Bold steps in times of VUCA: volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity

Introducing Now You’re Talking Therapy

It’s no secret that the pandemic and cost of living crisis have put a strain on the charity sector. The market for grants and funding has become extremely competitive, and for those of us that supply customer-funded services to supplement charitable income, getting customers through the door is increasingly difficult.

We’re operating in times that are best described using the acronym ‘VUCA’. ‘VUCA’ was coined by two American sociologists and stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. It denotes that things are in constant flux, which makes it difficult to plan ahead and predict what’s to come.

It’s during times of VUCA that those of us within the charity sector must decide whether to sit back, go with the flow, and wait to see if things return to normal, or take a bold step in a different direction, adapting to new challenges and circumstances.

At TLC: Talk, Listen, Change, we’ve decided to go with the latter approach.

Until now, we’ve always delivered counselling and therapy via a sliding scale payment model. We’ve maintained the ambition to never turn anyone away and provide free counselling for those on low incomes where possible.

The model has worked for us up to a point. We’ve supported people who were able to pay the full cost of counselling, and used a combination of surplus income, grants, and funding to supplement counselling costs for people on low incomes. We’ve maintained the same high-quality service across our whole client base.

The problem now is that due to the increased cost of living, there are more people than ever falling into what we consider a low-income bracket, and therefore, there are less people who can afford full-priced counselling. And with grants and funding harder than ever to get hold of, we’ve needed to seriously think about how to keep our services running.

The bold step we’ve taken is to establish a new company. It may sound counterintuitive during times of VUCA, but after months of planning, forecasting, and Board meetings, we’ve confidently developed a sound business plan.

Our new company is Now You’re Talking Therapy — a provider of counselling and therapy services that offers customers choice, flexibility, and assurance that the support they receive is of the highest quality, delivered by a trustworthy charitable group with a 40-year history.

Now You’re Talking Therapy is a profit-for-purpose organisation; meaning that the profit generated is donated back to TLC. Rather than having customer-funded and free counselling sitting under one organisation, they will now sit under separate organisations as part of the TLC group.

The delineation of customer-funded and free counselling serves two major purposes. First, it enables us to market our services to specific groups of people, and in turn, acquire feedback and make adaptations to better suit the needs of those individual groups. Second, it communicates a clearer message to trusts and grant providers about why we need extra income for our charitable arm, and how it will be used.

The profit-for-purpose element ensures people know that when they book with Now You’re Talking Therapy, they’re helping fund the TLC charity to support more people with their services spanning domestic abuse, mental health, mediation and separation.

Now You’re Talking Therapy will initially be offering individual counselling and psychotherapy and relationship counselling, with sex therapy, and children and young people’s counselling following shortly after. These services will be available to both individuals as well as organisations looking to provide this support to their employees.

Now You’re Talking Therapy will launch online nationally and in-person across selected locations in  Spring 2024. We’re extremely excited about what’s to come.

If you would like to be the first to hear when we open for bookings, please sign up for our newsletter at www.nowyouretalkingtherapy.co.uk.

The bold steps we’re taking have reinvigorated our staff and Board members during times of VUCA. We encourage everyone to consider change and innovation as a solution during this difficult period.