Accessing funding and managing finances are at the top of the list of concerns experienced by local voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations, new research shows.
Navca’s newest research project asked its 187 members about their financial situation this year compared to the previous year.
Respondents indicated financial matters as their top concerns, closely followed by managing staff wellbeing and recruiting volunteers.
Other issues included digital transformation and building and maintaining relationships with statutory organisations.
The research, carried out by the Centre for Regional, Economic and Social Research at Sheffield Hallam University, shows a “reasonably positive picture” with regards to the financial situation in 2022 compared to last year.
Nearly three-fifths of respondents (58 per cent) said their income increased compared to the previous year, while less than one-fifth (18 per cent) reported declining income.
About one-quarter (24 per cent) said their income remained more or less the same.
However, the report said: “This is highly likely to be dependent on Covid-19, where income may have been artificially inflated by the receipt of relief and recovery grants from a range of sources, while expenditure may have been reduced as a result of lockdown restrictions.”
Raising funds remains the top future concern for member organisations.
Asked to rate how much of a concern ‘accessing funds’ was on a scale from one to 10, NAVCA members gave it a 7.8, which was the highest score out of all 18 concerns identified in the survey.
On people, the predominant four concerns among NAVCA members were ‘managing staff and staff wellbeing’, ‘recruiting volunteers’, ‘supporting and retaining volunteers’ and ‘work on equality, diversity and inclusion’, according to the survey.
More than half of respondents (63 per cent) said that recruiting volunteers had been a pressing issue in the previous 12 months, while 57 per cent chose managing staff, including staff wellbeing, and 55 per cent supporting and retaining volunteers.
NAVCA’s 187 member organisations employ an estimated 3,467 full-time equivalent staff and about 11,446 volunteers, comprising 9,740 regular volunteers and 1,706 trustees/board members.