Into the Shadows: What Emerges if you Look Beneath the Surface of Endings?

In the second of two blogs, we offer a window into what The Decelerator’s work is revealing about civil society. These are insights that speak to the deeper value of paying attention to endings.

Every four months, The Decelerator pauses delivery briefly to reflect on what we’re learning through our work supporting civil society organisations with endings — closures, mergers, leadership transitions, or project wind-downs.

This April, our Deceleration Month focused on a key question:

What patterns or trends have we noticed in recent months — and how might we share them externally as field notes from the realm of endings?

In the second of two blogs (catch up on the first blog here), we offer a window into what The Decelerator’s work is revealing about civil society. These are insights that speak to the deeper value of focusing on endings. We share them hoping that they might help you make sense of what you’re seeing in your own corner of civil society.

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This could have been a 20-page PDF. But no one reads those. So here are three key patterns we’re noticing across our work supporting charities and nonprofits anticipate and plan for endings at a time of considerable uncertainty and change.

1. Funding Anxiety is Fuelling Sector-Wide Instability

Looking at The Decelerator Hotline’s data it’s clear that charities in receipt of public sector contracts e.g. legal aid, children and youth, carers, and health are being hit hard by delayed, reduced or withdrawn public funding.

Philanthropy is also undergoing significant shifts, with many trusts and foundations pausing, rethinking strategies, or spending down entirely. For instance, data released last week by Migration Exchange shows that 63% of refugee and migration funders have conducted strategic reviews in the past two years, directly influencing their funding decisions. Although overall funding to the refugee and migration sector has increased, its distribution is uneven—favouring certain organisations over others based on size and location—just as the total number of organisations in the sector is growing overall.

It’s not a refugee and migration sector pattern alone. Everywhere there appears to be a shift towards fewer, larger grants (a shift that is welcome news for many!) available at a time as the number of organisations seeking funding increases. This is a recipe for instability if it’s not properly appreciated or understood. We’ve also had some insight into forthcoming 360Giving data which also indicates no clear signs of a philanthropic collapse with spend out decisions and pausing not spelling a decrease in the funding available overall — not a perspective we’ve often heard reflected in the general chatter and gossip in the sector. Feelings of uncertainty prevail and are to an extent valid. But perhaps not for the reasons you might be hearing in mainstream narratives about “what on earth is going on right now?”

When it comes to all funding sources, what’s arguably having a profound effect is how change is unfolding. Sudden, opaque, or poorly communicated funding decisions seem to be on the rise. And last-minute changes of decision and direction seem to be creating evermore confusion and apprehension.

At the same time, even the most diversified of organisational business models are struggling to hold steady and maintain confidence in a time of rising costs, shifting income streams and societal economic hardship. In this context, funding sources are a material thing to point a finger at when looking to explain why things feel so hard in civil society right now. A more straightforward and material thing to explain the pain than the myriad other more slippery sources of uncertainty and insecurity.

And the strain isn’t just being felt on grant-receiving sides of the line either. Funders tell us they’re also overwhelmed. We’ve heard stories of funders being flooded with applications for even the smallest of project-based funding pots. Fundraisers have never had an easy job, and it’s arguably harder now than ever before. And in that context, many suspect that AI is having a radical and disruptive effect as it has unleashed fundraisers’ ability to submit applications in bulk. Which in turn is overwhelming many funders attempting to review and process applications in a timely, orderly manner.

In the midst of all this, and at the simplest level, it seems there is considerable sector-wide panic. Strategic decisions on all sides of the funder and fund-receiver divide seem to be being made in a context of crisis and fear, not clear-sightedness and confidence.

2. Scarcity (and Fear of It) Is Driving Conflict

60% of hotline callers with funding challenges also report organisational conflict. Part of what seems to be driving this trend is that fear about financial concerns leads to paralysis or rash decisions. As boards freeze under pressure, senior teams also fracture, and deep disagreements surface about what is the best way forward.

In one case, a frustrated, verging on angry CEO said: “My trustees are like rabbits in the headlights.” In another, internal tensions derailed meaningful planning.

We’ve also heard reports of anger and frustration directed at funders.

Everywhere we look, we can see emotional strain spilling out.

Public examples like Prince Harry’s Sentebale might have been discounted by some as purely the result of high profile people and their egos. But we see those sorts of strategic and relational breakdowns on a weekly basis on The Hotline. These breakdowns can block organisations from reckoning with the reality of their situation and making decisions rooted in clarity and shared purpose.

