Budget 2025: Urgent Call for Government to Invest in Charity Governance and Maximise Impact

Given the enormity and urgency of the issues that society faces today, we call on the Government in our Budget 2025 submission to invest in charity governance, in the knowledge that increased capacity and better systems  means more people helped, more communities supported, more challenges met. 

Many charities struggle to build the organisational capacity and scale necessary to really tackle the big social challenges.  This is not surprising, given that donors and funders want to support programmes, but not the organisations that deliver these programmes.  This must change; simply providing programmes will not deliver lasting results. Great programmes need great organisations behind them.  Our submission calls for all public funding agreements to cover governance costs and to establish a €5m fund for audited charities to recover governance and compliance costs.

By investing, the government’s policy to develop Philanthropy will be more effectively achieved.  Philanthropic donors can partner with confidence with resilient organisations to ensure that funds are used where they have maximum impact, quickly and efficiently delivering support to the people and places most in need.

The contribution that Charities make to Ireland’s society and economy is often overlooked because, unlike other sectors, no meaningful research or data is collected to track its importance and validate its contribution. And the sector matters. In a recent Charities Regulators report, it was estimated that charities employ over 280,000 people (based on 2021 Annual Report data).  With service demand and employment growth, this figure is now closer 300,000, With total employment standing at 2.71 million as at Q1, 2024, charities employ 11.1%, or almost 1 in every 9 workers.  We’re calling for more investment in real-time data to measure the sector’s true economic and societal value.

Download - Budget 2025