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Ep 52. Kathy Evans and Rosie Ferguson, former CEOs of Children England and House of St Barnabas: A conversation on charity closure and lasting impact
709 Plays1 month ago
In the nonprofit world, we often celebrate beginnings—new initiatives, fresh funding, and ambitious strategies. But what happens when a charity needs to close its doors? Does closure mean failure, or can it be part of a responsible, strategic decision?
In this conversation, Kathy Evans of Children England and Rosie Ferguson from House of St Barnabas explore the realities of charity closure: the challenges, the tough choices, and the lessons learned. We discuss how to ensure impact outlasts an organisation, the role of sustainability, and why ending well is just as important as starting and staying strong.
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Transcript
The Challenges of Social Enterprises
00:00:00
Speaker
The number of people who've said to me, could you not just find a billionaire who would bankroll it? And for me, we were a social justice charity. And if the only way for social justice charities to exist is to have a billionaire bankroll them, that is not a progressive social justice choice. So, I mean, don't get me wrong. If I'd known any billionaires, I would have asked them for money. Yeah.
00:00:21
Speaker
But actually, i don't feel i find it frustrating that the only way that social enterprises can thrive is through significant philanthropic backing from very wealthy people, because, of course, social enterprise can be mixed model. It's not one or the other, but it does feel like the there's a bit of crisis there in the kind of identity of those kind of organisations.
00:00:45
Speaker
I'd like the sector to reflect on how we have held up this idea that there is such a thing as sustainability if you can work it out. That it's about you as a chief exec being clever enough to work out the sustainability plan for this organisation because it must be there.
00:01:04
Speaker
Regardless, I don't actually think that's true. So i'm I'm really struck by like we weren't trading. We weren't we didn't have products out. We didn't have the huge ethical and emotional concern of having service users who relied on us.
00:01:20
Speaker
But we were still profoundly constrained and affected by the economy in which we were working.
Introduction to the Charity CEO Podcast
00:01:35
Speaker
Welcome to an exciting new season of the Charity CEO Podcast, where we bring you the stories and insights of remarkable leaders who are changing the world for the better. We talk to the movers and shakers who are driving positive social change, inspiring you to think big, act boldly, and make a difference.
00:01:52
Speaker
A huge shout out to our incredible global community of listeners spanning over 55 countries. Your thoughtful comments and feedback continue to fuel this growing movement, and we couldn't do it without you.
00:02:03
Speaker
To all of you who pour your hearts and souls into making the world a better place, especially those of you in the charity and nonprofit sectors, thank you for the tireless passion you bring to your work. This podcast is for you.
00:02:15
Speaker
I'm Divya O'Connor, and here's the show.
The Closure of Children England and House of St Barnabas
00:02:19
Speaker
The mission of the infrastructure organisation Children England was to change the world for children in England by harnessing the energy, ingenuity and expertise of the voluntary organisations that work on their behalf.
00:02:32
Speaker
The mission of the homelessness charity House of St Barnabas was to create a fairer and more inclusive society by breaking the cycle of homelessness and supporting people into lasting employment.
00:02:44
Speaker
Both of these much-loved institutions sadly closed their doors in 2024. Children England after 81 years and the House of St Barnabas after an incredible 178 years.
00:02:57
Speaker
This is a poignant and heartfelt conversation with the two final CEOs of these organisations who oversaw their closure. Cathy Evans of Children England and Rosie Ferguson of the House of St Barnabas.
00:03:09
Speaker
It is a conversation about business models and financial sustainability, as well as about both the burden and the joy of leadership. But above all, it is a conversation about hope and an important reflection that just because something does not work or work out, it does not mean that you have failed.
00:03:27
Speaker
Enjoy.
Icebreaker Moments with Cathy and Rosie
00:03:30
Speaker
Hi, Cathy and Rosie. Welcome to the Charity CEO podcast. It's wonderful to have you both on the show. Hello, Githya. Thank you for having us. You may be aware that I like to start the show with a few icebreaker questions. And as there are two of you today, I'm going to ask you three questions each.
00:03:47
Speaker
So question one, as a child, did you want to be when you grew up? And Cathy may be coming to you first. A few different things, but mainly and enduringly, I wanted to be a fashion designer.
00:03:58
Speaker
Somewhere along the way, I think I might have wanted to be a barrister, but that only lasted for about nine months. But yeah, fashion designer. In fact, when I went to university, I still wanted to be a fashion designer afterwards.
00:04:10
Speaker
Brilliant. And Rosie, how about you? I wanted to be a writer or a poet, I think. And I did actually study script and prose at university, but then haven't really used any of those skills. So somewhere in me, there is still an ambition that one day i will be a writer or a poet.
00:04:24
Speaker
But I am. We are all writers and poets, aren't we? Yeah. Indeed. So question two, what would you say is your professional superpower, Cathy? Elephant naming.
00:04:36
Speaker
Elephant naming. Yeah. Yeah. Do expand. i seem to have knack for spotting an elephant in a room, metaphorically, obviously. It's easy to spot a real elephant in a room.
00:04:48
Speaker
Yeah, it just seems to be a function that that it's not always needed, but when it is, I kind of get the sense of it and do it in a way that kind of helps people. and and i And I understand why that's something that's valuable, but not many people do it.
00:05:03
Speaker
When I've needed someone to do that, I've really appreciated it. That's fascinating. And Rosie, how about you? I think mine is teams is kind of I i think what I love and normally what you love is what you're best at is kind of bringing teams together of people and really working with that team to develop a kind of high performing and supportive group of people. That's what I love most about work. And yes, therefore, I'm going to claim it as my superpower.
00:05:29
Speaker
Excellent. And the final icebreaker, if you had the opportunity to interview anyone in the world, dead or alive, who would be and what one question would you like to ask them? Gosh, I feel like i I needed to run up to that one.
00:05:42
Speaker
I would, I mean, I'd love to have met, let alone interview Nina Simone. She's just a huge, huge icon, heroine for me. I don't even know you know what I would ask her. Just tell me how it feels to be, like, have your superpower.
00:05:58
Speaker
That's a nice one. I think I would go for a very personal one. I only met one of my grandparents and I never met my maternal grandmother. So I think I would just pick her and ask her about her life.
