In terms of techniques, trends and comms issues, 2013 won't bring anything new and there will be no big surprises. The real concerns are not things like the move from desk-based connectivity to the more 'intermate', device-based communications: these things are happening already, and they are distracting us from the perfect storm of recession, government cuts, dwindling reserves, an over-crowded sector and the lack of differentiation that will hit in the coming year.

If a recent survey by the Charities Aid Foundation is right, one in six charities is concerned about facing a cataclysmic financial situation that will make it necessary for it to merge or go out of business. In 2013 only those charities that differentiate themselves from others will survive and thrive. So charities have to be brutally honest about what purpose they serve and why people should support them rather than one of the many other options in each sub-sector.

Communications in 2013 will need to return to what it should always have been - a way of reaching out to people and galvanising them to act in a way that will help us achieve our goals. We need to be ruthless about defining what this goal is and to whom we need to talk - no more trying to be everything to everybody and, as a result, being nothing much to anybody. No more going for everyone to get no one.

Thomas Edison, inventor of the light bulb and founder of the global corporation General Electric, famously said: "We have no money, therefore we must think." In 2013 we must be bold, inventive and ruthlessly thoughtful.

We must stop merely thinking that we have to do more with less and find out how to actually do this. It ranges from sweeping away the internal silos that all too often get in the way of being innovative and effective, to being single-minded in relentlessly understanding how to engage our audiences and to sticking no longer to the safe - and increasingly ineffective - ways of doing things.

In the words of Yoda: "Do or do not, there is no try."

Analysis: 2013 (Third Sector magazine)