Growth in the community sector
Growth in the community sector
Written by Anya Rudolphy, Former Head of Connect Programme Connect
The charity sector is undergoing a period of significant transformation. Declining funding, increased pressure to demonstrate impact, and evolving community needs are creating unprecedented challenges for organisations. ELBA’s skills-based volunteering program aims to address these challenges by leveraging the expertise of the business sector to support charities and community groups in east London. By fostering collaboration and innovation, we are working to support the resilience and effectiveness of the sector.
The evolution of the charity commission to date has a history and intention that is in question as we move into a time where organisations more than ever are considering how they represent their communities. I recently listened to a podcast from Third Sector titled ‘The End of Charity’. In its final episode the podcast explores continued closures of organisations over the past year due to cost of living and decreased funding from local governments.
There is a complexity to running a charity, that our BoardMatch trustees learn quickly as they involve themselves in a long term volunteer commitment to an organisation. A theme that resonates is the pressure to focus on beneficiaries. With many donors and funders expecting their funds to be sent to the frontline rather than on the administration and services every organisation needs to operate, for many organisations this can create a set back in strategy and growth.
Some of ELBA’s community partners continue to push against a business structure to their organisation, exploring non hierarchical models, having staff join trustee meetings or shifting away from charity structures to community interest company models (social enterprises). Despite this the resonating gap for many continues to be in the areas of IT, HR, Comms and Evaluation.
The future of the charity sector is undoubtedly one of ongoing transformation. Not only in relation to partnerships with local and central government, but also with a business sector who continue to explore their social impact and the awareness to a sector already delivering social impact at its core. There are a few pending transformations of the sector and themes of need around digital innovation, collective impact initiatives and a considered response to the role of responding to climate change with an intersection to their charities’ cause. The history of the sector and funding limits has created a competition amongst organisations to work apart and against rather than in alignment and collaboratively. However, many organisations are discovering the strength of the sector is a collective approach that offers a diverse range of support to its beneficiaries through each organisations’ offering.
For ELBA the skills-based teams approach remains a focus on aligning our work with our peers in the community sector, being collaborative when there is a space to be, and finding joy in sharing the reflexivity of needs as our employee volunteers come on the journey of exploring our complex sector.
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