Mission and Closure of House of St Barnabas
00:06:10
Speaker
Lovely. so Cathy, Rosie, I'd like to start our conversation by hearing about each of your former organisations and their missions. Cathy, you ran the infrastructure organisation Children England and Rosie, you were the CEO of the House of St Barnabas. And sadly, one thing that you both have in common is that you oversaw the closure of these much loved institutions.
00:06:35
Speaker
So Kathy, I know that Children England closed its doors at the end of 2023 after 81 And Rosie, whilst the members club and charity was set up in 2013, understand that the House of St Barnabas was originally founded in 1846 and so had been going for 178 years until its closure in the last year. is that correct?
00:06:58
Speaker
the The charity in some form had been in kind of use of the building for that period. Yeah. Okay. So tell us about the missions of the organisations and what ultimately led to their closure.
00:07:12
Speaker
Maybe Rosie, if you want to kick off. Sure. So for people who don't know, so House St. Barnabas, we were a social enterprise private members club in Soho in London, working to break the cycle of homelessness inside a grade one listed building. And we had a chapel.
00:07:27
Speaker
The idea when the club was founded is that the club would generate a surplus to invest in the charity and that the homelessness charity would deliver holistic employment programs which would then be embedded and take place in the members club and that the impact for the participants would then be strengthened by having a community of private members club members who acted as mentors and employers and supporters to our participants.
00:07:56
Speaker
It was a brilliant idea And it had 10 years of incredible impact, but it was never straightforward. It was always a fragile model, but the pandemic and the subsequent challenges really made it impossible to sustain as the business side made consecutive losses from companies.
00:08:18
Speaker
2020 onwards, as did most of the hospitality sector, but we were in a position where the business was supposed to be subsidising a charity. So over over a period of about five years, we paced a fire, ah pandemic, a cost of living crisis, the shift to remote working and what that meant for hospitality, strikes. And then in the summer of 2023, our bar ceiling fell in.
00:08:43
Speaker
So ultimately, through that combination of things, our resilience was just eroded. I think it's a real shame that despite the sector building up social enterprise capability over the last decade or so, it was those organisations who'd built up that and earned income that were really penalised by
Children England's Journey and Closure
00:09:03
Speaker
the pandemic. And those organisations relying on traditional philanthropy,
00:09:07
Speaker
no judgment, but just the reality actually often thrived because donors were sometimes building up increased wealth. So I think obviously we ultimately were a social justice organisation and the minute it looked like the homelessness charity was starting to subsidise a private members club over the long term,
00:09:26
Speaker
It became untenable for us to continue. But yes, a very sad, ah very sad ending. Indeed. And I'd like to come back in a little while to talk more about the fragility of the business model that you referred to there. But Cathy, coming to you tell us about Children England. Yeah, I mean, we couldn't really be more different in so many different ways.
00:09:48
Speaker
So Children England started 1942. with a government grant from the Wartime Coalition government. It was a collaboration of seven of the leading, and even more old, children's charities running children's homes but at that time.
00:10:05
Speaker
And it was a really practical collaboration. Some of it was about organising the evacuation programmes that were going on during the war. But 1942 is not a coincidence. That was the beverage report.
00:10:17
Speaker
It was when the preparations really started domestically to really think about the the welfare state and the social reform that was promised for whenever the peace happened.
00:10:29
Speaker
So Children England was, I mean it was a collaboration. It didn't have staff immediately. It was hosted by one of the charities. I passionately love infrastructure, but it's really not the kind of charity work that you go out shaking tins for because it was our members who always were delivering the practice, doing the really practical work to support children and families.
00:10:49
Speaker
We were the kind of thing the hub of trying to talk collectively with government. I suppose the first... big initiative for Children England was the 1948 Children Act.
00:11:02
Speaker
When I came to work in the children's charity sector as a young adult, it was the Children Act 1989. By the time I was doing it being policy director at Children's Society, it was the Children Act 2004 that Children England was particularly So it's a bit but policy geeky.
00:11:19
Speaker
It's always small as a charity, but national. So we were born in the public service building air era, in which period quite a lot of other infrastructure organisations started too.
00:11:32
Speaker
And many of them haven't made it in a similar timeframe as Children England closed. I think that's about ah real fundamental shift in how government thinks about its relationship with the charity sector, the value or the need for an infrastructure and a relationship network with the charity sector.
00:11:52
Speaker
To be fair, I think the coalition government gave a very clear signal. We're not in this business anymore. We don't fund it. If your members like it, you can fund it. So we lost the government money is for the first time in 72 years when I became chief exec.
00:12:06
Speaker
So we then went from being a 72-year-old government-funded infrastructure body to finding a way to spend 10 years being charitable foundation funded independent policy and campaigning body but we couldn't make that last the cost of living was the last nail in the coffin but we were strategically using our reserves for the decade to try and become a different thing and i think we did a great job of that by the way while we were doing it but that does not a sustainability strategy make.
00:12:37
Speaker
Absolutely. And I'm interested to hear from both of you, at what point did you and your boards make the decision to close your respective organisations?
Reflections on Closure Decisions
00:12:48
Speaker
mean, you've both spoke of trigger points there.
00:12:51
Speaker
Rosie, you know, you were talking about the fire and the the ceiling falling in and Cathy, the loss of that government funding and then the wider cost of living. pressures as well. But talk to us about what point you actually made that decision and and how you made it.
00:13:08
Speaker
I think we first had a discussion about trigger points for closure in the first lockdown in May 2020. And we eventually went into voluntary liquidation in January 2024. So it was four years really of that journey.
00:13:24
Speaker
We worked holistically with people who'd experienced homelessness. So kind of hope and second chances were in our DNA. And despite the ridiculous challenges of the external environment, we did continue to have belief in the model We did borrow, we did invest, and we we actually continued to improve. But there were too many kind of successive rainy days, which i listed earlier.
00:13:48
Speaker
One of the challenges we had was that the contacts through this period changed so dramatically, particularly for the hospitality sector. And the trigger points that we set at one meeting became laughable at a meeting six months later.
00:14:02
Speaker
For example, i remember at one point, ah second lockdown was one of our trigger points for whether or not it would be possible for us to continue. Our hospitality offer was originally outsourced before the pandemic and the outsource provider carried the risk.
00:14:16
Speaker
But in the first lockdown, our partner walked away. we then retendered and opened after the first lockdown with a new partner, who then gave notice after a month because they said that it wasn't viable in that context.
00:14:29
Speaker
So at that point in October 2020, we had a decision or the board had a decision whether we wound up the charity at that point or decided to take hospitality in-house.
