This page tells you about SCVO's work and impact during 2022/23.
In the context of another challenging year for the sector, voluntary organisations - including SCVO’s 3,700 members - have made a difference in communities across Scotland. SCVO is continually evolving what we do to meet emerging needs, as well as delivering the tried and tested services that support our members and the wider sector to do what they do so well.
In the past year, we’ve been at the heart of supporting the sector through the running costs crisis as our ever-popular information service handled thousands of queries and we introduced new one-to-one in-depth support options, alongside the development of a Running Costs Crisis hub with lots of advice and resources to support the sector in facing spiralling costs, falling income and, in some cases, an uncertain future.
We’ve continued to advocate publicly on behalf of the sector, as well as working behind the scenes with key stakeholders to influence legislation and policy developments and have secured commitments to Fairer Funding by 2026 and a wider review of charity regulation. We have seen more recognition of the significant contribution of voluntary organisations to our society and economy, and a general acceptance that the time to address some systemic issues is now. That recognition is down to the hard work of SCVO and others to make sure the sector’s voice is heard.
I was also pleased that the Scottish Charity Awards and the Gathering returned in-person for the first time since the pandemic, offering an opportunity to come together to celebrate the fantastic work of charities, community organisations and social enterprises across Scotland.
Of course, we’ve not been without our own challenges, including how we address the climate and nature emergencies, how we progress our work to become a more diverse, anti-racist organisation, and how we manage the effects of rising costs which are impacting on everyone. In common with most of our sector, income-generation – especially unrestricted income – is a challenge, and we have continued to work hard to keep our influencing work as relevant as possible.
With the sector’s best interests at heart and by holding true to our purpose and values, SCVO will continue to grow and to deliver on our promises.
I hope you enjoy this impact report for 2022/23. We'd love to hear what you think of it so please get in touch if you've any comments or feedback that you'd like to share with us.
Best wishes,
Our members sit at the very heart of SCVO and play an active role in shaping our work.
From the borders to the highlands, charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises of all shapes and sizes continued their hard work throughout 2022/23 supporting communities across Scotland.
It is a privilege for SCVO to support these organisations, and as ever, we were inspired by the achievements, strength and resilience of our members and the voluntary sector.
We're delighted that 2022/23 has been our biggest ever year for membership growth! This means that more voluntary organisations across the country than ever before have been able to access a range of valuable support services directly from SCVO or via our pro-bono partners to develop and build their capacity.
The #RunningCostsCrisis presented the sector with another very challenging year, so we amplified our support to make sure that the sector was equipped with the support and advice it needed to weather the storm.
Our SCVO information services team supported voluntary sector organisations to make informed decisions as they battled against rising running costs, and provided invaluable advice on topics from governance to setting up and running an organisation to meet the ever-growing demand for services.
2022/23 also saw the launch of exclusive one-to-one information sessions for SCVO members, a brand new guide to setting up a charity, and more templates and model policies to give organisations a head start.
SCVO’s payroll service team continued to provide the sector with a high-quality, professional and friendly payroll service.
The service is cost-effective and helps to alleviate the pressure on organisations on an ongoing basis, allowing teams across the voluntary sector to focus their energy and resources on their key charitable aims and missions.
Over the past year, we've been dedicated to providing best practice support on governance. By helping to create well run boards, we can help to create well run organisations.
We’ve given organisations across the sector tools to measure how well they’re doing with governance, allowing us to identify where the sector is succeeding, and where it needs to do better.
In December 2022 we launched our new subscription-based HR Service, demonstrating our commitment to empowering people in organisations across the sector with the skills and knowledge needed to make as big an impact as possible.
Through this sought-after service, our HR advisors provide one to one HR support and access to a treasure trove of resources and guides, helping to foster a culture of HR and Fair Work best practice for our sector.
Over 2022/23 we developed a hub to support our members and the wider sector with the challenges of rising running costs.
Through our #RunningCostsCrisis campaign we successfully:
As the #RunningCostsCrisis took hold in 2022, so did uncertainty around job security for many. In 2022/23, Goodmoves connected 125,000 job seekers with opportunities at charities and voluntary organisations every month.
This valuable and affordable platform made it easier for voluntary sector employers to fill positions, while helping employees to find their next roles at a time when worries were heightened about the cost of living crisis.
Not only does the Goodmoves website generate significant unrestricted income for SCVO to invest back into our work with members and the wider sector, it continues to promote voluntary sector careers to new target audiences including students, young people and jobseekers.
We have also been dedicated to supporting employability for younger and older people across Scotland through the following programmes:
SCVO acted as a gateway organisation for Kickstart - giving participants experience of working in the sector - which saw the final cohort reach the end of the programme in September 2022. 67% of participants successfully progressed to a job or Higher/Further education, and 60% of those went onto a job being retained by their employer.
Through SCVO’s online tracking system, over 6,700 new volunteers were able to register as Saltire Award participants, resulting in over 11,600 Saltire Awards achieved and over 467,000 volunteering hours logged!
We worked with Fife, Angus, South Lanarkshire and Scottish Borders councils to create and fill 166 new six-month job placements for people aged 16 and above who have been unemployed for 12 months or more.
Milo is a data management and reporting platform, provided by SCVO and funded by the Scottish Government. It is used by many of Scotland’s Third Sector Interfaces (TSIs) to manage their interactions with voluntary organisations and volunteers. With 400 active users across TSIs in Scotland, SCVO supported TSIs with matching volunteers to volunteering opportunities and enabled them to report back on their impact through our reliable Milo system.
SCVO secured funding to create 31 six-month voluntary sector work experience placements in the Highlands for 16 to 29-year-olds and people aged 50+, with 77% of participants progressing to a job or Higher/Further education.
Demand for IT services grew further in 2022/23 as technology needs for the sector continued to evolve. Our highly-skilled IT team supported the SCVO team, clients based at home, in their own organisations' offices and in SCVO's offices with a responsive IT helpdesk. