Can federations weather the perfect storm?

A perfect storm of rising prices, rising poverty, and fewer services is making life so challenging for so many families and children. The same storm is also making it harder than ever for the organisations that support families to survive.

With depressing prescience “Perfect Storm” was the title of a Children England report over a decade ago. The report drew attention to the rising need for charitable support alongside reduced public sector investment and greater competition for available funds. Since then, the storm has only intensified with its latest casualty being Children England itself forced to close after 80 years of campaigning for children. The scaffolding of infrastructure around charities continues to erode.

We all hold charities and communities as beacons of hope - yet experienced sector leaders increasingly describe a desperate picture facing the voluntary sector preventing us all from fully supporting the communities with which we work.

It is in this context we welcome recent research exploring the role of federated charities. Sheffield Hallam University brought together 19 charity federations to look at the value and future of such organisations and consider if federated structures might provide some response to the challenges currently facing local charities.  

Federations are widespread across the voluntary sector, comprising an estimated 52,000 member organisations, 1.6 million individual members, up to 25,000 staff and around half a million volunteers. Together, they spent an estimated £1.9 billion in 2020/21. Despite this scale, federations are not often noticed as part of our voluntary sector infrastructure.

Sitting on a spectrum somewhere between unitary organisations and broader membership bodies; federations bring together legally independent entities under a shared mission – usually with a shared brand and a central coordinating body. From Home-Start to the RSPCA; the Scouts, Guides and WI to Samaritans, Mind and Citizens Advice; federations are diverse in size, structure, and operation.

No two federation models are the same and each is continually evolving with different elements dialled up or down at any one time depending on the context, history, risk, and opportunity. Nevertheless, the federated model is well placed to respond to a recognised tension in the voluntary sector – the ‘bottom-up’ desire to be embedded in local communities; alongside a ‘top-down’ desire from many for consistent standards of governance, quality, safeguarding and volunteer support.

The research argues that the federated model, while not without complexities and tensions, enables organisations to deliver impact at scale while retaining local reach, autonomy, accountability and engagement.

Federated charities were found to hold a crucial role to play in driving forward social change and offering charities a source of strength and resource in difficult times. This was observed during the Covid pandemic when federations were able to mobilise quickly with agility and efficiency across the UK. In Home-Start’s case, I vividly recall one mother’s story – isolated in a new area with no family or friends and little English – that her Home-Start volunteer was the only social contact she had with anyone during the first months of her baby’s arrival. No other contact was being made by anyone and she felt deeply alone.

Researchers conclude that the federated model offers the opportunity to facilitate peer support among charities, share innovation and wider infrastructure, offer economies of scale, and ensure consistent quality standards. To wider stakeholders, such as regulators and funders, the model provides some reassurance that branches are likely to be well-supported and governed. Funders appreciated the ability of federations to genuinely reach and impact local communities while holding the strength of a recognised, national brand.

Half a century on, I imagine Home-Start’s founder Margaret Harrison would have been proud of Home-Start’s growth and adaptation while incredibly sad at the current picture facing families and charities. While the federation model provides no magic immunity from the storms around – we do hold hope that in working together we have a better chance of finding shelter and perhaps even a source of collective strength and energy for better times ahead.  

• Peter Grigg is chief executive of Home-Start UK