Charities across the UK are facing an avalanche of financial pressures, with factors including rising operational costs, funding challenges, and the growing demand for services all contributing to a challenging operating environment.
As a result, many charities are being forced to make tough decisions – whether that’s cutting back services, reducing headcount, or seeking strategic alternatives such as mergers to achieve economies of scale. Indeed, recent reports reveal a 90% year-on-year increase in charity mergers from 2023 to 2024, driven by a recognition that combining forces can create greater impact, reduce duplication (where mission and values intertwine), and bring about financial stability.
While operational integration is often the main focus during consolidation, managing both internal and external communications is just as crucial – and too often overlooked.
By their nature, charities face unique reputational risks, heightened scrutiny, and a diverse array of stakeholders. A poorly managed communications strategy can jeopardise public trust, damage relationships with donors, invite damaging media narratives and cause distress to service users and employees.
This article outlines key considerations for senior leadership in navigating communications during a charity merger, with a focus on reputational risk, stakeholder messaging, media management, timing, and legal collaboration.
- Plan Ahead
Don’t wait until the ink is dry to start planning your communications. Transparent, proactive communication is essential from the earliest stages.
Staff, trustees, service users, volunteers, and funders all need to understand what’s happening and why at appropriate points in the process. Mergers often trigger anxiety about job security, changes to services, or shifts in identity. Having a communications plan in place early helps address concerns before rumours take hold.
Think through the different phases: internal consultation, external announcement, ongoing updates, and post-merger engagement. Map out who needs to know what, when, and through which channels.
- Avoid Generic Messaging
Stakeholders can spot a cut-and-paste message a mile off. While many merger announcements use similar language (“shared values,” “like-minded missions,” “increased impact”), these phrases mean little without context.
Take time to articulate why these two organisations are a good match. What makes this merger different? How will it benefit beneficiaries, staff, and communities in concrete terms?
Be honest about the challenges too. Authenticity builds trust; glossing over hard truths can damage it.
Segmenting your messaging is essential. Different stakeholders have different priorities and concerns, and a one-size-fits-all approach will fall short:
- Staff and volunteers: Transparency and reassurance are key. Staff need clarity on roles, timelines, and the rationale behind the merger. Early engagement, Q&A sessions, and regular updates help prevent rumours and reduce anxiety.
- Donors and funders: Emphasise the strategic alignment and expected impact gains.
- Beneficiaries: Focus on how the merger will improve or maintain service delivery, access, and impact.
- Partners and collaborators: Provide clarity on operational changes, points of contact, and continuity of joint programmes or services.
- Regulators and government bodies: Ensure timely and compliant disclosures with the Charity Commission and relevant funders where required.
In the case of mergers, the tone across all communications should be open, empathetic, and consistent with each charity’s values and voice.
- Develop a Common Purpose
For a merger to succeed, everyone needs to be aligned on the why. However, in practice, different leaders, boards, or staff groups may have different understandings or motivations, whether financial sustainability, service innovation, succession planning, or funder influence.
Facilitate early conversations between both leadership teams to surface the core story: What problem are you solving together? What future are you building? What will success look like?
This narrative must be consistent across all communications including internal updates, external press releases, board briefings, and beneficiary engagement.
- Engage Stakeholders Throughout
A merger announcement is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning of stakeholder communication. Staff, beneficiaries, and funders will have questions, concerns, and suggestions as the process unfolds.
Build in opportunities for two-way engagement: town halls, Q&A sessions, listening groups, surveys, or one-to-one conversations. Provide updates at regular intervals – even if there’s little new to say, silence can create mistrust.
Remember that different audiences need different levels of detail. Trustees might need detailed financial forecasts, while service users may simply want reassurance that support will continue.
- Align with Legal and HR
Employment law, contracts, and governance are central to any merger – and your communications must reflect that reality.
Work closely with your HR and legal teams to ensure that any updates shared with staff are accurate, appropriately timed (in sync with board approvals and regulatory notifications to avoid breaches of fiduciary duty or legal obligations), and fully compliant. Be particularly mindful of TUPE (Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment) regulations and the need for formal consultation processes where applicable.
Legal advisors can help strike a careful balance between openness and necessary discretion, avoiding overpromising or misrepresentation. Regular check-ins between communications leads and legal advisers ensure that messaging remains legally sound without becoming overly cautious or sterile.
- Marketing: Tone and Timing Matter
Branding and marketing can be powerful tools in a merger, but if handled poorly, they can alienate key audiences. For example, launching a slick rebrand or promotional video too early may be seen as premature, especially if jobs are being lost or services scaled back.
Stakeholders may worry that identity, culture, or mission is being sacrificed in favour of PR.
Take a sensitive, phased approach. Ensure that any marketing outputs are grounded in the new shared story you’ve developed, and that they reflect the tone appropriate to your audiences – especially service users.
- Avoiding Negative Media Framing
The media plays a powerful role in shaping public perception. In the absence of clear communication, journalists may speculate or fill the narrative gap with unhelpful interpretations.
To mitigate this:
- Develop a media strategy early. Prepare holding statements, FAQs, and press releases well in advance.
- Identify and brief spokespeople. Ensure that all public-facing representatives understand key messages and are trained to respond calmly and confidently under pressure. Ensure that all members of staff are aware and reminded that they should not speak to the media unless they are one of the agreed, public-facing representatives.
- Use balanced, constructive language. While positive framing can help avoid a defeatist mindset, for example talking about ‘strengthening capacity’ or ‘future-proofing impact’ rather than just ‘cutbacks,’ it’s equally important to be honest and clear about what’s happening. Euphemisms for difficult realities like redundancies can come across as evasive or patronising. The key here is to find the right balance: acknowledge challenges candidly, but don’t dwell in gloom or let negativity shape the narrative.
- Engage sector media proactively. Work with trusted journalists or sector commentators who understand the complexities of charity work to help shape a balanced narrative.
Maintaining message discipline and avoiding off-the-cuff comments from leadership or staff is essential – even seemingly minor misstatements can be amplified in the press or online.
Final Thought
In a charity merger, the way you communicate can be just as important as the merger itself. With reputational risk high and stakeholder trust on the line, charity leaders must approach communications strategically, sensitively, and proactively. By preparing early, tailoring your message, staying on top of timing, managing media risks, and working closely with legal teams, you’ll safeguard reputation, trust, integrity, and most importantly, the ability to continue delivering vital help to those who need it the most.
Tim Toulmin is Managing Director of Alder, a crisis communications firm that advises charities on managing reputation during challenging or potentially reputationally damaging situations. tim.toulmin@alder-uk.com