Mergers in the Third Sector
Written by Kerry Taylor, Director of Partnerships, BIG Alliance
In the private sector, the word “merger” often carries a heavy subtext – restructuring, cost-cutting, or perhaps a bit of Succession-style drama. It is a fairly alien notion to charities, or it has been until recently.
Since the successful merger of two refugee charities, Breaking Barriers and RefuAid, in 2025, the topic of charities merging has been on the rise. It is key to note, however, that Breaking Barriers is a perfect example that charities can merge not out of distress, but from a position of strength. These were two financially resilient organisations that joined forces specifically to sharpen their impact and scale their outcomes for refugees. The CEO of NCVO (National Council for Volunteers Organisations) recently spoke on a podcast about the need for charities to “stop treating mergers as a taboo subject”, with NCVO planning to launch a series of Merger roundtables and workshops.
Along with the strategic gains that merging could provide, we have to acknowledge that with tightening funding environments and heightened need, mergers may need to be a solution that our community organisations look at to continue fulfilling their mission. However, as many of our colleagues in the private sector know, mergers can bring a lot of uncertainty, change and turbulence, no matter the industry. ELBA and BIG are considering how to bring together the volunteers from our partners to support, in the right way, these conversations. One of these is a new, low-stakes volunteering initiative.
We know that the to-do list for a merger is daunting, ranging from aligning HR policies to the technical practicalities of integrating two different finance systems. We want to build a list of corporate experts who can offer initial, high-level advice to charities in the early stages of merger talks, covering sectors or expertise areas such as Marketing, HR and Finance. These short, one-off advisory chats could cover topics such as how do we approach telling our teams, or how do we merge the use of two platforms. So, whilst ELBA and BIG empathetically broach the topic with some community partners, we can have the support systems and resources to help them figure out their first step.
If you think you would have colleagues or teams interested, contact kerry.taylor@thebigalliance.org.uk
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[Image credit: “End of dual carriageway” sign, Marino, Holywood by Albert Bridge, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons]
