The National Council for Voluntary Organisations will introduce a system under which about a third of its 100-strong workforce will be on furlough at any one time.
The umbrella body said it had asked staff to volunteer to be furloughed and it planned to introduce a schedule by which people from various teams were off work on a rotating basis.
It said the largest proportion of furloughed employees would be in its conference and facilities teams.
A spokesman for the NCVO said he was unable to give a precise figure for how much money the umbrella body expected to lose over the coming months, but events made up 40 per cent of its income and that income stream stopped overnight with the onset of the outbreak.
He said: “That 40 per cent is a combination of our own events, such as the annual conference that would have taken place on Monday, our face-to-face training and income from our conference venue in King’s Cross, which is very popular with the sector and raises more than £1m a year for us.”
The typical time that an employee would be furloughed for was three weeks, he said, but it could be longer for some staff.
The government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme allows employers to send home employees who might otherwise be made redundant and claim 80 per cent of their wages, up to £2,500 a month.