00:14:39
Speaker
We opted for the adventure of taking in hospitality in-house, which actually was remarkably successful considering what we were coping with. and but it meant a complete change in operating model.
00:14:51
Speaker
It gave us another three years of impact, but it also thrust us into a whole new level of risk in terms of cash exposure. So in the final phase, our trigger points ultimately came down to cash. and Actually, quite frustratingly, but also something for the team to celebrate is that the last few months we were open, we had some of the most successful months we'd ever had in terms of footfall in the club,
00:15:12
Speaker
in terms of membership growth, in terms of impact. So are the investments that we're making, similar to what Cathy said, had really they've really delivered. But sadly, we couldn't grow quickly enough to outstrip the increased cost base.
00:15:25
Speaker
And when our ceiling fell in we lost months of income. we weren't We had business interruption insurance, but our... the insurance paid out at the income that we'd received in those months in the previous years, rather than the budgeted income, despite the fact that we'd invested huge amount and that the the year before had been, we'd had loads of strikes. So loads of income had been, had been knocked off that we were expecting. So essentially it was an impossible situation and it was ultimately our reserves and resilience at that point had just been eroded and, and,
00:16:02
Speaker
we no longer had the resources to cope. So with that kind of final blow, so it was a case of ultimately in the last kind of six months, it just came down to cash. And Cathy? Well, there's a long story of how we took the decision and a short story.
00:16:14
Speaker
So, and I mean, the long term story is that we we started preparing what our trigger points would be and what our options would be to avert it 10 years ago. And and that was that was part of our response to losing the income source for for 80% of our expenditure for all of our previous life.
00:16:34
Speaker
So we did some serious thinking. The
Business Model Vulnerabilities and Philanthropy
00:16:37
Speaker
board did some really challenging thinking back in 2013 about whether we needed to close then, what our serious prospects were for replacing such a significant sole income source at all.
00:16:51
Speaker
how long it would give us to try, how long we had to try. And so we' we'd kind of laid the ground for being aware that this was a precarious process we were embarking on if we wanted to stay around but 100% change our our income model and our sustainability.
00:17:09
Speaker
It went hand in hand with becoming quite a different function, not just replacing income. And over the 10 years, there were a couple of points where the perpetual Jenga game of finding a new funding source or renewing an old one or coming to the end of one and replacing it was getting tight to a point where we might have closed.
00:17:32
Speaker
ah I gave myself a redundancy notice a couple of times along the way, but those were refunding efforts. This time, when we did decide to close, it had been a live dialogue in the board for at least nine months before the actual decision to close.
00:17:47
Speaker
So it wasn't just about being able to see it coming. There was still, I have to be honest, there was still a lot of sort of, oh, it's worse than we thought moments along the way. Some of that was long-term structural and we knew we needed to be ready for it.
00:18:03
Speaker
But then when you when you see the value of every pound you've got in your current account and your investments, just losing value in front of you.
00:18:13
Speaker
And then all of your suppliers doing their own pricing restructure in order to cover their risk of bankruptcy. There was a lot of very rapid shifting sand.
00:18:24
Speaker
in this in the six months up to the decision. Because we were membership body for children's charities, we'd been quite aware of some really kind of contentious, but also quite shocking sudden collapses of children's charities in that decade for children, beat bullying.
00:18:41
Speaker
These were things where I really need to give credit to the trustees. We sat around and said, what do we need to learn from this? How do we do it better if that's us next time? And that wasn't a criticism of any people in particular. It was just actually this isn't how we would want to go if we have to go.
00:18:59
Speaker
Let's try and do it well, not, you know, with disgruntled staff or people feeling aggrieved. And so that was part of an ongoing dialogue long before the decision to actually close.
00:19:11
Speaker
It's interesting, Cathy, how our ah stories and circumstances, you said, couldn't be more different in some ways. But some of the kind of underlying principles of wanting to act with, you know, being really focused on that integrity and forward thinking and trying to learn from yeah other people seems to, yeah, there's definitely kind of themes that resonate. Couldn't be more different, really.
00:19:34
Speaker
Rosie, I was quite fascinated by something you said earlier about the differences in the social enterprise versus the philanthropy model. And I think you were referring to the fact that actually a lot of COVID funding was made available by by foundations and philanthropists to support charities, and particularly during the pandemic. And I wonder if you could reflect a little further on the underlying vulnerabilities in the business model that you did talk a little bit before, and also from ah perspective of introspection, because I'm sure you both have have thought about this quite a lot reflect on if there was anything that you might have done differently. Yeah. So the from the fragility of the business model, I think
00:20:22
Speaker
What was magic about the House of St Barnabas model and our biggest challenge was that we were trying to do many things. So we were trying to be London's most vibrant and inclusive private members club.
00:20:35
Speaker
We were trying to be a progressive, transformative homelessness charity. And we were trying to be the custodian of two grade one listed buildings. If you took one of those things, it's still quite hard to do.
00:20:48
Speaker
so trying to do all those three things at once. And there were days when the three things all worked brilliantly. And it was like, this is the greatest idea that ever happened. And there there were days when the three things worked in conflict and the model was kind of fragmented and you had to prioritise, you know, you had to work out what to prioritise. And I think we are bored. We prioritise impact. We prioritise the values.
00:21:14
Speaker
We were absolutely committed to paying London Living Wage, despite the fact that that made us utterly uncompetitive with any other kind of and hospitality establishment or ah any other members clubs that didn't.
00:21:26
Speaker
But actually, you know, trying to do all those three things and malage manage the contradictions. made the model extremely, extremely challenging. And I think, albeit that it got by in a pre-COVID economy, the context in a post-COVID cost of living world where we hadn't had the resources or we hadn't made the surpluses to invest in the building either, made it increasingly kind of unsustainable. I think the the social enterprise model I think it's brilliant that the charity sector is has, over the last kind of 20, 30 years, developed more and more earned income streams. And there's been so much encouragement of charities to enter into that space.
00:22:05
Speaker
It really feels now, although there were kind of funds available, it does feel like those organisations were very much kind of punished for doing that in the pandemic. And the number of people who've said to me, could you not just find a billionaire?
00:22:20
Speaker
who would bankroll it. And for me, we were a social justice charity. And if the only way for social justice charities to exist is to have a billionaire bankroll them, that is not a progressive social justice choice. So, I mean, don't get me wrong. If I'd known any billionaires, I would have asked them for money. have lost them.
