A long thread about funding & tough decisions:
Covid is having a huge impact on our sector. We are #nevermoreneeded but many orgs will shrink or disappear
We aren't going anywhere we promise but that has meant some v.hard decisions.
But #VCS is used to hard decisions

Lots of you won't remember but The Cellar has been at rock bottom lots of times. When I arrived nearly 6 yrs ago we were v.close to closure.
Getting to where we are now: a strong, sustainable, award winning org took a brilliant team working v.hard

But we also had to take a lot of hard decisions then too. That has usually meant closing things which lost a lot of £ & threatened the stability of the org.
But closure is NEVER a sign of how much things are valued.
The thing is that some things are easier to fund...

... funders often like shiny new projects & things that are easy to measure. They don't usually like to fund core/overhead costs.
There are exceptions to this rule & these funders have helped us get where we are now!

But when we have things with big overheads we have to try & find other types of £ to prop them up.
And in recent yrs we've pulled it out of the bag

We have diversified our income in a range of different ways from improving our social enterprise models and fundraising to increasing our rental income.
But... when people see our busy cafe & shop, & our lovely woodwork they think we make big bucks. Sadly not the case.

The reality is they've never made money. Because their core purpose is to provide therapeutic training environments. & we will not compromise on that to give ourselves commercial edge. That's not what we are here for.

So if you have things that lose £ or break even... it doesn't take much for things to turn bad.
And Covid has made things BAD. We have not been able to generate that income, competition for fundraised income is , government have provided v.little support for #VCS

Most of the Gov Covid £ is for tiny charities or big national charities ie not us! It is also v.short-term.
So we have to take careful & calculated decisions based on what has happened as well as what we think will happen... and make sure we safeguard the organisation.

We also have to put the safety of clients, staff & visitors first. Sometimes that will mean that we make safety decisions based on a risk assessment that is not necessarily aligned with government guidance. And sometimes those safety measures will mean further financial loss.

Please don't blame our NHS & local authority funders. It is down to them that we are retaining the vast majority of our valuable services. Our local commissioners would love to fund more therapeutic things in the #VCS but they are not magicians when it comes to Gov cuts.

The thing that is tricky to understand is that whilst we are losing some wonderful elements of what we do, there are other aspects of what we do which are growing & developing. So you'll see us announcing sad news alongside exciting plans.

A lot of that is restricted money which means it has to be spent on specific activities or job roles.... basically we cannot use it to plug holes in other things.
Over recent months the team have been nothing short of amazing. I take zero credit.

We've transformed our services over night, adapted them constantly, established new ways of supporting people, extended our reach and helped hundreds of people.
We are #StillHeretoHelp and we are still delivering the life changing and saving work you know us for.

And we are very resilient. We have been through worse. We are taking hard decisions now to come back stronger.
We would like to say a HUGE thank you to everyone for their messages of support and solidarity. They mean the to us

We could also like to thank our clients, staff, volunteers, partners and funders who have given so much to our beloved Skills Shops.
Watch this space