Dear friends 
 

Happy 2026.

As a new year begins, maybe you find yourselves, like us, looking ahead with a mix of emotions. Hope, frustration, determination, concern, and not a few questions that you would love the answer to.

Many of us working as activists and social change-makers are starting the year reflecting on what has been carried through the past year, what feels sustainable for the year ahead, and what needs to change in order to keep in service to our beneficiaries and cause. With that in mind, we’re starting the year by sharing:
 

• a blog on organisational resilience as a way of thinking about how charities can look after their people, adapt to change, and continue their work with care and intention, and
   
• an invitation to come together at this year's Small Charity Friendly Collective's Annual Conference 2026. 
  
  

We hope that your January is going calmly and peacefully.

Until next time!

Warmly

The Embrace Finance Team 
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Small Charity Friendly Conference 2026 
 

We are proud to be a founding member of the Small Charity Friendly Collective, a self-organising, skills-sharing group of sector consultants. This year we will be holding our 4th(!) annual conference, kindly hosted by Gunnercooke LLP.

We are still firming up the theme, but something pretty drastic has to happen globally, if uncertainty and its antidote, resilience, isn't in there somewhere.

Please do save the date and join us. It's on 16th April. It's free. The last 3 were lovely, warm, celebratory events. Booking opens soon and we will update you when it does. And if you have suggestions for great sessions, please do let us know. 

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Here for the Long Term

Why investing in organisational resilience helps navigate today’s

pressures and still be around for tomorrow’s beneficiaries

The sector is under pressure 

We don’t need to read much of the sector - or indeed local or national - press these days to be acutely aware that organisations are operating in increasingly uncertain and challenging times. Financial instability, rising demand, workforce pressures, and constant change have become part of everyday organisational life. What once felt exceptional now probably feels all too routine.

The reality of where we are

Across the sector, charities are restructuring, merging, or closing altogether. Local authority funding is shrinking, increasingly short-term, and highly competitive, often requiring organisations to deliver more for less while absorbing greater risk.

At the same time, demand for charitable services continues to rise. Communities are facing multiple, overlapping pressures, and charities are often stepping in where statutory provision has withdrawn or reduced. This leaves leaders having to take increasingly difficult decisions, with one of the hardest being when to say yes and when to say no.

And let’s be honest, given the amount of money available globally, no charity should ever have to say no. (We could go further and say no charity should ever need to exist in the first place, but that is another blog).

You say sustainability, we say resilience

Organisational resilience is one of those terms that is bandied around without much specificity. It is not uncommon for resilience to be used interchangeably with sustainability, for example, but the two concepts really are very different. Sustainability is being able to generate a stable or growing income. It is built by looking in and down at our operating model. Think activity-based budgeting, full cost recovery, and earned income generating. Building financial sustainability is a valid goal for any charity. Unfortunately, it is not a realistic option for every charity at all times. 

Resilience, however, is available to every charity
Resilience is looking up and out at what’s coming up ahead and responding accordingly. Think horizon scanning, reserves (deficit) management, and adaptive leadership. That may well mean stability, and, happily, at times, growth, but it could equally mean temporary service reductions or organisational contraction, to expand again later, when times allow. 

Frustratingly, all too often, contraction is seen as failure and something to be avoided at all costs. Trustees and Chiefs frequently share with us that contraction can feel like a failure of leadership and a source of personal shame. For us, it is anything but. To follow the ebb and flow of funding and murmur like starlings, expanding and contracting as circumstances allow, to keep going decade after decade is far from failure. It is often a brilliant survival strategy. It is resilience in action. 

To continue reading about resilience building please visit our blog. 

That’s all for now. If you have a resilience story or resource to share, get in touch and let us know :)

This blog is from the resources bank of the LBFEW Organisational Resilience programme designed and delivered by Tom Watson and Liz Pepler.

Dear friends 
 

As the current year comes to an end and many of us pause for Christmas, we wanted to take a moment to reflect and to say thank you.

Over the past year, we have really valued the time we have spent learning together; sharing stories about the challenges of building sustainable futures, exploring new ways of building lasting resilience, and working together in our shared commitment to a fairer and more inclusive world. All of this has given us hope and renewed determination as we look ahead.

As we take this end-of-year pause we thank you for being part of this community and for all that you bring to it. We look forward to working alongside you in the year ahead.

With warm wishes for Christmas and the year ahead,

The Embrace Finance team

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