00:22:37
Speaker
But actually, ah don't feel, i find it frustrating that the only way that social enterprises can thrive is through significant philanthropic backing from very wealthy people. Because, of course, social enterprise can be mixed model. It's not one or the other. But it does feel like the there's a bit of crisis there in the kind of identity of those kind of organisations.
00:23:01
Speaker
In terms of learning about what I would do differently. i think the main thing is around taking, this is quite a specific thing, but taking professional advice earlier in terms of eventually we spoke to our auditor and they introduced us to some bro pro bono kind of corporate restructuring and insolvency support. And actually, i don't think anything different would have come out of that.
00:23:29
Speaker
But I think the moment that there was someone else telling me that what I was doing was the right choice and the decision and kind of supporting the decisions we're making, for example, because we were continuing to trade, we were continuing to replace critical roles and recruit. There's a question about whether it's ethical to continue trading and selling memberships when you're when you know that your financial situation is precarious.
00:23:52
Speaker
having the professionals alongside us saying, actually, you are duty bound at this point to continue trading and to make the best for the business. And it just took some of those...
00:24:03
Speaker
some of those things that as a chief exec you're holding of like every day there's a moral you' you're kind of living two lives because on one hand you're running and trying to make an organization as successful as possible inspire the staff inspire donors inspire confidence and on the other hand you're living with the reality that knowing that there's a 50 50 whatever the percentage chance is at each stage chance that you won't be here and that is I think probably the hardest thing about it really is to hold those two those two realities in one and having the professionals alongside, they they kind of just tell you what to do and what is the correct choice in this situation. and And although, yeah, if we'd engaged them earlier, I don't think ultimately we would have closed. We may actually have ended up closing earlier, but I think it would have taken some of that burden that me and my team carried in a quite long time.
00:24:54
Speaker
Cathy, I see you nodding vigorously as Rosie was describing holding all of that. So give us your reflections with respect to Children England.
Legacy of Children England
00:25:02
Speaker
Yeah, so it's brilliant listening to Rosie. We haven't actually spoken since we each closed our charities, but I think that's for completely different reasons.
00:25:11
Speaker
and It's strange to say, but I think I would have liked to have had a year to close because you know the things that we were able to do once we took that decision in the three months that we took to close.
00:25:25
Speaker
We had impact, we got we know we were able to galvanize evaluation of what we're doing, what we've done, what the value was. We had events, we recorded podcasts because we were free of that dilemma.
00:25:40
Speaker
on a rolling basis that that you don't go public with. So actually, the year in the run up to that decision was a combination of having to really quite publicly go out and sell passionately what we had to do and how brilliant it would be if we could get to do it.
00:25:57
Speaker
while privately planning in parallel for not being around to be able to do any of it. You know, that's a kind of a spirit and motive kind of thing. I would love to have done a year's closing campaign. We're not going to around for any longer. We've got a year to make an impact for children about all the work that they've done with us and how terrible the current economy and political system is for them.
00:26:20
Speaker
If we just freed ourselves to have that last year, it could have been incredibly powerful. But if we'd said a year in advance of actually needing to shut financially, we're going to shut, I don't know how that would have gone with our existing funders. It would definitely have raised questions about why you're declaring you're closed when it's not obvious that you have to.
00:26:42
Speaker
And i don't think the trustees would have been minded to just decide to close if there was a chance of us staying open. And these are really important things. things You're not meant to close a charity because you don't need it anymore.
00:26:55
Speaker
You know, you're meant to keep it going. That's the job of a trustee, pursue that mission. So i I think that's the only thing where I kind of feel like there was a events were driving us to a minimum period of closure when actually a longer period of closure might have given us time.
00:27:15
Speaker
a really good legacy to leave in terms of you know enabling people to really know you can stay with this organization for another year we're going to give it some welly but we'll also support you to think about your next steps where where that goes all of those things i think it would run into trouble to say we're we're just going to decide to close it but we've got lots of mission to pursue for one year interesting dilemma, I think.
00:27:40
Speaker
I think that's a really fascinating idea in terms of a year's closing campaign to build up a legacy. And talking ah about legacy, Cathy, reading Children England's final financial accounts, I was struck by something that your chair, Sir David Holmes, said,
00:27:56
Speaker
says, and he said, as a result of Cathy's leadership, Children England has closed, but its voice and impact can still be heard loud and clear. mean, staying with you for a moment, tell us a bit more about that legacy.
00:28:10
Speaker
it so is it I always really struggled with claiming direct impact as an infrastructure body, partly because of the nature of us. you know Everything we thought and knew and understood about what's happening for children and what's happening for charities, that all came from our members.
00:28:27
Speaker
Being proud of the work that they do, standing up for the children they work with, that was never only about us. So so this kind of culture in which we want singular credit taking by way of reporting what we did always sat difficult as very difficult for for me, in terms of charity reporting.
00:28:48
Speaker
But I was really clear, ah you know, that the only way that we could be having an influence on making things better for children is if we're influencing the dialogues that take place, the debates that happen, the culture in which our charities are trying to do best for children.
00:29:06
Speaker
So that's why we spent so long trying to really change the culture around commissioning and contracting and and KPIs and, you know, commodifying children by seeing it as a business.
00:29:18
Speaker
We spent 10 years doing that. So I, at least 10 years, we were doing it for longer, but we started campaigning on it and saying there were different ways for the last 10 years. David is very nice. And it's a great thing to have said.
00:29:32
Speaker
I think there are debates that are ongoing where I can hear the influence we've had on how they're being helped. And that that is a really, kind of ethereal abstract, it's not hard, you know, social benefit, value for money impact.
00:29:48
Speaker
But I do think it's real. One of the things that we said as we were closing and but really meant the last five years, we were at risk of closing in 2018. And we were refunded by our members and by some charitable foundations on the basis that if we could stay around, we would get kids to redesign the welfare state.
00:30:07
Speaker
So we spent five years doing that. It blew my mind. ah They blew my mind. It was so much better than I even hoped. And that work is still out there. Those young people have gone on with all of that experience of being and involved in a formative period of their years in peer research and thinking about policy reform and thinking about system change.
00:30:29
Speaker
They're all going on to put that into practice. They already were. They're already social changemakers. They're already committed. to public service to children. For example, one of the young leaders from that inquiry is now going to be working with ah the Department of Culture, Media and Sport on co-producing new re strategy.
