Charity Trends 2019 Forecast

I'm Anna from the Centre for Social Change, a thinktank that supports charity leaders and here are my crystal ball predictions for 2019. They are all totally unscientific, but being the HUGE charity geek that I am, that follows exactly what is happening in the charity sector, here are my predictions for the year ahead.

The Rise of Automation

I know charities are in the dark ages, when it comes to tech, important new projects like the Government's investment in digital leadership for charities emerging this year mean that you won't be able to get away from automating your back end and donations, as well as changing tech to be your friend (rather than the enemy). This will see more charities taking control of the back end of their fundraising back from JustGiving and the other giving sites to have more control and get more income from their donations, and even, shock horror, automating your meeting scheduling and project management and engagement of donors. There are some many cheap and free ways of managing time more effectively now, yet charities are basically still in the noughties.

The Competition just got tougher

I don't want to be a doom monger, but with another round of cuts, and financial uncertainty for trusts and foundations investments on the cards, its likely most trusts and foundations will have a downward trajectory of giving over the next year as a result of their investment performance being likely to deteriorate due to Brexit fallout. If the Bank of England is to be believed, we are in for a rough ride. You'll need to remain ULTRA competitive to get that funding in.

The decline of the high street and increase in charity online shopping

The deterioration of high street with many major businesses going under in 2018 will continue this year, and charities would do well to consider and monitor how their charity shop performance fairs, and consider other ways of moving their sales forward. Cue the increase in online charity shops to stay relevant.

The rise of charity Apps

With the Lottery investing heavily in digital early this year, we will see the apps market flooded with new Apps, and an new opportunity to engage with beneficiaries and supporters. Whilst this will give rise to some fantastic opportunities to create a more widespread impact, funders are going to have to follow suit and invest in follow up funding for maintainance of these Apps, and at the moment most funders are not on the same page with their digital investments either, with most seeing digital as a poor second to in person delivery rather than capable of delivering meaningful interventions. Cue lots of charity App flops. Here is my plee to funders- dedicate a proportion of your budget in each funding round to digital, and watch how your work suddenly impacts thousands instead of hundreds. Digital is powerful, done well. But expect to see alot of really rubbishy Apps, as most charities don't know how to commission tech for good. There is definitely scope for an opportunistic entrepreneur to scoop up the market and feel great about themselves in the process.

The ways people will volunteer

This year, its time to think of creative ways of developing micro volunteering (this is not a new concept, but definitely one we need to keep reminding people of). Breaking your exciting projects down into manageable chunks for professional experts to advise on is one of your quickest wins to recruit volunteers very quickly. A key issue is that people have less and less time to give. Projectising your volunteering makes it very manageable, sets the expectations, and always leaves it open to continue into a more significant role at the end of it.

Plastics

This year is going to be a significant year for reduction in plastic and if you are running a social enterprise using plastics, or using single use plastics in your charity, now is the time to rethink so you can impress your supporters with being on the 'crest of the wave' a key challenge for everyone, and certainly not do-able for everyone. But if its replacing those plastic cups and straws in the cafeteria, or making sure the fundraising collateral you develop is ethical (stop giving away free plastic pens and switch to Bamboo). Expect supporters to start demanding it from you.

Brexit chaos

OK well this is a controversial place to discuss Brexit, but the realities are that there will be implications for many UK based charities and this is my predictions for what changes will happen.

Asylum seeker charities

Public sympathy is likely to decrease for charities that work across Europe, as we move out of the European Union as will general sympathy for international development charities, much as people have become more reluctant to support asylum seeker and migrant charities in recent months. With less co-operation from France we can see a larger increase in the number of refugees making it across the Channel, and this will create some interesting challenges for homeless and advice charities based on the UK coastlines. This is going to create an interesting challenge for supply versus demand, as the funding won't be there to support them, but work will increase with these groups of people.

Universities and Colleges

Much of university and college income comes from European Union funding, and as far as I can see there has not been a significant movement towards any replacement funding for the UK to maintain research bases in our educational institutions. This means that these institutions, as registered charities by in large themselves, will begin competing for more conventional money that has sat in the charity sector. Universities and Colleges will be heavily investing in fundraising campaigns, and this inevitably affect the way other charities are funded.

Public services cuts to cover the cost of Brexit.

Whilst we may think the cuts have come to the end of their brutality, they are far from over. My prediction is that we are going to be headed for another round of cuts this year, and that in turn, the people who feel the brunt will be General Practitioners and Hospitals. People always turn to someone for help, and in the absence of many of the places people usually go to for support, this is going to inevitably end up in the NHS. One example of this is one hospital I have spoken to said that over a fifth of babies are brought to A and E within 28 days of being born, because mum has not been taught how to breastfeed. This is a very expensive way of helping new mums, but there are millions more examples. Patients struggling to get social care beds who are elderly are often continuously bounced into A and E until social care can give them a bed. Expect to see pressure in unexpected places. There is an opportunity here for savvy charities to build relationships with hospitals to provide services affordably from the hospital, or to give a point of referring on.

Medication routes

Medicine supplies are already fraught with difficulty within the European supply chain, before Brexit has really got going, but expect this to particularly affect people with medicine dependent medical conditions, and if you support your patients, expect to spend time helping them resolve their medication supplies. If you really want to get ahead of the curve, work out a way of solving this problem.