Directory of Social Change is closing 

After more than 50 years of supporting hundreds of thousands of charities and community groups we are sorry to have to tell you that the Directory of Social Change (DSC) have appointed an insolvency practitioner to manage our closure. 

We want to thank everyone who has been part of DSC over the last 50 years. The excellence and empathy of every staff member, author, trainer, partner, supplier, funder, volunteer and trustee helped us to punch far above our weight and achieve more than we had any right to expect from such a small group of people. Thank you for everything you did to help us reach and support our beneficiaries, making them stronger and able to have the biggest possible impact. 

We have always worked tirelessly for the people and organisations we serve: the fundraisers, trustees, volunteers and small-charity staff who do the hard, vital work of making their communities better, often with very little. To everyone who picked up one of our guides, sat in one of our training rooms or Zoom sessions, searched Funds Online for the funder that changed everything, or came to one of our conferences: thank you for trusting us with your learning, and for sharing your challenges and aspirations with us. 

Our income-generating model enabled us to survive through five decades of charity infrastructure turmoil, and meant we could cross-subsidise our crucial policy and campaigning work with our own independent resources. But like so many of the charities we serve, we have been squeezed by the huge financial pressures facing the sector. Tighter budgets for our beneficiaries, rising supplier and NI costs, increased competition, changes in how people buy and learn, the growth of AI, and a funding landscape that does not favour causes as unexciting and never-ending as infrastructure have all contributed to an increasingly difficult situation that has eaten away at our viability. Despite the very best efforts of our staff and trustees, and appeals to key funders, we have been unable to find a way to continue. 

DSC was supported by a small, dedicated team, with all the challenges that entails. We promise you we did the best we could with the resources we had, and we can only apologise to our customers, colleagues, partners and supporters for making such a sudden exit. 

We are completely devastated that our work has come to such a sudden end. Twenty-five of our colleagues are losing their jobs, and we are doing all we can to support them. Charities and volunteers are losing a source of independent, affordable guidance and funding information that many of them have relied on for years, and we know smaller organisations will feel that most.  

What happens next. We will be working with our Insolvency Practitioner over the coming days and weeks to facilitate the full closure of DSC. During this time Funds Online will remain working for existing subscribers, and you will still be able to purchase books and digital downloads through our website.  No new course or event bookings will be able to be made, and anyone with existing course or event bookings will be contacted in due course.  

Staff emails are no longer being monitored, so for any enquiries, please contact [email protected]. We can’t promise a quick response, and are unable to offer any further comment or commentary on the current situation at this time. 

Finally, thank you to all of our supporters, whether you have been with us from the beginning or are only now hearing about our work. If you ever bought a book, booked a course, found a funder, read a blog or supported us over the years, we hope we helped you to make a difference. 

With gratitude, 

William Butler, Chair of Trustees
Debra Allcock-Tyler Chief Executive
Directory of Social Change