00:30:49
Speaker
That's not Children England impact, but it's how it's a good example of how I think our influence on the sector and the things it wants to do and lobbies for and wants to change, I can still hear that.
00:31:04
Speaker
I think you're being far too modest, Cathy. I think the influence on the wider ecosystem is absolutely loud and clear. Thanks, Divya. And Rosie, for the House of St Barnabas, what do you feel is its legacy? I mean, what is the building now being used for, for example? To come back to the kind of wider legacy, and then I'll talk about the building. The the first thing we did was make, because we had participants who we'd worked with in the last year who'd been graduates of our Employment Academy. So we managed to pull together some amazing crowdsourcing and some of our trust funding supporters together.
00:31:39
Speaker
to pull together a year-long programme, a transition programme for those people. So that actually comes to an end this week. So we kept on three people hosted by Charity Only A Pavement Away to make sure that 50 of our graduates who we'd who we'd supported in the last couple of years had that transition support for a year so we were really proud to be able to pull that together quite quickly and make sure that everybody who had been kind of committed something by House of St Barnabas that was delivered and actually that team have delivered amazing results in terms of housing and jobs for those people so that was the very kind of tangible short-term legacy I suppose.
00:32:14
Speaker
I think the evidence base in our impact report around our focus was really on holistic, you know, to genuinely break the cycle of homelessness for people with multiple vulnerabilities.
00:32:26
Speaker
It's about good work, meaningful, good work that pays people at least living wage and gives people flexibility. And and it's also about a good home, which is affordable when you're in work.
00:32:38
Speaker
And it's about a good network of people who are going to be there to support you. And I think the real purpose for me of House of St Barnabas was to demonstrate that those three things and the so much of services around homelessness focus on one of those things and often they're quite detached and for us it was the because we were able to work quite intensively with small numbers of people the evidence really showed the impact we were able to make and that's all out there in the impact report and I hope will be will be considered by people.
00:33:05
Speaker
In terms of the club's impact, I suppose I regularly bump into people who tell me that they started their business at House of St Barnabas, they met their wife at House of St Barnabas. So I like to think that there's also a so whole load of creative and social projects that grew out of a few glasses of wine at the House of St Barnabas that we will never capture the legacy of. But I know that it's out there and everybody who was kind of involved or in any of those conversations, no, it's out there too. um In terms of the building, that is still currently with the liquidators who are undergoing a process of working out, offering it on a lease. It does have social impact limitations on the building, so it needs to be used.
00:33:44
Speaker
Again, it it can only be used for ultimately social impact purposes, but with but obviously it needs significant commercial investment. and So we will see.
00:33:55
Speaker
Watch this space. Well, it's brilliant to hear that you were able to put in place that transition support and that holistic support that has lasted a year beyond the closure. So I'm really pleased to hear that.
00:34:07
Speaker
I wonder if I might ask both of you to reflect a bit more perhaps on the human cost of
Emotional Impact on Stakeholders
00:34:13
Speaker
closure. We've talked a lot about revenue models and the financial implications, but Tell us about sort of the personal or emotional impact on on the people. We were always a small team.
00:34:23
Speaker
At closing, we were five people employed. We had more trustees and staff. And I think the trustees, I mean, the trustees really ah youre like kind of wrapped around. They were weekly working with me and the team about the nuts and bolts of making sure But if there's any advantage to being that small and that fleet of foot, it's that we can just pay all of our attention to people.
00:34:44
Speaker
We didn't have big fixed assets. We didn't have big liabilities. We'd spent the last decade really shrinking our closure footprint. We had nothing that was not even ah our lodgings were on more than a month's notice.
00:34:58
Speaker
So some of those really important things that you have to kind of handle in that period, we had minimised. And because we were going to end solvent safely without debts or assets to sell or any of those sort of things, we could just focus on handling people well.
00:35:17
Speaker
In the end, three of the five were chupied to continue their work because their grant funders continued had longer commitments for that project than we could sustain at Children England. So three-fifths of the work continues in terms of people. I think it's one of those sort of two parallel universes issues because I'd had my head in with the trustees so deep and long about the fact that we were heading towards closure and if so, when and if so, what, for so long that I had completely discounted.
00:35:47
Speaker
ah hadn't anticipated the emotional impact on so sector ah the that I then became very aware of and when we announced both privately, former trustees, former members, people that coming out of retirement and saying, I saw this.
00:36:02
Speaker
I'm absolutely devastated. Having fond memories of my time in the organization or, you know, feeling the loss for you guys, you know, the it was a huge emotional outpouring that firstly I hadn't expected in all of my thinking about people and there their impact. I'd forgotten to think about people who cared about the organisation but weren't in it.
00:36:24
Speaker
And then that had a huge impact on me in a way that I hadn't prepared myself for. because so much of it was really heartfelt expressions of care and concern and kind of being hurt on my behalf or disappointed or angry.
00:36:40
Speaker
I had to write out two weeks of my diary to do justice to the reach out that people were earnestly giving and also checking it out for myself because I ended up feeling like I was living through my own way. Wow. I know nobody was intending it to come across like that, but it was just this inundation of people telling you, I think you're brilliant. I'm so sad about this. And I'm thinking, I'm not gone.
00:37:04
Speaker
and It's not me. but But at the same time, kind of receiving that. so So there was all of that. I also just needed to say, you know, I wouldn't want to confuse the issue of the charity sustainability with the people past and present.
00:37:20
Speaker
But... COVID and the years during which we were dealing with COVID had such a huge toll on different individuals in the team on a personal level and a health level. And some of those were really long-term health impacts that didn't recover.
00:37:36
Speaker
And that meant that we were doing that duty that we had towards people. We were handling long-term and untreatable illness issues in the in a small staff team and wanting to handle those right.
00:37:49
Speaker
in a period where it was quite clear that if this drags on or we can't do it properly, there's not the enough attention to fundraising to stay around. And it's not simplistically the case that that made us close. It didn't. But it did take a critical year of attention and care and love and worry and sadness in a year when We could otherwise have been thinking bigger or differently about sustainability for argument's sake. you know and right Taking care of our people is not something you can just slot in, like burning the midnight oil once you've done all your funding pids.
00:38:27
Speaker
you know things Things fall by the wayside if we're looking after our people. And I still don't think... this Our country, the economy, our sector has really taken the time or found the space to really process how traumatic and impactful 2020 onwards has been on our people.
