FROM THE EDITOR
(Richard Blausten)

Surviving challenging times

With financial pressures increasing relentlessly it is no wonder that some senior charity staff and trustees must feel under siege, particularly if their charities depend to a significant extent on local authority or other public service contracts. 

Less senior employees right down the line may quite understandably feel threatened by what they feel will be an inevitable requirement for redundancies. Also they and volunteers may well feel depressed at how they perceive the operations of their charity to be under threat. One way or the other, their world in the charity sector must be looking very gloomy.

So senior management and trustees need to try and take control of the situation by reasserting their leadership to safeguard their charities’ operations and raise morale. They should take a hard look at unnecessary expenditure and unnecessary people, including consultants when these are just “nice to have”. Indeed, anything which is “nice to have” rather than key to the operation of charities should be jettisoned.

Over generous salary levels and benefits should be looked at too. In today’s straightened circumstances the argument that charities have to pay big salaries to attract the right people should be put in the dustbin where it belongs. 

Nowadays people coming from the public and commercial sectors to the charity sector should be made to accept more affordable and proportionate levels of remuneration, or be shown the door. The same goes for senior personnel moving around within the charity sector. If recruitment consultants don’t get the message then they should be shown the door too.