All elections are important, but next May’s Holyrood poll seems more so than usual – set as it is to ominous mood music, an emboldened and enabled far right and a collapsing centre.

As I write this, First Minister John Swinney has renewed his party’s prospectus for independence, claiming that a majority of SNP MSPs will provide the catalyst for a new Indyref.

It’s an unlikely scenario – first because of Westminster’s intransigence and secondly due to electoral arithmetic, but the call is more intended as a pre-election rally to the SNP’s activist base, which has shrunk in step with its finances even as the party remains relatively buoyant in Scottish polls.

The other pro-independence force, the Scottish Greens, may struggle to stand still. It is under new leadership, but the turn out among party activists for the recent contest was truly dismal – 950 or so voted out of a membership approaching 7,000. This does not suggest a party which is engaging its footsoldiers – and despite the overwhelming growth of online campaigning, a ground game is still essential, especially for smaller parties.

It could also face a significant challenge to its left in the form of the still embryonic party crystalising around Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana. If this was to materialise (and time is running short), it could have a big impact given Scotland’s hybrid electoral system; there is clearly an appetite for it – it has reported 40k sign-ups in Scotland: that’s people interested in joining something which does not even formally exist.

Labour has a big task ahead making a breakthrough, mired in problems of its own identity and tied to a tanking UK government. It did well in Scotland at last year’s general election, but that was fought under different circumstances when the impulse from voters was to oust the Tories. Despite what some doom-mongers say, devolution has created a sophisticated electorate, capable of voting for different parties for different reasons in different polities.

On the right, the Tories could face a terminal crisis, as recent Holyrood defections to its (relative) left and right have shown. Its biggest challenge will be the rise of Reform, which looks set to establish a bridgehead at Holyrood.

Its growth here has been slower than down south – but though you might not want to look, the signs are there of it making significant gains in a country which has always complacently regarded itself as somehow immune to the far right.

This is the political context in which charities are now launching their election manifestos and asks, including SCVO (pages 16 to 18).

Politics is changing fast and charities will have to adapt. Stange things are happening – The Guardian is reporting that charities (as well as big business, which is always acutely aware of how the wind is blowing) are taking up stalls at Reform’s forthcoming UK conference, something which would have been unthinkable a year ago.

A changed political ecosystem, on a Scottish or UK level, changes the operating environment for the third sector, for good and for bad.

Let’s keep making our asks and demands, let’s keep campaigning for change, and let’s be ready to brace and then flex in the face of what’s to come.

Graham Martin is editor of TFN.