Figures from the Central Statistics Office show that 13 per cent of people in Ireland, more than one in eight of us, are at risk of poverty. It’s a shocking statistic for a country so used to promoting itself as one of the richest per capita in Europe.
While it is true that Ireland has never been wealthier, the demands on its charities have rarely been greater.
Despite nearly full employment, Ireland still has large numbers of people living below the poverty line, and many more suffering from deficits in a range of areas including health, education and housing.
What’s more, our charities are having to meet increased demands on their resources at a time when many individual donors are still grappling with the after effects of the cost-of-living crisis.
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According to The Wheel (the national association of charities, community groups and social enterprises) more than 900,000 people, including more than 80,000 older people, currently cannot afford necessities.
Despite this, Irish people are generous to those in need at home and abroad. Last year crowdfunding platform GoFundMe celebrated five million donations here, amounting to €250 million in giving by people in Ireland, maintaining Ireland’s status as the most generous country on the platform globally.
But apart from generosity and need, the number-one factor that fuels charitable giving is a sense of trust.
Unfortunately, this year trust in the sector took something of a battering, thanks to trouble at the country’s largest housing charity, the Peter McVerry Trust, arising from what this newspaper referred to as “rampant misgovernance”.
And although the issue was localised to just one charity, trust issues can harm the sector as a whole.
“It has been a mixed year, with highs and lows,” explains Jesse Wiesblatt, acting director of fundraising and marketing at Focus Ireland.
The homeless advocacy and services group, established by long-standing activist Sr Stanislaus Kennedy, works with people across the country who are homeless or at risk of being so.
“Being closely linked in that space, it has been really important for us to focus on trust in our communications, making sure it is paramount in everything we do,” she says.
Thankfully the charity’s big consumer-facing campaigns, such as its Big Busk initiative, and its annual Shine a Light event, weren’t affected.
Internationally, the headline crisis this year has been the plight of Gaza, with mounting horror over the civilian death toll there. A range of organisations, including Unicef, ActionAid, the Red Cross and Médecins Sans Frontières are all running fundraising campaigns to help.
The number of families needing our services has increased this year over last, which impacts on our waiting lists
— Stephen Moffatt, Barnardos
Many of the same organisations, including Concern, have been running urgent appeals for Sudan and Somalia, where the prospect of famine looms.
Back home, the fact that the homelessness crisis here now afflicts more than 14,000 people, including 4,000 children, kept Focus Ireland top of donors’ minds. “Every month we are releasing figures that are going up and up. Demand for our services is incredibly high. Last year 16,000 people used our services; this year it is 18,000,” says Wiesblatt.
One of the challenges charities face this year is that while inflation has stemmed, the price of many essentials has remained high.
“We’ve stopped talking about the cost of living but it hasn’t gone anywhere in terms of the demand on us. We see the impact of it. But what we still see too is that the people of Ireland are incredibly generous. They might not be able to give as often or as much, but they are still giving,” she says.
To counteract the impact on individual giving, like many charitable organisations, Focus Ireland has worked to diversify its income streams, focusing on corporate giving as a counterweight.
“It means we are not relying on one set of donations and if one area goes down a little for a couple of months, it gives us that wiggle room to ride those waves and lean into the different areas we have,” Wiesblatt explains.
In recent years one of the biggest challenges facing all not-for-profits has been difficulty matching other sectors in terms of pay, which makes it hard to recruit and retain staff. This year that pressure seems to have abated slightly.
“It hasn’t gone away but, compared to this time last year, it has levelled out a bit, to where things are a bit more comfortable,” says Wiesblatt.
“We are able to recruit a bit quicker. But we have also gone back to the drawing board a little in terms of who exactly we are looking for and including people who maybe don’t have direct experience in fundraising, but have transferable skills.”
Barnardos is currently coping with sustained levels of need across all its services, according to Stephen Moffatt, its national policy manager.
“If anything, the number of families needing and requiring our services has increased this year over last, which impacts on our waiting lists,” he says.
Adding even more urgency to its fundraising appeals is the fact that the challenges faced by vulnerable children are now increasingly complex.
Instead of tackling poverty, poor parenting skills, mental health issues, addiction or homelessness alone, the charity is frequently supporting families struggling with a combination of concerns.
Often parents are struggling with diagnosed or undiagnosed anxiety or depression, or simply struggling with a sense of overwhelm. In other cases the charity is helping children struggling with bereavement or who are exposed to domestic violence, Moffatt explains.
“It might be families that are trying to improve relationships between parents and children, or trying to improve children’s routines,” he says. “In all cases we are looking at the wellbeing of children within the home and trying to make the home environment a more positive place for them.”
Not only does Barnardos work with people suffering deprivation, but far too often it is working with people suffering “extreme deprivation”, he points out.
“The number of children at risk of poverty has reduced slightly,” says Moffatt. “But the number of children who are actually living in deprivation has increased.”
