Bowel Cancer UK has put 40% of its staff at risk of redundancy because it expects its income to fall by £1.5m.
It has begun a 30-day consultation process on the redundancies.
The charity is expecting an income drop of up to 40% for 2020. This equates to a shortfall of at least £1.5m, down from its 2020 budget of £4.2m. It estimates it will need up to five years to recover to pre-pandemic levels of income.
The charity implemented a cost-saving programme early in the pandemic, which saw more than 50% of staff furloughed.
It employs 62 staff, with a head office in London as well as office-based staff in Edinburgh and Cardiff, and home-based workers in Northern Ireland.
Charities of all sizes have been making difficult decisions about their future. Last week Cancer Research UK said almost a quarter of its workforce is at risk of redundancy.
‘We are a small yet vital charity’
Genevieve Edwards, chief executive of Bowel Cancer UK, said: “We are a small yet vital charity supporting thousands of people affected by bowel cancer, and we have lost around 40% of our income practically overnight.
“We moved swiftly at the start of the pandemic to safeguard our charity and, despite the challenges, have remained focused on meeting the needs of people with bowel cancer throughout. I'm so proud of how we’ve been able to pivot our services quickly and innovate in difficult circumstances to make a real difference to people when they need us most.”
She added that faced with a huge drop in income and no other government assistance, “we have no choice but to make permanent cuts to our staff base, which is devastating for everyone at the charity and the bowel cancer community”.
Edwards said this decision has been made “with the heaviest of hearts”, but that the charity will move forward knowing it has the right strategy in place.
More than 40,000 people have visited its online coronavirus hub during the crisis.
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