Charities are operating in “protection mode” as they deal with a raft of challenges including online hostility, financial pressures, rising demand and misinformation, according to charity body NCVO.

It says that charity leaders are warning they are “having to adapt to a more volatile, uncertain and pressured operating environment” amid “rising demand, financial pressure, misinformation” as well as “online hostility”.

Its research was carried out among leaders at a series of engagement forums in which they also described increasing attention on their work and an increase in “organisational protection activity”.

They are also “becoming more cautious around visibility, communications and public engagement because of concerns around hostility, reputational challenge and staff safety”.

'Anxiety, exhaustion and leadership fatigue'

The NCVO warns that charity leaders are suffering from “anxiety, exhaustion and leadership fatigue linked to prolonged operational pressure and uncertainty”.

A factor is that “issues once managed within individual teams are now escalating more regularly into leadership and governance spaces because of their operational, reputational or workforce implications”, warns the charity sector body.

The NCVO’s report also highlights the impact on charity leaders of “rapid technological change” in spreading misinformation.

One respondent said: “AI as a tool is designed to help our productivity… but what it is also doing is helping the productivity of bad actors.”

Its report also notes that charity leaders “highlighted uncertainty around AI governance and organisational readiness, particularly as technological risks continue to evolve quickly”.

The NCVO added that the protection mode across the sector “should not be understood as organisations stepping back from their purpose”.

Instead “it reflects a sector adapting in real time while continuing to support communities and deliver impact in increasingly complex conditions”.

A report published last year by social enterprise Fair Collective in partnership with NCVO warned that the mental health of small charity leaders had reached “crisis point” with some referencing panic attacks, hospitalisation and feelings of “helplessness”.

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