Local Infrastructure Support Vital for Small Charities
•Download as PPT, PDF•
1 like•460 views
This document summarizes the key elements of a research project assessing the impact of local infrastructure support on small to medium third sector organizations. The research includes analysis of a national survey of third sector organizations, databases from infrastructure organizations, and interviews with frontline organizations. Preliminary findings show variation in use of infrastructure support based on beneficiary type, region, income sources, and other factors. Next steps include additional interviews and database analysis to better understand perceptions of and engagement with local infrastructure organizations.
Recommended
More Related Content
Viewers also liked
Viewers also liked (8)
Similar to Local Infrastructure Support Vital for Small Charities
Similar to Local Infrastructure Support Vital for Small Charities (20)
More from NCVO - National Council for Voluntary Organisations
More from NCVO - National Council for Voluntary Organisations (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Local Infrastructure Support Vital for Small Charities
- 1. www.actionhants.org.uk Community Action Hampshire 1
- 2. Assessing the Impact of Local Infrastructure Support on Small/Medium Third Sector Organisations • ESRC Funded ‘Third Sector Placement Fellowship’ • Seek to evaluate front-line organisations’ perceptions of local infrastructure support • Based at the Third Sector Research Centre at Southampton University • Two days per week for six months – ended Dec 2011 Community Action Hampshire 2
- 3. Three main elements of my research: • Data analysis of National Survey of Third Sector Organisations (NSTSO) • Analysis of databases from infrastructure organisations • Fieldwork – semi structured interviews with a range of frontline VCOs, all eligible for NSTSO Community Action Hampshire 3
- 4. Element 1 – analysis of the NSTSO Q19. “Do you currently get any support from other third sector organisations in your local area (eg. Council for Voluntary Service, Local Social Enterprise Network, Co-operative Development Agency, or other capacity building bodies) or not?” (NSTSO’s exact wording) Community Action Hampshire 4
- 5. Responses • Yes – 18% • No – 55% • Don’t know – 3% • Not applicable – 23% • No response – 2% Community Action Hampshire 5
- 6. Who say they use local infrastructure services the most and least? MOST LEAST Beneficiary type: Beneficiary type: • socially excluded • Faith • Mental health • Animals • Refugee/asylum seekers • Victims of crime • Addiction Role: Role: • Equalities • Religion • Criminal justice • International development • Health & welfare • Animals • Cohesion • Heritage • Culture & leisure Community Action Hampshire 6
- 7. Who say they use local infrastructure services the most and least? MOST LEAST Income sources: Income sources: • Grants/core • Investment • National Lottery • Membership • Non statutory grants • None of these • Earned income • Donations and fundraising Geographical coverage of work: Geographical coverage of work: • Single tier local authority area • National • Two tier borough area • International Community Action Hampshire 7
- 8. Who say they use local infrastructure services the most and least? MOST LEAST No of employees: No of employees: • 6-10 • None • 11-30 • 3-5 No of volunteers: No of volunteers: • 31-50 • None • 51-100 • 1-10 • 21-30 Community Action Hampshire 8
- 9. Who say they use local infrastructure services the most and least? MOST LEAST Turnover: Turnover: • 0 to £200K • £100K to £500K • Peak at £150K to £200K Region: Region: • South East & South West • North East & North West Local authority type Local authority type: • Metropolitan • County Council Population Density Population Density • Low • High Community Action Hampshire 9
- 10. Diversity Monitoring Organisations that monitor diversity vs q19 50 45 43.65 42.1 41.68 40 35 30 Use infrastructure 25 23.27 Don't use infrastructure 20.01 19.49 20 15 10 5 0 Monitor management diversity Monitor volunteer diversity Monitor staff diversity Community Action Hampshire 10
- 11. IMDs IMD Score against Q19 if work in neighbourhood location 70 60 50 40 Use infrastructure Don't use infrastructure N/A 30 20 10 0 0.1 to 5 plus 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 5 to 10 plus plus plus plus plus plus plus plus plus plus plus plus plus plus Community Action Hampshire 11
- 12. Analysis The relationship between receipt of infrastructure support and the beneficiary type of the organisation is largely independent of: • the age of the organisation; • the origin of their funds; • and their turnover. Community Action Hampshire 12
- 13. Element 2 – Analysis of VCS Databases • I’ve collected databases from 13 infrastructure organisations. Only had two refusals. • Data relates to Hampshire only • 5,930 listings after de-duplication • Cross referenced to Charity Commission datafiles Community Action Hampshire 13
