The clairvoyant
Looking into the future of the voluntary sector
INNOVATION & IMPROVEMENT
Image: Istock
Stewart Lucas
Head of Mental Health System Influencing, Mind
Stewart Lucas
Head of Mental Health System Influencing, Mind
Issue 70 | February 2024
The voluntary, charitable or third sector – we are known by many names – was around long before we created complex health and care systems. People have seen it as their role and vocation to help others from the moment we crawled out of the primordial soup and started to stand upright.
But let’s be honest, things in the voluntary sector are a little tough at present. Mind has a network of 106 organisations that we work with to ensure people with mental health problems receive the support and respect they deserve. But we are hearing the same message from each and every one of these organisations: the need and the complexity of need is increasing, but the financial support available to underpin their work is decreasing.
We are seeing more people reaching out to charitable organisations for help but we are also seeing donations and the amount of money available for statutory bodies to invest in the voluntary sector decrease.
So, where do we go from here? What is the future for the voluntary sector as proud providers of services to those who need them?
“As funding becomes scarcer, it will be the smaller organisations that will be pushed out of business first.”
Three possible scenarios
As we enter yet another difficult year, I’m doing a little bit of future gazing and I think there are three ways things could go for the voluntary sector over the next few years.
The first possible scenario is rather dystopian and dark and probably feels ripped from the script of a 1980s future-hopping action movie. The lack of investment in local services and local providers means that the voluntary sector starts to become more and more dominated by large corporate players. In the same way that independent local shops are now big chain supermarket branded, we begin to lose the hyper-focused responsiveness you get from local organisations based in the areas they serve, run by the people they serve.
Bearing in mind that I write this as an employee of a large charity, but the voluntary sector only works if it is a wonderfully varied maelstrom of different-sized organisations. The simple fact is, as funding becomes scarcer, it will be the smaller organisations that will be pushed out of business first.
Power and possibility
There is a second, much more positive and rose-tinted parallel dimension. This is the one where “the system” (be it social care, health or any other taxpayer-funded structures) realises the strength, possibility and power of the voluntary sector.
Yes, there is still less money in this version of reality, but the powers that be realise the best place to invest it is within local voluntary sector providers. They realise the best way to reach people in real need in our communities is through the organisations that are rooted in those communities.
It might sound utopian or even simplistic, but the truth is the solutions to the problems are already out there and are already being diligently delivered by organisations existing in a hand-to-mouth environment. In this version of the future, the system has decided that the best solution is to invest in their local community bodies.
However, if I’m honest, my 30-odd years as a senior leader in the voluntary sector make me think what is most likely is a third scenario, which is neither boom nor bust. This third scenario is not the sunshine happiness on the Barbie movie, nor is it the end-of-the-world pessimism of Oppenheimer.
A balanced approach
I actually think the future of the voluntary sector is the same as we’ve had for the past 30 years. We will have successes and we will have failures. We will have good and bad times. But, most importantly, we will carry on and we will endure, despite of – rather than because of – our involvement with the system.
But should we settle for the status quo? There is a part of me that would like to think that our utopian alternative reality is actually possible. For a health and social care system that talks about things in terms of millions and billions, the investment needed for properly resourced community provision is actually negligible.
What this is about is faith and nerve. This is about trust and it is about proper adult-to-adult relationships. If the system starts to view local community providers as being equal partners that we invest in properly, it may be that my parallel universe is not that far away, or am I getting dewy-eyed in my old age?
“For a health and social care system that talks about things in terms of millions and billions, the investment needed for properly resourced community provision is actually negligible.”
