The clusterf**k continues...
Here's how to keep on keeping on
Today’s article
Is Caroline’s response to the themes, trends and ‘state of the nation’.
There was a deleted rant, swiftly replaced with some areas for fundraisers to focus on right now.
We’re so excited to share it with our paid subscribers (and if you’d like to take the plunge today and sign up to weekly emails, we’d love to have you on board).
Have a fantastic week, whatever you’re up to,
Tony and Caroline
The clusterfuck continues..
by Caroline Danks
Picture description: A beagle (with exceptionally cute ears) laying down and looking decidedly cross.
Last week we shared one of our biggest, most in depth editions of The Nest Egg – a review of the data from 10 sector reports.
Click here to read it if you haven’t already.
Last week’s article was a reminder that although there’s so much we want to be different, it’s hard to know where to begin in fixing the issues when they are systemic, complex and pervasive.
Increased need for charity services, rising costs and reduced income are the overriding features of the world we’re living and working in.
This is the clusterfuck I’m talking about.
Last week’s announcement by the Office for Budget Responsibility that: “The UK’s debt mountain will almost triple to more than 270% of national income over the next 50 years because of pressures from an ageing population, the climate crisis and security risks” demonstrates that the future is likely to include less investment in healthcare, education and the criminal justice system plus higher taxes.
Did anyone else listen Evan Davis on Radio 4’s PM programme repeatedly saying to his interviewee “Now I don’t want to alarm listeners but…”
Consider us alarmed Evan.
Maybe it will be better than the OBR predicts or maybe it will be worse.
I can’t lie that I feel pessimistic about the continuation of the current world order. I think that things are going to decline and that some of the things we’ve become reliant on will be less available to us.
Is it just me? Do you feel like this too?
But there’s opportunity in the darkness. Maybe we’ll find beauty in the hard stuff and figure out a new way of existing as humans together, through increased community, generosity and simple but life affirming pleasures.
So, here is some advice for people working in charities, handpicked from the evidence, about making the best of an overwhelmingly bad situation, issued in no particular order.
Please note that some of these ideas were initially shared by the authors of the reports I studied and have inspired my responses.