The first theme addressed in the State of the Sector series is advocacy.
Why advocacy? Well, in the State of the Sector 2023 research organisations shared:
- Funding applications are often too long, and bringing in sub-contractors to do work is difficult based on the timeline of a funding application.
- 39% of respondents said their annual income had decreased a little/a lot (n=157). Data from the focus groups suggests the decrease in income could be because funding grants are focusing on critical delivery related to the cost of living crisis, such as foodbanks etc., and so less money is going to other types of organisations.
- 61% of organisations reported the cost of living crisis has affected their organization’s financial sustainability. Mostly organisations have been impacted by the increasing cost of utilities bills and need to increase staff wages (in line with inflation).
- 62% of organisations indicated that demand for their services has increased a little/a lot.
- 65% of organisations struggle with volunteer recruitment.
Therefore, many organisations shared that to support with these challenges, we need to better advocate for the needs of the VCSE sector to those who are in the position to address/meet these needs, such as funders and organisations with corporate social responsibility objectives.
For this reasoning, the report suggests the following recommendations.
Hampshire CVS Network should:
- Use their position within the sector to better advocate for VCSE organisations needs. For example, highlighting the constraints of fundings applications to grant makers/funders and the resources required to complete bids.
- Encourage non-VCSE organisations to promote employee volunteering at local VCSE organisations and encourage them to provide and utilise employee volunteer schemes (where applicable).
We’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions on these recommendations on Jamboard (follow this link to access the Jamboard).
- Do the findings from the report reflect your experiences?
- What are the current challenges/barriers associated with the cost of living crisis that you think funders should be aware of?
- How would you like non-VCSE organisations to engage with you, regarding the provision of volunteer support for cost of living activities?
- What other stakeholders need to be involved in conversations about VCSE sector needs related to the cost of living crisis?
- What specific actions could be undertaken to make these recommendations happen?
For example…
You may have experienced an increase in utilities bills, so you’d like opportunities to discuss with funders ways to acknowledge this challenge within the funding they offer. Or perhaps you don’t have time to seek new volunteers, so you’d like to be added to a database for corporate organisations to approach you about volunteering opportunities they’d like to contribute to.
Whatever your ideas or thoughts are, we’d love to hear them – so comment on the Jamboard (access the Jamboard via this link) or send us a tweet via @ActionHants
Why are we sharing this with you?
Recently, we launched our State of the VCSE Sector 2023 report, which details the current successes and challenges faced by Hampshire’s VCSE sector. If you haven’t seen the report, you can find it here: follow this link for a copy of ‘Hampshire’s State of the VCSE Sector 2023’ report.
At the end of the report are a series of recommendations, based on four consistent themes identified throughout. These are: advocacy; funding; networking; volunteering. We’d love to work with you – VCSE organisations in Hampshire, to create actions to address these recommendations, which is why we’ve started this blog series – “State of the Sector: What’s Next?”.
Every day this week, we have been posting a blog on one of the recommendation themes, to kickstart discussion between VCSE organisations on a Jamboard or social media (wherever you’re reading this!), with the purpose of generating ideas for how we could collectively tackle the report recommendations, including issues related to the cost of living crisis.
You might also be interested in the below blogs:
- Follow this link to the blog – State of the Sector: what’s next? – Finance
- Follow this link to the blog -State of the Sector: what’s next? – Networking
- Follow this link to the blog -State of the Sector: what’s next? – Volunteering – coming soon
