When two became one – how we made a success of a charity merger

Two weeks ago, Kisharon Langdon held its inaugural dinner at Grosvenor House, welcoming 830 guests and raising £2.2 million of the £4.5 million needed to sustain our vital services, supporting hundreds of people with learning disabilities and autistic people at every stage of life.

A significant milestone for us, the dinner represented just how far we had come in the last 18 months after initially merging Kisharon and Langdon charities together to create one of the largest charities in the Jewish community.

The first dinner for either charity since 2019 and the first since we had merged to become Kisharon Langdon, this was no small feat. To us, it was more than a fundraiser. It was a show of what can be achieved when charities aim to create better communities for the people they support.

The decision to merge the two charities was not taken lightly and for those who were supported by both, it made complete sense. The decision was also backed by extensive research conducted with sector specialists. When we looked at the services provided by each charity respectively, we saw that many people who had come through Kisharon’s nursery and school had then attended Langdon’s college and programming activities.

Richard Franklin and Michelle Janes of Kisharon Langdon (Photo: Kisharon Langdon)[Missing Credit]

Moving into adulthood, both organisations had a strong track record for providing supported living and employment opportunities, including a breadth of social enterprises and training. It really became a question of how we could offer the highest quality, most cohesive and impactful wide-reaching range of services for the people supported by both charities, while also looking at how we could be more efficient with charitable funds.

Merging two well-established charities was never going to be completely straightforward, each coming with their own organisational cultures, operational systems, branding, identity, governance structures and services, to name just a few. There were anxieties from staff, lay leadership and people we supported and their families about what it might mean for them.

Our priority was to ensure that the level of support we offered to those who used our services was consistent and would not diminish. That assurance was a key tenet of moving the merger forward. It had to be. If we couldn’t guarantee to maintain standards while also making change, we knew we would be unable to instil confidence that the merger would improve provision.

Raphael, supported by Kisharon Langdon and a pupil at Kisharon Noe School reads toast at the Kisharon Langdon inaugural dinner (Photo: Leivi Saltman)[Missing Credit]

While the bare minimum was to sustain our high quality of services, our aspiration was to develop, improve and grow. We were pleased to see our day services increase from 20 sessions a month pre-merger to 140 post-merger.

Supported living is now offered to over 160 people across Golders Green, Hendon, Edgware, Borehamwood and Manchester, with many more on the waiting list.

Our 142 pupils and students across our nursery, school and college are now part of a wider educational partnership that works cohesively to consider the educational journey through childhood into adulthood.

Over 90 adults are now engaging with our employment services, and 87 people work within our social enterprises including our bike shop in Hendon, the public library in Childs Hill and our New Chapters online second-hand book business in Harrow.

Our Kodesh Jewish Learning is thriving, not just in our educational institutions, but the Jewish Way of Life team has expanded to adult learners too.

Our Friday night dinners now attract 60 to 70 people, which is triple the number pre-merger. It is fair to say that we have successfully broadened our services and now reach more people than ever before.

[Missing Credit]Kisharon Langdon trustees at inaugural dinner 2025 (Photo: Leivi Saltman)

Service provision was not the only driver for change. A key impetus for merging the two charities was driving efficiencies and savings of at least £500,000 in back-end office costs, which frustratingly have been close to outweighed by increases to national minimum wage and national insurance contributions.

That aside, it is all too easy to make the mistake of thinking that a merger would not have upfront and ongoing integration costs. Harmonising back-end office functions and teams comes with a price tag of not only additional resource, but some staffing roles being no longer required. Minimising redundancies as far as possible is important, but it is not always avoidable.

One of the biggest challenges, but also opportunities, we faced was creating a new structure that reflected what we needed to realise our ambitions and goals. For example, investing in integration and transformation was a key reason the role of chief transformation officer was created. We also knew that establishing a new shared culture and identity was going to be essential to the operational and strategic organisational development and delivery. Embedding our organisational values of respect, integrity, community and excellence has provided an anchor to our purpose and mission, bringing people together and serving as a solid foundation on which to build.

Having a clarity of purpose has given us the ability to work towards creating the kind of community that puts the individual and their needs at the heart of how we offer and deliver our services.

This touches on only a few of the considerations we have addressed over the past 18 months. We hope that by sharing some of our experience to date, we can provide at least a glimpse into some of the challenges, as well as the great benefits and successes, of merging two charities.

[Missing Credit]Kisharon Noe School pupil, Annaelle, deliving the toast to the King at the Kisharon Langdon inaugural dinner 2025 (Photo: Leivi Saltman)

Our advice to anyone considering a merger is to be as clear and aligned as possible around what and why you are merging. Be explicit about your vision for the organisation, consider your purpose and beware of mission drift. Do not underestimate the resources you will need up front to make the process of merging a success, and do not be under any illusion that a merger is the panacea for all ills.

Be prepared for an interesting journey, full of expected and some unexpected challenges. Have hope and confidence in the opportunities open to you to make improvements, broaden provision and increase impact. If all of that is possible, imagine the kinds of transformative and inspirational communities we can create for the people we care about.

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Richard Franklin is chief executive and Michelle Janes is chief transformation officer at Kisharon Langdon