Voluntary Action Lewisham

We recently carried out a survey into the impact of the recession on voluntary and community groups within Lewisham.

Unfortunately, as with many surveys, the number of responses was too small to provide a representative sample. Needless to say our thanks go out to all those organisations who took the time to respond!

Here are some of the highlights from what you told us.

Quantitative questions

• Seven out of ten organisations reported either demand remaining the same or increasing.
• Six out of ten expect an increase in demand over the next year.
• Three out of ten organisations expect their income to decrease slightly next year, the same number expect their income to increase significantly
• Eight out of ten organisations expect their number of staff to either remain roughly the same next year, or to increase slightly
• Half of the organisations expect to see slightly more volunteers next year
• Half of the organisations expect grant income to become significantly harder to obtain next year while four out of ten expect it to be harder to successfully tender for commissioned services.
• Six out of ten organisations had a business plan, but only two out of ten had a fundraising plan, or a strategic plan.
• The area most thought they may need support with next year was fundraising (six out of ten). The next highest was monitoring and evaluation (three out of ten). All of the other options scored less.

Qualitative questions

• Some organisations reported that while demand had been increasing, this was due to their marketing/increased profile. One organisation reported an increase in demand due to changes introduced by the statutory sector. Others reported a rise in clients facing problems due to the recession - the homeless, those needing legal assistance, etc. Two organisations reported an increasing complexity of cases.
• The question on what services VAL could provide to help organisations survive the recession didn't produce any consensus. Answers included:
  • help with tendering
  • campaigning on behalf of the sector
  • networking
  • support with fundraising
  • pulling down resources centrally/nationally
• The only positives organisations saw in the recession was an increase in professional volunteers, the opportunity to review services, and a reduction in staff turnover.
• Organisations reported gaps in services such as benefits advice, financial advice, homeless services, alcohol/drug treatments
• Only three out of ten organisations didn't say that they either were co-operating or that they would co-operate if they could identify suitable partners. A number of organisations were looking to co-operate with the statutory sector to access services that they couldn't afford to access otherwise.
• Under 'further comments' one organisations suggested encouraging the council and other statutory services to purchase services locally. A couple of organisations were concerned about the potential for cuts in funding in the next financial year.
• Half of the organisations that responded are companies limited by guarantee and six out of ten are registered charities. Half of the organisations had an income between £25,000 and £100,000. The smallest two organisations had an income of between £10,000 and £25,000 while only one organisation had an income of more than £500,000.