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