Much has been made of the global recession, with job losses, difficulties in obtaining credit, and the closure of famous brands, banks and businesses. Every case is unique, but how has the recession affected the charity sector?
Being an international charity, the impact on the recession on Great Aves has been different to the experiences of local charities in Britain and the US. Not all impacts have been bad, in fact, Great Aves has experienced strong growth of over 60% annually since 2007 with a similar trend expected for the coming year. Offering overseas volunteer placements has proved an attractive prospect for those made redundant, and with jobs scarce, career breaks have increased. The hit taken to personal savings will see the number of career break volunteers drop, however this is likely to be offset by the high number of UK school leavers taking a gap year as fewer spaces are available in UK universities due to quotas implemented by the government.
A change can be seen across the charity loan market. The Charity bank has stopped issuing small loans (under £100,000), and other crediting agencies have added restrictions for loan use and increased acceptance criteria. Grants are also harder to come by. Grant donors that acquire their funds that they donate from financial services will be making fewer grants, and competition is now higher with more applications due to drops in personal donations.
A positive impact on charities can be seen in the micro-volunteering sector. A relatively new concept, micro-volunteering is the donation of up to an hour of help to a charity for a specific task. More people out of work, but in the case of Great Aves, unable to make the trip abroad, help from the comfort of their own homes with consultation, online expertise, marketing, research and fundraising. Domestic based organisations are also seeing a rise in the number of people offering their time. An involuntary redundancy opens up a number of opportunities to provide the proverbial silver lining to the cloud. A change to enhance the CV with volunteer work, make a career change by doing an internship or if taking further education, partake in a study abroad program.
Talk of a ‘double dip’ recession, and companies and individuals rebuilding confidence in the financial market make the rest of 2010 and the beginning of 2011 somewhat of an unknown quantity. Charities make an industry out of looking for the light at the end of the tunnel, and getting the most out of what is available, and Great Aves is no exception.