Alongside this, we often hear from leaders on The Hotline expressing fear or shame that “closure / ending will happen on my watch.” These are real and valid emotions which speak to widespread and deeply cultural perceptions of endings— but when combined with deepening conflict and growing uncertainty, they can cloud judgment and weaken the foundations needed for timely, brave, well-considered scenario planning.

We believe the path to better outcomes lies in tending to both our individual and collective nervous systems, resisting the urge to oversimplify complex funding shifts, and creating spaces that go beyond simply diagnosing what’s wrong and pointing fingers. Instead, we need practical, compassionate environments that support leaders and organisations to face difficult decisions — even when there are no easy answers — in service of the people and communities civil society exists to support.

3. A Sector-Wide Reappraisal Is Underway

Beneath the strategic and financial strain lies something deeper: a collective reckoning about the purpose of civil society.

At our Council of Elders gatherings in February and early May this year, the conversation centred on questions like:

• What is the role of charity in a shrinking state?

• Should philanthropy break one of its unwritten rules and step in where the government has stepped back — and on what terms?

• With the proliferation of new ways of organising civil society — from movements to fiscal hosting — is there a fundamental shift underway in how civil society is organising itself? Is that being properly appreciated by more traditional or institutional spaces? How might established organisations evolve to work with, not in spite of, these shifts?

• And can any of us oversee the loss of once-vital organisations — perhaps even lose our own jobs in the process — without feeling like we’re watching the sector’s purpose unravel before our eyes?

Here are three archetypes — three different ways of viewing charities and civil society — that we’re noticing come up regularly on Hotline calls when people explain the rifts in their organisation:

1. Charity and civil society as “Good Works”. This archetype views charities as places where “lovely people are doing lovely things.” It reflects a vision rooted in the sector’s Victorian-era origins—one of benevolence, moral duty, and individual acts of kindness. Often expressed as “we’re not a political organisation,” this perspective emphasises doing good without necessarily challenging underlying systems or engaging in broader social debates.

2. Charity and Civil Society as Business. This archetype frames charities as efficient, scalable, and market-savvy organisations—driven by outcomes, growth, and performance. It gained prominence in recent decades, particularly as governments commissioned the sector to deliver public services. Under this vision, charities operate with private-sector discipline, innovating and scaling to seize funding opportunities and meet service delivery demands.

3. Charity and Civil Society as Justice Agent and Platform for Systemic Change. This archetype envisions charities as bold, justice-led organisations working collectively to tackle the root causes of inequality. It sees all charitable purposes as interconnected by the structural injustices that underpin society’s challenges. From this perspective, it is not enough for charities to focus solely on their own missions—they must also speak out, challenge systems, and act in solidarity with wider movements for social change. More in Common’s Progressive Activist research, published in February 2025, surfaced themes we notice regularly on Hotline calls.

These archetypes are overly simplistic; in reality, many of us embody elements of all these perspectives. That said, we’re hearing stories of these viewpoints clashing in boardrooms, partnerships, and strategy meetings, particularly vividly in discussions about funding shortfalls and budget deficits. And because these positions can sometimes align with generational, racial, or gender identities, these divisions seem to be becoming more entrenched, and the conflicts around them are rapidly intensifying.

We’re not here to pick sides. After all, no single person or organisation can, or should, dictate the future shape of civil society. What The Decelerator aims to do is illuminate the patterns and differences we see, uncover the deeper forces behind the sector’s crises and paralysis, and, in doing so, create space for honest, courageous dialogue.

These deeper questions are relevant to endings because what matters isn’t just ‘the end’ itself, but also about how it creates the foundations for what comes next. Endings, whether forced by circumstance or chosen from a range of options, always have the potential to unlock legacy, transformation and renewal, something that most people in the sector we talk to agree is desperately needed.

So What? What We’re Doing Next

• We’ll share these patterns widely: We’ll continue to share these and other patterns in Hotline conversations, partnership work, and external communications. Too often, leaders say, “I feel like we’re the only ones dealing with this.” Naming the trends helps people see themselves in a broader story — and take next steps from a place of perspective, not isolated paralysis.

• We’ll keep listening: These are today’s patterns. Tomorrow’s patterns will evolve as society, funding, and civil society itself continue to shift.

Better Endings Need Us All — What You Can Do

• Let us know what you’re seeing from your position in civil society: This is just one perspective about what’s going on right now. That’s why we want to hear from you. The more we share what we’re noticing, the more we can build a sector that doesn’t fear endings, or the conditions that are making them inevitable, but sees them as openings for renewal, regeneration, and recalibration.