Biblical thinktank the Jubilee Centre is to cease day-to-day operations and all its team will be made redundant, it has been announced.
However, the organisation will ‘then move to operating in a new online mode’ led by its founder, Dr Michael Schluter, it says.
In 2021, recognising that the charity’s financial position was fragile, the trustees embarked upon a significant renewal of the organisation. The Centre’s revised approach, with a strong focus on ‘good business and a fair economy’, received a lot of support and interest, as well as coverage in en.
However the Centre’s financial fortunes have continued to deteriorate. The Jubilee Centre’s trustees said they had therefore, reluctantly, come to the decision that the Centre is no longer financially sustainable in its current form.
The trustees said: ‘Like many charities, our network has perhaps not been as vigorously renewed in the past as it should have been. We have many wonderful and faithful supporters who give generously, but the donor income has been falling for many years – such long-term trends are difficult to turn around in a short space of time. In the last year, we had begun to grow the network again and find new donors, but we have just run out of time. Finding support from third-party Trusts and Foundations has also proved challenging. This year the growing cost of living crisis has also stiffened the headwinds we face. For a range of reasons we have therefore found that we are losing donors faster than we can add new ones.
‘For those wondering about our cost case, we can confirm that huge efforts have been made this year to cut our operating costs (by 25% in total), including giving up our office and moving to a more virtual mode of operating; the problem we have faced is not primarily about costs, but about income falling at an unsustainable rate.’
Dr Ralph Lee, Chair of Trustees said: ‘The trustees deeply regret having to make this decision. However, we rejoice in the Jubilee Centre’s influence over many decades, and the legacy that it leaves, and the people whose lives have been shaped through its influence. Our prayers and good wishes go with Michael as he develops the next steps for the charity in its virtual format.’
