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The ‘B’ word – a charity perspective


Rainy Day Trust’s CEO Bryan Clover talks about the impact of Brexit from the charity’s point-of-view


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s a charity we will be dealing with the fallout from Brexit for some time to come. How you voted isn’t


relevant to us, but the impact of the final decision, and how it is or isn’t implemented will impact on our work immeasurably, and in fact has already done so. As a benevolent charity, we have to be


totally impartial politically, but we still have to prepare in the same way that any business does. Just like any business, Brexit will affect both our income and our expenditure, but for quite different reasons to you. We derive our income from a range of sources so that we aren’t reliant on one source. We have already seen a steady reduction in donations from both individuals and companies as the uncertainty surrounding our future grows and everyone becomes that much more aware of their cashflow position. This has been rammed home in the last 6


months as income has fallen away markedly. Companies cut away charitable support in their early tranches of cost savings as it is an easy


18 | www.gardencentreupdate.com GCU March/April 2019


saving to take. Individuals hold on to their money for a similar reason, keeping it for a ‘rainy day’. Ironically, the demand for our support and


services goes in the exact opposite direction, so driving up our costs. As more companies go to the wall, or cut back on staff, we get more applications for help from people desperate to find new jobs. Those on part-time or zero hours contracts are particularly hard hit. Companies, rightly, focus on core business to keep things going. In the last few weeks alone, we have seen increased applications for help from three businesses that have folded. People with families and kids to feed. Families like yours. At the Rainy Day Trust we are diversifying our


income generation base, looking at alternative sources of income, but the Brexit-Factor is pushing more charities into the same financial pool, fishing for ever-reducing funds. Central


and local government funding for a lot of services has been cut back too, so all of those affected charities are seeking to back-fill the gap left by their government grants. The best way for us to overcome much of


these problems is to work with your businesses as early as possible, allowing us to target our resources where they can do the most good. Despite what some may think, we don’t have a bottomless pot of gold to draw on, so every penny we raise and spend has to be justified. Brexit, and all of the political chaos that is associated with it is going to take a lot of time and energy over the coming months.


u0203 192 0486 uinfo@rainydaytrust.org.uk uwww.rainydaytrust.org.uk


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