Esther Rantzen: Charities will merge to survive

After the terrible case of Baby Peter Connelly, it is said that referrals of children at risk are up by 40 per cent. How do we look after these children, how can we support families on the brink, if we as a nation are running out of money fast? Given that it seems inevitable that the statutory sector must lose jobs and withdraw services, can charities step up to the plate, and do more of the job? Or will the public feel the pinch, stop donating money, and will the charities themselves, especially the smaller charities, go to the wall?

As chair of ChildLine for 20 years, I have been here before. It was especially tough for us in 2005. The year had started with the tsunami, then over the following months the world was shattered by crisis after crisis; the famine in Africa; the earthquake in Pakistan. It seemed that every news bulletin was filled with children facing starvation, or being carried out of crumbling buildings. And yet at ChildLine we knew from the phone calls we received (an average of 5,000 callers a day), that Britain's children needed us as urgently as ever. But as international tragedy followed tragedy, with the appeals for the victims of the tsunami, and campaigns including Live 8 and Make Poverty History, a domestic charity like ChildLine slipped out of the nation's list of priorities.

The right move to merge

By June 2005 our donations had only reached half of what we needed, and by then we only had two weeks' running costs in our unreserved funds. We set up an emergency appeal to try and fund our night service. It was largely ignored. Whereas on the day ChildLine launched in 1986 on BBC One I took part in 19 separate broadcasts, many of them in primetime news outlets, in July 2005 our emergency appeal was only covered on Radio 4's Today and ITV's lunchtime bulletin. As a journalist I understood why, there were just too many suffering children around for a news editor to include ours. But it meant that we had to face reality. It was at that point that I put to our trustees the idea of approaching the NSPCC to see if they would countenance the idea of a merger. They would, and they did.

In many ways it was the perfect fit. The NSPCC was already running a helpline for adults calling with concerns about children at risk. In addition, they had a number of services working with abused children, their witness support service, for instance, familiarising children with the court process prior to them giving evidence. And many projects helping children and families heal after the terrible injuries inflicted by abuse. Family friends of mine had been helped by these services, and told me how valuable they had found them.

So I knew we were fighting the same battles on behalf of children, and hoped that our cultures would not be so dissimilar it would create problems for them, and for us.

I rapidly discovered that the world was divided into two: optimists in favour of mergers, who said how much money would be saved by sharing "back office" functions, so that precious donations could be spent on the children, not on the office staff; and pessimists, who reminded me constantly that in the business world, mergers inevitably fail. Which is why I offer our experience, in case there are other niche charities, like ChildLine, struggling now as we were struggling then, which may be dreading the months ahead.

To merge, or not to merge? If there is another, bigger charity that might be amenable to the idea, the first question you need to answer is, do they understand, value and respect your work? It won't work if all they want to do is grab your database of supporters and run off with it. Do not underestimate the problems that can be caused by widely different cultures. ChildLine was a small, flat-managed volunteer-based charity. NSPCC is a large, social work-based agency, with a tradition of being tightly, steeply managed. We are still learning from each other.

Details matter. The NSPCC's first decision after the merger was to change ChildLine's logo from ChildLine's red to the NSPCC's green. It's odd how much our supporters minded that change. But in the end, there were other positive developments that were far more important to the welfare of children. For instance, the NSPCC created a brilliant business plan that has enabled ChildLine to launch an online counselling service alongside the phone service. In the past five years ChildLine has also been able to open two new call centres in Liverpool and Edinburgh, which would have been totally impossible without the merger.

Mutual benefits

The NSPCC has gained too. It now runs a service it can describe simply and easily, because ChildLine, as the cliche goes, does exactly what it says on the tin. So my hope is that one result of our merger is that we can find a way of becoming not only a large charity, but also a small one, ChildLine within the NSPCC offering supporters the choice. There are donors who prefer the strength associated with size, there are others (some influential politicians among them), who prefer the leanness and flexibility of little niche charities. Though as ChildLine ex-trustees remember only too well, that can bring you very close to the edge of the cliff when times get tough.

Do I recommend all small charities working with children should merge with bigger agencies? Absolutely not. If you are confident that at a time of stringent economies, your work with children can continue, then fine. But if not, then yes, go for it, whatever compromises are entailed, and whatever it costs in terms of personal authorship. In these tough times, the welfare of the children you serve must come first.

Esther Rantzen CBE is founder and president of ChildLine and trustee of the NSPCC