The Guardian view on hard times for Britain's charities struggling to do more with less
The Guardian warns that 2026 will bring hard times for Britain's charities amid rising demand and a funding crisis. Austerity, the pandemic, and the cost of living crisis have increased the need for charitable services while central and local government funding has become increasingly inadequate. Charitable giving has declined to a new low, volunteering is down, and costs have increased due to the April rise in employers’ national insurance contributions.
2025 was particularly challenging for major charities. The Samaritans closed half of its 200 branches, Macmillan Cancer Support cut about a quarter of its staff and reduced hardship grants, and both Oxfam and Relate faced job losses or the risk thereof. Small grassroots charities are also struggling; for example, Voluntary Norfolk reported that around half of local charities feared staff cuts and burnout is rising.
Surveys by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) have shown that grants and contracts have not covered costs since 2020, and donations have declined, with the steepest drop occurring among younger donors. Institutions such as the National Trust have faced hostile culture-war campaigns, complicating the public-facing role of charities.
Labour’s civil society covenant, launched by Keir Starmer in July, aims to place the voluntary sector at the heart of civic renewal but requires concrete funding and staffing support rather than just rhetoric. The article situates the current squeeze within a historical context—from postwar welfare-state reforms to Thatcher's era, through Cameron’s big society, and now calls for a new golden age of voluntarism supported by transformative funding.
There are more than 160,000 charities whose preventive work saves public funds. The article argues for properly valuing that contribution and for a transformative injection of funds to enable charities to do more with less.
