A weekend in Essex prompts Robert Ashton to conclude that charities should look for new ways to pursue their mission.

I'm writing this in Essex. To be precise, in Maldon where Delia's favourite sea salt comes from. It's Sunday morning and we're staying in a very pleasant boutique hotel. Last night the restaurant was packed. As soon as a table cleared, within ten minutes new people came in, sat down and started spending. Our bill for dinner, with a bottle of house red, was £95. The recession has clearly ended in this part of the world.

Oddly, the hotel sits on the corner of a fairly nondescript industrial estate. To be fair the house, now our hotel, was built centuries before the shot-blast business appeared next door, but it does seem odd all the same.

Just around the corner is a row of small business units, some occupied by local voluntary sector organisations. I won't name them, but they're typical of their genre, providing information, advice, guidance and support to people struggling to make their way in the world. The difference between what I suspect happens there, and the Essex opulence of my hotel, is stark.

They have a scruffy entrance, faded sign and weeds growing where the concrete forecourt has cracked. My hotel has a waterproof red carpet from front door to roadside, with a canopy over it. I guess it's so you can escape your hired stretch limo and totter to the bar without getting your hair wet. Well, this is Essex!

But the real difference between my hotel and the voluntary sector hangouts round the corner is hidden. Here, the recession is over, people are spending and money is being made; lots of it. There, funding will be tight, with another round of public sector cuts making the outlook for 2014/15 very bleak indeed. As business begins to boom, third sector austerity deepens.

So what can we do? Well traditionally, government would tax those business profits and give some of it as grants to organisations delivering health and social care. But we've been there so many times before and all know that model's not very efficient. Bureaucracy and voluntary sector inefficiency can soak much of the money up before it hits the need.

So what's the alternative? Well, the place I'm staying employs 30 and no doubt has many local suppliers. Its popularity and success depend on its reputation. Did I learn anything about its community engagement and impact? No I didn't. Would it have made a difference to my decision to stay here?

Maybe not this time, but more often than not, given the choice I will always use a business that wears its social conscience on its sleeve. I've seen some great examples, most notably in Addis Ababa, where the best place to eat was the charitably run hotel school that transforms rural orphans into highly employable city chefs, waiting staff and more.

As we move further from recession there are some massive opportunities for cross-sector joint ventures. It's not about 'doing the right thing', but recognising that if asked, most people would prefer to spend their money with a firm that has a positive, local social impact. The alternative, a widening gap between affluent and disengaged, is wasteful as well as distasteful. And it's not about politics either, more the fact that people now want to do business with ethical, responsible and realistically inclusive businesses.

So if you're facing further funding cuts, think again. Who's most likely to help you out of your predicament? A bureaucrat sharing out funding cuts or a business community looking for innovative, interesting points of market difference? Go on, think about it!