More than a 1,000 charity infrastructure bodies have closed within the last decade as they battle to find funding, with most trusts and foundations failing to offer them grants, research is warning.
Researchers found that “very few trusts and foundations” fund the sector’s infrastructure bodies which provide support to charities. They have described the funding situation for infrastructure bodies as “a very fragile ecosystem” in which “some infrastructure charities” are “reporting that they have few funders that they can even apply to”.
Instead, a quarter of infrastructure organisations’ funding is from government, with just 8% coming from grant makers. The remainder of their funding is from membership fees and income through providing services.
The findings have emerged in analysis of sector infrastructure funding published by 360 Giving and commissioned by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.
This found that 1,084 organisations have been removed from official registers since 2010. While this does include bodies that have re-registered so appear twice on official lists, it is also likely to be “an underrepresentation” as some smaller organisations are not registered as a charity.
In total there are 698 infrastructure bodies spending more than £500m on services for the charity sector.
A factor in this decline is “significant mergers and closures” in this sector. The cost-of-living crisis is another, more recent factor.
“There is a risk that through their work during the pandemic and the cost of living crisis, some of these organisations are trying to support an increased number of charities and community groups needing support when their own funding position is precarious,” said 360 Giving.
📢We’ve launched our latest report supported by @phf_uk: Sector Infrastructure Funding!
— 360Giving (@360Giving) March 2, 2023
It explores the role of infrastructure orgs in the sector, supporting & enabling charities, & how funding has changed over the last 12 yrs.
⬇️https://t.co/5BYHwKEWKT#InfrastructureFunding pic.twitter.com/uUNnZ6FXDE
The majority (519) of infrastructure bodies are local or regionally based, while 180 have a national remit, researchers also found.
The 20 largest organisations account for more than a third of this sector’s spending, but the majority are small, with 29% having a turnover under £100,000 and eight in ten under £1m.
“We hope that this report provides context to grant makers to inform strategy development and collaboration between funders,” said 360 Giving.
“Infrastructure organisations are sometimes an invisible part of the sector, but we all feel the impact when organisations close, either directly or indirectly.
“We hope this data facilitates discussions and supports more active decision-making to prioritise what is funded and retained over the coming years in what is likely to be a very challenging period for the sector.”
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