- 14. Preliminary Findings • 3,312 groups with no known charity registration receive infrastructure support. 89% of these are supported by only one organisation • Out of 8,242 registered charities in Hampshire, 77% of them do NOT receive services from a local infrastructure org • 495 public bodies receive services from a local infra org. 20% of these receive services from two infra orgs. (CAH provide services to 281 public orgs!) Community Action Hampshire 14
- 15. Element 3 - Fieldwork • Only carried out 12 interviews so far. Hoping to do about 24. Categories of questions I’ve asked: • Re-asked (verbatim) Q19 from NSTSO • Have you heard of these infra orgs, used their services, been of benefit? • What would be your first port of call for support? • Do you know if any orgs represent your interests? • Do you feel part of a ‘sector’? • If you could wave a magic wand? Community Action Hampshire 15
- 16. Answer ‘Correct’ Reason Comment given answer? correct? NO YES NO “I do get a lot of support, but not right now. Did last week though.” YES YES NO “Yes, we get funding from Winchester City Council” YES YES YES YES YES YES NO NO NO “I don’t know what you mean by support” NO NO NO “We wouldn’t expect donations from another charity” N/A NO NO “We tend not to be in anyone’s funding range when we try to apply for funding” YES YES YES NO YES NO Do use infrastructure NO YES NO Do use infrastructre YES YES NO Construed ‘support’ to mean funding NO YES NO Do use infrastructure
- 17. What would be your first port of call for advice regarding: • Funding and finance – CVS (7), Board (3), LA, my husband, God’s providence • Training/events – CVS (8), specialist org (5), LA (2), wherever sends me a leaflet at the right time • Legislation/policy changes – CVS (4), Charity Commission (4), specialist org (3), solicitor, LA • Trustees/vols/staff – CVS (7), Charity Commission (5), Board (2), LA, specialist org Community Action Hampshire 17
- 18. Do you think there are any local organisations that represent the interests of charities to local government? • Most organisations said “no, I don’t think so”. A few said they hoped their local MP would represent their interests if approached about a specific issue. Only one organisation identified an infrastructure organisation as having a role in representing the sector’s interests. Community Action Hampshire 18
- 19. Do you use Is there are Comment infrastructure? community of charities? Yes Yes Definitely Yes Yes Sector don’t blow trumpets enough Yes Yes Other people have been so helpful to me Yes Yes Not always very apparent No No There is none No Maybe Maybe for other people, but not for me cos I wouldn’t expect them to be interested in animals or India. No Probably Probably, but I’m not part of it Yes Yes Definitely No Probably Probably, but I’m not part of it Yes Yes, but … I choose not to be part of it. I find their interest a bit voyeuristic Yes Yes Definitely Yes Not really, no Community Action Hampshire 19
- 20. If you had a magic wand, apart from loads of cash, what would you change to make life easier for your organisation? • Most had wishes that were related to increased income eg. an office base & money for phone bills. However, other suggestions were: • In-kind support from local businesses • Recognition of importance of user led work (as opposed to provider led) • A place for organisations that don’t want to compete, just want to serve • Continuity and earlier funding decisions from LA. • Contracting problems eg. Tupe arrangements addressed • CRB checks and other paperwork to be simplified • Awareness that we exist and what we do (two orgs) • Some guidance through lunacies of Health and Safety Community Action Hampshire 20
- 21. Favourite quote … Respondent: “So what do these organisations [local infrastructure orgs] do then?” I explained the kinds of roles and functions of an infrastructure organisation Respondent: “Hmmm. It all sounds pretty peripheral to me.” Community Action Hampshire 21
- 22. Next steps … • Work isn’t complete. TSRC are kindly funding me to carry out 11 more days of work • Need to finish interviews (12 more hopefully) • Need do some more analysis of the databases • Need to write a paper on it Community Action Hampshire 22
- 23. Questions for you … • Given the additional work I’ve outlined, are there any particular elements you think I should investigate? • How can I maximise the useful knowledge from this work? • How can we use the knowledge to tell a positive story about local infrastructure support? • How can we use the knowledge for lobbying? Community Action Hampshire 23
- 24. If you have any bright ideas after the conference, please don’t hesitate to contact me. I want this research to be useful for us all, so I’d be most grateful for any input! Kirsty Rowlinson kirsty.rowlinson@action.hants.org.uk 01962 857355
Editor's Notes
- If they have another funding round, think about going for a fellowship. Its been really interesting both in terms of content and in terms of having a sneaky peek into life in an academic environment. Very very different!
