The battle for the soul of the charity sector

Clare Thomas FRSA is Creative Director and Chief Executive of Bright Shadow CIO. She has 25 years of experience working for ground-breaking arts and disability charities in Kent and London.

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Innovation in action

In his book Start with Why, business leadership guru Simon Sinek states that “innovation is not born from the dream, innovation is born from the struggle”. It is a notion many small charities can all too readily identify with.

Our day-to-day is a battle for survival in a world of increasing need, decreasing funding and unhelpful ‘competition’ for resources. The ‘winners’ are rarely the people charities exist to serve. It’s demoralising and unfair, given the vital contribution made to the fabric of society, that we should be in a state of permanent strain. Yet it’s also unquestionably true that the life-force at grassroots level in the charity sector is where true innovation takes place.

I’m not talking about those flashy innovation projects, where small charities are expected to perform miracles with tiny sums of money, only to add another much-needed programme to their core offer, one they then struggle to keep going. I’m talking about organisations that are innovative in every act of their governance, delivery and communications.

Bright Shadow’s work

Bright Shadow CIO has delivered ground-breaking arts programmes with and for people living with dementia in Kent and Medway for 16 years. Our work is based on ambition, quality and access. We have a large, independently endorsed dataset showing that our unique offer has a profound effect on participants’ wellbeing.

Our exceptional artists and support team work with people of all ages and stages of dementia, wherever they are: alone, in couples or groups, at home, in gardens, hospitals, community centres, theatres or online.

We always centre the autonomy of people living with dementia. At the same time, we prioritise supporting their loved ones. These unpaid carers currently provide over 1.1 billion hours of unpaid dementia care each year. Their mental health needs to be properly supported too.

You might assume that if society really cared about people affected by dementia – especially as it’s the leading cause of death and one of the costliest conditions, predicted to cost the UK economy £90billion per year by 2040 – then Bright Shadow would be securely funded. We have a strong track record, multiple awards and hundreds of endorsements from grateful beneficiaries. Yet we, and the people we aim to support, are left to navigate a precarious and sometimes even callous funding system.

Funding challenges

Common sense tells us that asking small, high-impact organisations to apply for 20, 30 or more grants each year, only for some to be rejected immediately while others are praised, is inefficient.

Running programmes, diversifying income, supporting colleagues, developing the organisation and contributing to the wider sector is already more than enough. Adding complex and inconsistent funding relationships on top creates unsustainable pressure. It causes staff burnout and means huge amounts of potential go to waste. So many outcomes are lost in the fight to keep going.

Rethinking how we support small charities

Funders, commissioners and donors know this. Yet change is too slow. Hundreds of charities close every year, of which 97% are small. Many had stepped in where other services failed or were forced to choose between their mission and their survival.

Unless we urgently rethink what success looks like, who decides, and how power is shared between funders, charities and beneficiaries, this loss will continue. The harm to individuals and society will only grow.

Perhaps most worrying, when these local lifelines disappear, so does a whole layer of the charity sector that keeps it direct and human, not distant or corporate. These organisations create a more equal charity ecosystem, where power is better shared with the people we support.

How our values fuel change and inclusion

Our values – equality, community and respect – keep me fighting. They give me hope for change.

Our trustees with dementia help funders and commissioners see that people living with dementia are investible. They are disabled people with legal rights under the Equality Act 2010. When we invest in them, we reduce health inequalities and unlock significant personal and social value.

Our participants and their loved ones, creating a dance performance, developing accessible digital content, exhibiting their art or singing to a packed crowd, are not only pushing back against the idea that dementia means life is over. They are actively helping to build a more dementia-inclusive society.

 

Small charities, big shifts

Struggle brings hard work and a drive for excellence. It also brings resistance. That refusal to accept the status quo is what gives many small charities their power to innovate. It may even spark a renewal in the sector.

Through thousands of acts of resistance, small charities can shift power. They show how resources can move from those who have the most to those who need it most. That’s what we are all working for.

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