Now 4 months into working in the charity sector and… boy. Those 5 years I spent sarcastically muttering at the void about government needing better partnership with and support for business… I didn’t know how good the private sector had it. THREAD (1/10)

At every corner during the Covid crisis, financial support schemes have been designed for the private sector and (with the noteable exception of the £750m fund) charities have to make do with it. But it’s like charities have been handed their big brother’s oversized jumper (2/10)

Furlough works if you run a brewery chain. Send staff home and claim back their salaries when pubs close and orders dry up. But it doesn’t work it you run a charity providing support to families of alcoholics, seeing rising need and unable to bench your teams to save costs (3/10)

A luxury handbag firm can take a risk on an interest-free covid loan, but a small domestic violence charity cannot bet the house against future donations to do the same. Yet are told it’s a solution. @ProBonoEcon reckons just 7% of charities have been got covid loans. (4/10)

Almost every curry house and betting shop in the country has been able to access five-figure grants, while a fraction of cancer charities and community support services have been eligible for similar support. (5/10)

And let’s linger on those grants (local authority distributed grants to retail, hospitality and leisure vs government fund for VCSEs) for a hot second because they show the disparity incredibly well on 3 key factors.
Speed
Hoops
Scale (6/10)

Speed
Those grants for biz got out basically immediately in April. Gov money for charities has been allocated in tranches, going to trusts/Lottery/foundations etc. to distribute.
That means £tens of millions still won’t have reached frontline services 8 months later. (7/10)

Hoops
Charities have to apply for that , investing time in meeting different requirements and making their case many times over to different funds.
Gyms & cafes had to give their postcodes & bank details. (Not to advocate for no process, just to highlight difference) (8/10)

Scale
The pot for charity grants totals £750million.
Tesco got a £585million tax cut from the Chancellor through its business rates relief alone. (9/10)

And let’s not pretend we’re talking about something small we can ignore. Charities employ about as many folk as financial services, generate £200bn in value each (~10% of GDP), and we ask them to run our lifeboats & cure chronic diseases. So… feels like this matters? (10/10)