Philanthropy: From Crisis Response To Crisis Readiness

This summer’s sweltering heat has provided an uncomfortable reminder of how one form of societal stress can affect us in a number of different ways.

 A succession of days above 30°C has had a ripple effect across public health, transport and agriculture, leading to disruption as well as school closures. We are seeing time and again that crises do not occur in splendid isolation. In recent years, the pandemic, geopolitical conflict, inflationary pressures, disruption to international supply chains and climate-related events have overlapped in ways that have amplified their consequences and reduced the capacity of communities, institutions and civil society to absorb them.

The conventional model of crisis management has typically assumed an identifiable event, followed by response and then recovery. The question for philanthropy now is not simply how effectively it can respond when a crisis occurs, but what role it can play in improving readiness before it does. This approach is reflected in the Government’s own Resilience Action Plan, which seeks to adopt a “whole of society” approach, recognising that national resilience cannot be delivered by government alone. Individuals, businesses and civil society all have a role to play. The Government’s approach is moving towards “all hazards” preparedness: developing capabilities that can be adapted to different forms of disruption rather than attempting to construct a separate response to every conceivable crisis.

In a charity context, this translates into having systems, processes and networks in place to address the practical consequences of a crisis more effectively. For example, the ability to identify vulnerable people, communicate effectively, distribute assistance and mobilise volunteers frequently depends on organisations and relationships already embedded within communities. Those relationships cannot readily be constructed after an emergency has occurred. This was a recurring theme in a discussion on philanthropy and crisis response that we recently had the pleasure of hosting: resilience begins at household and community level, and effective preparedness depends as much on trusted relationships and local capability as on formal emergency planning.

There is, however, an important tension. The voluntary sector is routinely expected to provide additional capacity during periods of disruption. During the pandemic and subsequent humanitarian emergencies, charities demonstrated their ability to mobilise volunteers and resources at considerable scale and to reach communities that statutory agencies can find difficult to engage. Government resilience policy now expressly recognises the importance of that role.

At the same time, the Charity Commission’s 2025 Charity Sector Risk Assessment identifies financial resilience as one of the principal risks facing the sector. The pressures identified during the panel discussion extended beyond finance to the availability of volunteers and the capacity of smaller community organisations in particular. There is an evident tension between increasing reliance on civil society as part of the country’s resilience infrastructure and the resources available to sustain that capacity.

For philanthropy, this raises a question about the balance between response and preparedness. Emergency appeals have obvious advantages. The need is immediate, beneficiaries can be identified, and the application of funds can generally be demonstrated relatively quickly. Preparedness is more difficult. Its benefits may arise several years later and successful intervention may principally be evidenced by harm avoided rather than a readily identifiable output. Unlike crisis response, its success is often measured not by what happens, but by what does not happen.

There is nevertheless a clear economic case for earlier intervention. The Government’s Resilience Framework notes, for example, that every £1 spent by the Environment Agency advising on flood risk in the planning system has been estimated to save £12 in future flood damage. The precise return will necessarily vary between interventions but, at the risk of stating the obvious, investment before an event occurs can be substantially more efficient than meeting its consequences afterwards.

Philanthropy has a potentially distinctive role here. It is not to substitute for public expenditure or assume responsibilities properly belonging to government. Its value lies partly in its ability to operate differently. Philanthropic capital can be patient and flexible. It can support organisational capacity and local networks, finance collaboration and preventative interventions, and accept longer time horizons where the eventual benefit may be difficult to measure through conventional outputs.

The structure of funding also matters. Recent emergencies have demonstrated the value of established mechanisms through which resources can be deployed rapidly as circumstances change. Flexible funding, longer-term relationships and trusted intermediaries can enable organisations to adapt without having to construct new arrangements in the middle of a crisis. In that sense, the capacity to respond quickly is itself partly a product of investment made before the response is required.

There is a governance dimension to this as well. The Charity Commission’s risk management guidance asks trustees to consider risks arising from the wider environment, including economic, social, political, technological and environmental change, and whether their charity will remain able to meet beneficiaries’ needs in the future. In an environment characterised by overlapping and persistent disruption, organisational resilience is therefore not separate from the effective delivery of charitable purposes.

Emergency response will remain essential and will always trigger a philanthropic response. However, the changing risk environment suggests that greater attention should be given to the conditions that determine the severity and consequences of an emergency before it occurs.

The shift from crisis response to crisis readiness is therefore less about predicting the next crisis than about developing the capacity to deal with whatever form it takes. For philanthropy, that means considering not only where resources are required today but also what investment in organisations, communities and systems will leave them better placed to respond tomorrow.

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