Charity Commission chair Julia Unwin is calling on grant makers and foundations to ‘take note and act’ as Directory of Social Change (DSC) becomes the latest support organisation to close amid financial problems.

During her speech at the regulator’s annual public meeting this week she said she is particularly “saddened” to hear that during the week DSC had suddenly announced it was going into administration, after “over half a century” of supporting charities.

She warned this follows the closures of a raft of national charity support bodies The Foundation for Social Improvement (FSI), the Small Charities Coalition and Children England, which were “all hugely valuable organisations helping charities and communities thrive”.

She also notes that last year trustee and volunteer support organisation Getting on Board folded, which has “left a real gap in the sector”.

The demise of such support organisations in the sector “is replicated regionally” she warned.

Funders and grantmakers are being urged to step in, as happened when another support organisation Reach Volunteering announced it was to close this summer amid financial challenges. Last month it was saved from closure following a package of financial support provided by a group of nine funders and donors.

“To grant-makers and foundations, please take note and act. As you did for Reach, so please do for other vital organisations that do so much to lay the foundation for a healthy charitable sector,” said Unwin.

Government and charities through subscription fees are also being asked to help support the sector’s infrastructure bodies.

She said: “It is understandable that, during straitened times, donors and funders want to be associated with the most attractive fruits of charitable labour: lives saved, communities transformed, needs met.

“Supporting infrastructure bodies may feel by comparison a step removed, unglamorous. And indeed, the very word infrastructure risks sounding bureaucratic and simply an additional overhead.

But she warned that “no one would run a business without accountancy advice, without auditors and lawyers, and without sharing intelligence with other similar bodies. That’s what we mean by infrastructure.

“Not an ‘overhead’ but the most cost-effective way of securing the support that every business, charitable or not, needs in order to function.”

“I call on those with the capacity to enable this work to take a long view in their funding strategies.”

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