Welcome to our first edition of Charity News Review for 2025.
2024 was another tough year for the charity sector – for many members trying to address rising demand whilst facing a challenging economic backdrop. However, a new year brings with it a sense of optimism that, by working together, the ACO community can continue to maintain their remarkable resilience and deliver vital, targeted support to their beneficiary audiences.
From our point of view, it’s been a busy start. Following the tremendous response to our benchmarking survey at the close of last year, we are currently working on the analysis of the responses with our colleagues at Clergy Support Trust and look forward to publishing our findings next month. Key themes emerging from this work will form the basis of our Spring conference in May, hosted by Evelyn Partners.
At the same time, we are excited about the development of our next report, focusing on what the future looks like for occupational charities – reflecting areas such as changing beneficiary demographics, new service models and the potential impact of AI. Drawing this project together, we will be speaking to colleagues throughout the network over the next couple of months and we look forward to these conversations shaping our conclusions.
On a final note, our partners at 360Giving are calling on more ACO members to share their grants data in time to contribute to the next edition of UKGrantmaking.org, due to be published in Summer 2025. This will help provide a deep dive on grants provided to individuals but is reliant on a wider volume of contributors. We strongly urge colleagues who haven’t previously considered publishing their grants data via 360Giving to take a look at the potential benefits this could provide their organisation – further details in the article below.
In the meantime, we look forward to working with our members throughout the course of the year, providing a forum for sharing the collective skillsets and expertise that runs through the ACO community.
The year awaits!
Donal Watkin
Chief Executive
This month’s edition features:
- Upcoming ACO and wider sector events
- Jobs board
- Member spotlight on The Drinks Trust
- Guest article from 360Giving
- Member news
- Policy and sector news
- Publications