00:38:48
Speaker
e And Rosie, how about for you? Did you have a similar experience? So we had 65 staff and because we were trading as a commercial hospitality business, we were recruiting, you know, you if you're open, you need somebody to make cocktails and you need somebody to wash the dishes.
00:39:07
Speaker
So we were we were continuing to recruit operationally right up until... and Although we had shared the narrative, obviously we shared the journey with staff in terms of the ceiling falling in. We we needed a team who could sell and who could confidently be out there.
00:39:23
Speaker
You know, the best way through for House of St Barnabas, the only way through was to sell more memberships, sell more cocktails, drive more of an energy and momentum around the place. And therefore we couldn't have it feeling like a sinking ship. so So it was a real shock for our staff, even though they knew things had been challenging. We had held it at the SLT level. And I think we also had several conversations about the the moral, the kind of ethics of sharing sharing how difficult things were more widely and like the kind of um obviously a kind of desire to be honest but also how fair it is to put that burden on people whose job it is to to wait tables or manage events or like actually if they you know they had income targets and they were selling but to tell them all of your colleagues jobs relies on you so it was just we made the decision to keep it to keep it tight for both commercial and what felt like ethical reasons but it did mean that
00:40:20
Speaker
on the morning that we announced the closure, staff had turned up to work to normal, we moved everybody into a room. I wept, which I had not intended to do. And actually, probably one of my regrets is to have just held it together a bit more, my chair. And like, I managed to get the messages out that needed to say, but I wish I hadn't cried quite as much.
00:40:40
Speaker
But what was quite astounding about that was we made the announcement and obviously everybody, there was incredible shock in the room. But we had quite a good number of colleagues who had previously experienced homelessness because our model was bringing people through. And in that moment, the people who stood up were those people who said, i have been through terrible things.
00:41:03
Speaker
Like this organisation has given me belief in renewal. And incredibly, that was the tone that was then that was then set in the staff team on that day. So it ended up being a very...
00:41:16
Speaker
Very sad, very shocked, but very supportive. Whereas I feel like the energy in that room could have very easily turned to anger. And of course, all of those individuals would have gone through their own grief curve and people would have been angry and and all of that. But in that moment, it was those individuals who'd experienced homelessness who stepped up and really, really set a tone of kind of love and gratefulness and compassion and renewal, which was incredible. so I think obviously it was devastating personally to see all of those people then losing their jobs. And every time I see still on LinkedIn, somebody from House St. Barnabas gets a new job, I kind of have a have a real cheer because it takes somebody.
00:41:59
Speaker
It was such a, the culture of the place was so, warm and special and unusual I think it takes people. It's not something that you just, particularly those in the hospitality, you don't just go into another hospitality business and find that that culture and experience. so So yeah, it was it was huge for us, the personal impact. And also I share what Cathy said about all of those other people who come out of the woodwork who are grieving for something. And and the house was, the the idea of the house was so fabulous. And so many people were in love with the idea that like the kind of disappointment in its failure. And of course, whose fault was this? Why didn't we know about it? All of those questions, which are hard to ah hard to field. But
00:42:45
Speaker
I think we knew at the like trustee board and SLT level that we had done everything we could. and within that group, we had total confidence that, although of course we've all learned stuff and I'm sure, you know, it's not like, yeah I'm sure we could have nuanced things along the way, but we knew we'd exhausted the options that we had and we knew that we'd given it everything. So collectively within that group, there was never any sense of throwing anybody else under the bus. And that was so important because it would have been very, I almost felt like people wanted somebody to be thrown under the bus for it.
00:43:21
Speaker
And I was just really grateful that, although there was criticism placed in different places and challenging questions asked, as there should be, that as a board and senior leadership team, we were very much together on it.
00:43:33
Speaker
Gosh, I feel quite emotional just hearing the the both of you and clearly both Children England and House of St. Barnumas were such special, special places. And you both are aware that the audience for this podcast consists of colleagues across the charity and non-profit sector,
00:43:51
Speaker
So I wonder if you have any learnings or words of advice that you could share with other sector leaders from your experiences that could help other charities build resilience.
Advice for Charity Leaders
00:44:03
Speaker
I've got a random collection of things that I would say. It kind of relates back to the previous question a little bit, but I forgot about it. Probably blanked it out of my mind. But watch out for stress illness. i wasn't expecting it. So in that whole run up,
00:44:20
Speaker
to the decision and then the announcement and then handling the reactions to the announcement. I just got to the point of going right now, I've got a really clear list of things to do and I've got a very finite time to do it in.
00:44:31
Speaker
I got shingles. And just have never been in more pain than, I mean, it is absolute agony. Wasn't going to go anywhere for about six weeks. You know, your body will tell you what you've been absorbing and what you can't deal with anymore if if you don't recognize that that's what you're doing.
00:44:51
Speaker
And i didn't he I didn't see it coming. It made me immediately angry and completely immobile. Basically taught me to take time for myself. So don't don't underestimate how significantly you're using your energy or trying to put your energy into making it better for everyone else to the point where if you're not okay, none of it goes but is right.
00:45:14
Speaker
And I think... I'd like the sector to reflect on how we have held up this idea that there is such a thing as sustainability if you can work it out.
00:45:26
Speaker
But it's about you as a chief exec being clever enough to work out the sustainability plan for this organisation because it must be there. Regardless, I don't actually think that's true.
00:45:40
Speaker
So i'm I'm really struck by like we weren't trading. We weren't we didn't have products out. We didn't have the huge ethical and emotional concern of having service users who relied on us.
00:45:52
Speaker
But we were still profoundly constrained and affected by the economy in which we were working. So, you know, that affects the prices that we had to pay just to have the lights on or to have a computer.
00:46:07
Speaker
You know, we're all completely entwined with an economy. which is really not that easy to find to sustainability in.
00:46:17
Speaker
Really good businesses with brilliant products, loyal customers, they went by the wayside in the this combination of coronavirus lockdowns and then cost a cost living spike that nobody could afford.
00:46:32
Speaker
All of our funders were affected by that. Every part of the system where you might be able to go and think creatively about doing something different, we're all suffering. So I think we've kind of created this sort of very business swagger idea that sustainability is out there for the organization that you run. your You just need to be smart enough, dogged enough and clever enough to go and create it.
