Diversify

If there's something that is going to annoy small charities, it's politics getting in the way of their mission statement. The local Con. council in the area where I've recently started working is just about to release their Homelessness Pathways strategy, which includes the provision of support services which are going to be made available to substance misusers, alcoholics, those suffering from mental health issues, domestic abuse victims and all manner of vulnerable people in between. It appears that there will be more losers than there are going to be winners.

Organisations are having to provide more for less with ever increasing levels of bureaucracy, VfM and performance indicator monitoring whilst trying to achieve the highest level of support for their clients. Fortunately, these organisations are built around foundations of altruism, philanthropy and charity; not on profit or politics. It is unfortunate that those who control the purse strings are the politicians who more often than not are personally driven by profit.

The impending strategy puts our organisation in a good light and will likely extend the services beyond those that we are already providing, however; there will be losers. Valuable services who currently have a thriving client base will lose out because they are merely meeting their targets and not offering added value through taking a little bit off of the top of the cake and making something else with it.

If there's one lesson to be learnt from the past four weeks is to diversify, diversify, diversify.. But, don't ever forget who you are and what you set out to do in the first place.