- NSTSO National survey of registered charities, companies ltd by guarantee, CICs and Ind & Provident socs. England only Two waves – Autumn 2008 and Autumn 2010. Nationally, nearly 49,000 responses. Used 2008 data because … There aren’t many questions in there that are relevant to this study, but focussed most data analysis on how one question Q19 interacted with others Databases . Wasn’t in original project, but once I started seeing data from NSTSO, had a gut feeling that it wasn’t showing true picture for the sector Decided to find out from infra orgs, who they think they’re working with. Hopefully more accurate data because it comes from their customer databases. If they haven’t worked with an org in some way, they won’t be on the database. Also, NSTSO doesn’t relate to most community groups … only tip of iceberg My focus is the full picture of infrastructure provision and receipt, to the entire sector. Blood from stone – got 13 dbs Fieldwork – chose six categories of org. Those who I’d expect to use infra the most and the least (soc excluded, religion and animals).Two income categories – under £10K income and £100K to £500K. So three beneficiary types with two levels of income.
- Nationally, the responses to this question for the 2010 wave are pretty similar, but the data isn’t yet available to do a much more in-depth analysis I was particularly interested in why the n/a category was so high, and cursed Moray? For putting in a not applicable category.
- Won’t go into great detail – you can take it away and peruse at your leisure
- You can see that the highest users are: socially excluded, mental health, asylum seekers, victims of crime, homeless etc Lowest users are: faith and animals. They say “no” the most, but also “not applicable” the most. No big surprises there then!
- Interestingly, organisations that use infrastructure are much more likely to monitor the diversity of management, volunteers and staff My immediate thought was that this was related to them getting income from statutory or grant funding, but this isn’t the case
- You can see from the graph that there is a correlation between IMD and infrastructure usage. Generally, the higher the IMD (and therefore the poorer the area), the more organisations say they use infrastructure support. Blue line
- I need to do more work on this data, but prelim findings are … Registered charities – need to particularly do more work on this. I want to see what the figures are if I remove religious organisations and scouting groups. I also want to see what income categories the organisations that do/don’t receive support fall into
- Been v time consuming – first getting ethics approval was long process, then the process of arranging interviews. Difficult to get interviews with animal and faith orgs. Pretty easy with social exclusion type orgs Trying to assess how reliable the answers seem to be Listed local infra orgs. Have people heard them/used their services/what services/has it been of benefit? If you were struggling, what would be your first port of call for: funding and finance, training and events, legislation and policy change, trustees, vols and staff, trading Do you think there are any local organisations representing the needs of voluntary sector to local government Do you feel part of a voluntary sector? Community of charities locally? If you had a magic wand, and it couldn’t give bucket loads of cash, what would you want?
- People chose a number of options. Often they would say “my board first, then …”. A few others said n/a
- I asked people if they felt if they belonged to a ‘sector’. If they felt that there was a community of charities As a general rule, orgs that use infrastructure say there is a community of charities. Those that don’t, either say no, or are unsure.
- Pu
- Impact of Infrastructure