00:46:57
Speaker
And I don't think that's healthy and I don't think it's true. The sustainability trap. That goes to the heart of of how ready you are to accept that closure is necessary and it's not your fault.
00:47:09
Speaker
Indeed. A couple of practical ones and then um i'll I'll kind of follow on from some of what Cathy said. Two practical ones. One is that thing about talking, talk to your auditor.
00:47:20
Speaker
and ask for some professional help as early as you think you need it. Because I think we did get there, but I think we could have done that earlier and it just would have taken some of the stress off. The second very practical thing is I did so many Charity Commission serious incident reports.
00:47:35
Speaker
Like literally after every board meeting, I did a serious incident report and it really made me feel, and I think gave that support and to the board that we were being really transparent about everything. Although, of course, we couldn't publicly share what was happening.
00:47:49
Speaker
we were updating the regulator like regularly and they were coming back saying, we've read all of this, it sounds like you're doing everything you can. like Just getting that reassurance from the Charity Commission of like there's nothing, because just actually the stress of, are we legally doing what we're supposed to do and is our governance right? Although we had a really strong board, so I was reasonably confident in our governance processes. Having that assurance from the Charity Commission really helped and also There's a whole paper trail of the whole thing. If anybody ever, if anybody does ever want to go into it, which I can't imagine would be that much fun, but it knowing and that's all there, I think is really helpful.
00:48:25
Speaker
On the kind of stress point, I had been, i had experienced being off with work-related stress previously. So I was really aware of what the triggers were. And there was a point towards like probably three or four months before closure when I really was feeling those. And I agreed with my chair to go down to,
00:48:44
Speaker
to take basically one sick day a week, which was really helpful. and And what that did was enable me to, I mean, it wasn't so much that it was, I was still actually doing some work on those days, but it was a break from the two-facedness that I was having, because the thing that was stressful was that holding those two words.
00:49:02
Speaker
And it was a day when I just wasn't, I didn't have to perform to anybody else. And I didn't have to ah meet anybody else's expectations and I think actually i felt really proud of myself actually for having put in place something that was preventative because I think if I'd carried on working at the pace that was ah would have ended up being signed off sick for three weeks that would have been ah real crisis for the organisation at that time so by preventing taking those kind of preventative mental health days I really feel like that both that stopped me from getting to breaking point and and it meant that the organisation
00:49:36
Speaker
had more resilience with me being able to be there. So up ah that feels like a really practical thing. i did. And yeah, I really, really felt was positive. Yeah. And I agree about about the sustainability stuff. I also think the role at Luck, I was, my first chief exec role was at London Youth when I was 30.
00:49:54
Speaker
We were bigger organisation. i had very little experience. I'd only worked at London Youth and everything we touched turned to gold. We doubled in size I thought I was amazing at this chief exec, Lark. And then House of Barnabas, kind of 10 years later, i was more experienced, had a much stronger board, had a fabulous team around me, had so much more like knowledge and wisdom.
00:50:18
Speaker
And yet we ended up where we were. And it just really, so I think it really made me look back. Just so much of life is luck and circumstance. And the performance we had, i was the same leader in both situations. In fact, I was a better leader House of St Barnabas.
00:50:34
Speaker
But ultimately, I definitely now I'm kind of, you know, I claim my success is slightly less because I recognise you can't say that the hard times are, yeah, just the role of luck and in all of this. I feel much more aware of it. Well, it sounds like self-care through the process was incredibly important for both of you.
Hopes for Government Support
00:50:57
Speaker
I'd like to touch very briefly on the new government and what you would like to see the new Labour government do to support the sector. I mean, do you think we're likely to see more charity closures in 2025? What can the government do to support?
00:51:14
Speaker
I mean, take the sector seriously in what it does. I think the covenant that Akivo and NCVO have been developing has a lot of this in, in terms of really strengthening that relationship and broadening it beyond central government into kind of all of the different departments.
00:51:30
Speaker
Actually, i think If the economy gets better, things will get easier. I'm not sure there's loads of very specific charity interventions that are going to make as much difference as a better economy. That means that that money pours more rapidly in all directions. And I think actually... Having worked also because I think at the House St Barnabas it was also about hospitality and i so we were kind of part, had one foot in the hospitality sector and the challenges faced by the hospitality sector are just as enormous as those faced by the charity sector and the hospitality sector plays such a critical role in in our country. So
00:52:09
Speaker
I do feel I've had that slightly wider perspective as well in terms of actually we need this to get better for everybody but rather than and and charities charities can ride good times better than they can hard times.
00:52:22
Speaker
Cathy? It's always tempting to just say, please, please think more constructively about the value that you will get from spending money on charities. It's true. But I mean, I think that's a that's too broad brush. And it doesn't reflect the challenges that afflict the whole economy.
00:52:39
Speaker
There are lots of things that we've needed to hear and and see recognised that have started already with the new government. My biggest concern is that there is no change in the narrative about the role of public spending in a growing economy.
00:52:56
Speaker
What's been kept is the thing that I wrote about when we closed. It's this idea that we can't do public investment until the private sector has started generating enough profit to pay enough tax.
00:53:09
Speaker
to refill coffers. And that is the wrong understanding of economics, firstly. That's not how the welfare state got made. That's not how children are all got ah free state education or everyone got the and NHS.
00:53:23
Speaker
It's not. It's the opposite. It's that government's role in creating and investing money is a stimulus a growing economy. So I know there are some reversals of of what would have otherwise been cut.
00:53:37
Speaker
But particularly when I look at what's happened to children, what's happening to councils, there are still councils at risk of bankruptcy. An area with a bankrupt council is not going to be a growing economy.
00:53:48
Speaker
i And children in that area are not going to be thriving. And they're the future, both consumers and workers and entrepreneurs of the economy. So I think I remain very worried that we have an extraction managed decline model of the economy on which all of our beneficiaries rely as a charity sector. though The cost of living crisis isn't over because inflation went down to 2%.
00:54:15
Speaker
That just means that price rises have slowed, but all of the price rises have remained high. and wages and income and grants and generating trading income, they haven't caught up. So those are the big dynamics and I don't see them being changed and that's my big worry.
00:54:34
Speaker
i mean, in general for infrastructure, I don't necessarily see a case for going back to the public sector building era idea of government wanting and investing in charity sector to infrastructure.
00:54:48
Speaker
That's not because I don't think it's valuable. I think it was of its time and that time isn't coming back. But I do think we've really got to think about the economy, society, public service settlement and the partnership with charities in ah future era that isn't this marketised wealth extraction model that has brought the country to its knees.
