Charity concerns over rising inflation and utility bills
Our Regional Manager, Gary Beharrell, shares his recent conversations with charity partners facing increased pressures with rising inflation and energy bills.
03 November 2022
As we move out of the summer heading towards the autumn it seemed a good time to have a conversation with a number of our partners to see how they were faring so far this year and if the challenges and concerns identified at the beginning of the year were still appropriate.
The Financial Impact
One of the main topics of conversation was undoubtedly the predicted increase in inflation and especially utility bills. Many charities already reporting a predicted doubling of bills, and in all cases, these were unbudgeted for at the beginning of the year meaning charities are having to dig deep into reserves or consider new grant applications or fundraising drives.
The difficulty in recruiting and retaining staff identified earlier in the year has continued to be a challenge. The pace of inflation and existing salary levels is also an added challenge in the sector with all salaries not keeping up with inflation. Competition from other agencies and in particular the public sector and NHS has proven too difficult for many charities to compete against many charities having to re-advertise for posts several times. Some charities are looking at ways around this, flexible working, bonuses, etc. but this flexibility isn’t widespread.
As is often the case funding continues to be a significant concern for all charities. Whilst some charities are indicating that they are seeing some progress and commitment from funders to be a little more flexible, delays around the process of decision-making are still taking far longer than charities expected even from notoriously slow sources. Add to this the uncertainty in government, financial challenges across the board for local authorities, and oversubscription of government flagship funds such as levelling up means the sector does have some cause for concern.
The increased financial challenges that individuals are going to be facing also gives concern as individual giving and money generated from fundraising events are expected also to decline.
Gary Beharrell - Regional Manager, East Midlands
This has meant that it's been a strange period for organisations to try to plan in and whilst organisations are trying to put strategies and plans together charities are having to be very flexible with these given continuing uncertainty around the cost-of-living crisis and the fact that COVID has not gone away, making for a very uncertain autumn and winter.
The one thing charities are certain about is that demand will increase as individuals struggle more with the cost of living and with longer-term health issues brought about following the pandemic. Whilst much of the conversation demonstrated some significant concern about the organisations' ability to meet the needs of the individuals what was heartening was the commitment and determination to have a go, and at least do the best they can for the individuals that they work with.
There are a lot of uncertainties ahead what is certain is that there are people out there with the drive, belief, passion, and heart to make the world a better place for those that need a helping hand. It's those individuals that we need to continue to extend our helping hand.
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