Infrastructure isn't an overhead
Action Together is part of Greater Manchester's network of local infrastructure organisations. On 15 October the Chair of the Charity Commission, Dame Julia Unwin, reflected what we see every day: the organisations that support charities and community groups aren't an overhead. They are the most cost-effective way of making sure every group has the advice, skills, volunteers and connections it needs to do its job.
In her speech, Dame Unwin reflected on some key points including:
- Charities are a prerequisite for growth, not a by-product. Economic growth needs social trust, skills and healthy communities, and charities help create all three.
- The infrastructure that supports charities is under serious strain. She named recent closures (including Getting on Board, the Small Charities Coalition, Children England and the Foundation for Social Improvement, and the Directory of Social Change entering administration) and said the picture is replicated regionally. She described these losses as early tremors ahead of something far bigger.
- Infrastructure is not an overhead. She compared it to a business needing accountants, auditors and lawyers: it is the most cost-effective way of securing the support every organisation needs to function.
- A direct ask. She called on funders, government and charities able to pay subscriptions to take a long view, and asked grant-makers to do for other infrastructure bodies what was done to secure Reach Volunteering (now safe until at least the end of 2028).
- She concluded by stating that strong communities depend on strong charities, and charities depend on healthy infrastructure. Weakening one weakens all.
- Sustained, long-term support for infrastructure is the cost-effective choice. Infrastructure is what recruits, trains and supports volunteers. In Greater Manchester, volunteering is conservatively valued at £692 million a year, and it depends on the organisations that make it possible.
Across Action Together's three localities in Oldham, Rochdale and Tameside last year, that means:
- 1,740 groups were supported
- £2.8m of funding was directed to the sector
- 2,279 volunteers were recruited or placed, or trustees matched
Communities flourish when charities do, and charities need healthy infrastructure behind them.
Thank you to Dame Julia for saying it, and to our funders and partners for backing the long view.
"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."
