Cost of living: Charities face difficult winter amid crisis

Charities say they face a difficult winter as fewer people can afford to donate amid the cost of living crisis.

A woman who runs a charity that provides bereavement support for families who lose a young person said she was worried the sector would be hit hard so soon after the pandemic.

Prime Minister Liz Truss announced a typical household energy bill would be capped at £2,500 annually until 2024.

The Welsh government called on the UK government to provide urgent support.

Rhian Mannings, from Miskin near Llantrisant, Rhondda Cynon Taf, set up 2Wish after losing her son and husband five days apart.

Ms Mannings said she had real concerns about how the charity would cope this winter.

"People need to be able to feed their families and keep them warm, giving to a charity may not be their priority at the moment," she acknowledged.

"It's really difficult, I've got a family and a house to run and I know how difficult things are, and they're going to get worse unfortunately."

Alongside Ms Truss's announcement for "typical households", the government said a new six-month scheme for businesses and other non-domestic energy users, including charities, would be offered similar support.

After the initial six months, the government said it would provide ongoing focused support for vulnerable industries, adding further details would soon be be published.

The cost of living crisis, fuelled by inflation increasing at nearly its fastest rate in 40 years, comes just as the UK is emerging from the Covid pandemic, which saw charities' funding plummet.

"We've obviously just come out of the pandemic, and that was an area we were worried about, and now we've been hit with this," added Ms Mannings.

"I do worry that we will get forgotten when people are looking at potential government support."

Elsewhere, senior managers at Age Cymru are providing support to staff to help them cope with the emotional pressures of supporting vulnerable older people through the crisis.

The charity said its support services were seeing a surge in the number of people in distress over their inability to pay their fuel bills and other cost of living increases.

"Support teams are at risk of compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma which can severely affect their mental health as they provide critical support to people in despair," an Age Cymru spokesman said.

"Fundraising income has fallen since the beginning of the crisis as people struggle to make ends meet and have less spare cash to support charitable organisations."

Another charity said it was already seeing the effects of the cost of living crisis on its operations.

Joseph Carter, head of Asthma and Lung UK Cymru, said: "Since the cost of living hit the news in April, views of our advice pages on financial support and lung conditions have shot up.

"Traffic to our information about benefits and severe asthma has increased fivefold and calls to our helpline have also increased by almost 150% from April to May of this year."

Mr Carter added it was "highly likely things are going to get even worse when the cold weather and flu season hits, both of which can make lung conditions worse, and will be compounded by the rising cost of living".

He called on the Welsh government and UK government to do more to help charities.

Lucy Howard, of anti-bullying charity Bullies Out, said the cost of living crisis would impact its staff and the people who might donate.

The Welsh government said it knew third sector organisations were seeing huge increases in the cost of heating, transport, food and other equipment.

"Our Third Sector Scheme enables us to reflect inflationary pressures where an organisation is in receipt of a Welsh government grant," a spokeswoman said.

"However, because the UK government has not increased the Welsh budget to deal with inflationary pressures in our own budget, we are unable to use this mechanism to help the sector deal with their own inflationary pressures.

"That's why we continue to call on the UK government to use the powers only they have at their disposal to provide the urgent additional support people, communities and our third sector organisations need."

The UK government did not wish to comment, but referred to its guidance on cost of living support.