Following two workshops we held in 2021 - one with CVSs and the other with specialist infrastructure organisations, we've been progressing work looking at State at the Sector reports.
The workshops identified 'who' needed data about the sector and 'why', and explored what steps we could take together to improve both the process and results. Find out more in our workshops round up.
As a result, we committed to:
- Work with London Plus & the CVS Network to explore standardising State of the Sector surveys
- Map other directories of VCSE organisations held by other infrastructure / networks
- Explore whether we could support better use of open data about the charity sector
A quick survey about State of the Sector surveys in 2022 with 8 responses determined:
- A mix of drivers for State of the Sector reports - only two stating that this was a KPI in commissioned infrastructure support contracts with the local authority
- Some successes including influencing statutory partners and unlocking funding for the sector
- Multiple challenges experienced - from lack of internal resources, engagement issues due to an acknowledged sector survey fatigue and skills gaps e.g. ensuring analysis is rigorous and meaningful
- All respondents, in principle, were keen to explore collectively developing a set of standardised questions
I have rarely seen State of the Sector reports done really well. I would be very keen to find out how we can standardise questions and approaches.
We would also be very interested in participating in introductory training on research approaches and report writing so that we have the skills to do this type of work in-house in future
Subsequently, we undertook further research to:
- Identify recent State of the Sector research at London borough level
- Collate questions asked in the respective surveys
- Identify common themes and classify questions against these themes
- Identify options to standardise questions
- Discuss with the London CVS network opportunities to align state of the sector surveys in future
- Propose development of a 'question bank' and guide to creating a survey
Read our findings published in 2024 below...
Research slides
Next steps include working with London Plus and the London CVS Network to progress the idea of creating a State of the Sector question bank to help:
- Save time when creating surveys
- Improve data quality
- Provide more compelling data / evidence
- Enable findings to be collated at various geographies