00:55:13
Speaker
I'm not waiting for government to come up with that other model. I think our sector needs to come up with that model. And it's worth investing in it, doing and thinking about that before we we see more closures and the loss of the learning and the expertise that could do that rethinking.
00:55:30
Speaker
Cathy, Rosie, before we finish, tell us briefly what's next for you? What are you currently doing or working on?
Future Aspirations of Cathy and Rosie
00:55:37
Speaker
I am currently in an interim role at a charity called InterUniversity in a chief programs officer role, which has been a brilliant place to land for a year after going through that House of St. Barnabas. It's kind of young people, it's kind of back to my roots a little bit. And it's been a really, I've absolutely loved being here. And it's a great place from which to kind of rebuild my confidence and have just add some real value without being responsible for the whole thing.
00:56:05
Speaker
But I am entering 2025 with my mojo fully relit. Yeah, i'm I'm excited about whether it's another chief exec role or what other opportunities might come up. But I feel, yeah, I feel excited to to see what what comes next and definitely and will involve a kind of passionate leadership role in our sector because for all of its challenges, I love it.
00:56:28
Speaker
Brilliant. I love hearing that. And Cathy, what has relit your mojo? Oh, wow. so So I decided definitively to give myself time without jumping to the next thing.
00:56:39
Speaker
And I'm glad that I did. i didn't know where it would lead, but I did need that time to decompress and stop thinking like Children England. It's amazing how long it takes. to kind of stop that that organism from being part of my brain structure.
00:56:54
Speaker
So I did that. In the summer, I started doing some work for where I am at the moment for one of my brilliant members of Children England, the National Youth Advocacy Service, which, you know, it's a really clear, consistent, big, independent children's rights charity.
00:57:11
Speaker
So it only does independent advocacy, representing children in court, independent visiting for children in care. It's right in the system, doing children's rights work where children really need it.
00:57:24
Speaker
So I love their mission. I always have. I've gone there to start to help them start thinking about their policy and influencing as part their five-year strategy review. I'm hoping to stay because it's suiting me down to the ground, but that's to be decided. One of the things that i I was really aware of is that I think the sector thinks once you become a chief exec, that's what you will continue to want to be.
00:57:46
Speaker
And ideally, bigger organisations make it look like you've got a better career trajectory. And ah I mean, I never bought that about turnover and size anyway. But having accidentally become a chief exec in the first place, I definitely felt like I think I might need to not follow that path because it's a big ask.
00:58:07
Speaker
And I don't mean to say that as ah in a heroic way. You go from being really good at the thing that you got to senior management for and then you have to become a jack of all trades. And I don't know any chief executive who feels confident on every single part of the spectrum of tasks that you've got to go from governance to networking, to fundraising, to influencing, to speaking, to championing, to selling.
00:58:30
Speaker
Some of those I was appalling at. Some of them I still love. So I i kind of I'm treating myself to going back to the thing that I still love without while having brilliant leadership and team members who deal with the stuff that I wasn't very good at.
00:58:45
Speaker
And that's lovely. I'm not following this standard career path. If it's a step backwards, I don't care. Brilliant. Kathy, Rosie, this has been such an inspiring and a really moving conversation.
Concluding Thoughts on Resilience
00:58:57
Speaker
Thank you both for sharing so candidly. And as we are now coming to a close,
00:59:03
Speaker
What is one thing you would like listeners to take away from this conversation? Please give us, each of you, one final thought or reflection. ah Always be proud of what you're able to do and the fact that you're there and trying.
00:59:16
Speaker
I don't equate charity automatically with being just another kind of enterprise, but that is the spirit. of enterprise. It's to say, I've got an idea, I think I could make it work, or I'm going to go off down another road to see if I can.
00:59:31
Speaker
Well, it's that that you should be proud of and keep trying out. But also, please don't think that you're failing if it's not working. It's that spirit of persisting, but in the face of no certainty.
00:59:44
Speaker
that always excited me about the charity sector. if you You won't know if you don't try. And it can only work if you do, but it might not work. But keep going. I love that spirit. There's many, many weird and wonderful things about the charity sector, but that one unites them yes in my mind.
01:00:00
Speaker
I think for me, i suppose things that try and keep things in perspective, I think Sometimes it's helpful to remind yourself when, or I find it helpful to remind myself when I'm in the chief exec role, I am just one of however many employees.
01:00:14
Speaker
You are just one person and you're doing your job and everybody else is doing their job and the trustees are doing their job and you cannot possibly be responsible and hold everything. And I think particularly, yeah, that that's something I have to remind myself because I'm not very good at it because I think all of these employees' lives are my responsibility and actually... That's not true. You know, you you are doing one job. And yes, it's an important job.
01:00:37
Speaker
And it's a job we have to take seriously. But you are only one person and you can only do one person's worth of job. And I suppose the other thing, which is a bit cheesy, but ever useful is this too will pass.
01:00:48
Speaker
You know, whatever you're going through now, however challenging it is, You will find a way through for the organisation and for yourself, whatever happens. And endings are as much a part of life as beginnings.
01:00:59
Speaker
Can I just back Rosie up on that one? I think it's one that if I would said to. I'm definitely keeping my pride and my celebration of the fact that I closed the charity well as part of my career pathway rather than blip in it or the thing that didn't go.
01:01:16
Speaker
Right. I think we all need to get really comfortable with learning from bad things, mistakes, things that didn't go right, because that's actually much richer learning than than saying, look look at how great this is. And it all went brilliantly.
01:01:31
Speaker
Cathy Evans, Rosie Ferguson, thank you. It's been a real pleasure having you both on the show. Thank you so much.
01:01:40
Speaker
Well, that's a wrap on another inspiring episode of the Charity CEO Podcast. I hope today's conversation left you feeling empowered and uplifted. I know it did for me. If you loved what you heard, please share the joy by leaving us a quick review on your favorite podcast platform.
01:01:56
Speaker
Reviews really help us reach more listeners and grow this amazing community of change makers. Be sure to also hit the subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And for even more inspiration and resources, head on over to thecharityceo.com.
01:02:10
Speaker
There, you can dive into our past episodes from the last five seasons and find valuable content to help fuel your impact. Thank you for listening. And remember, together, we're building a better world.
01:02:22
Speaker
See you next time.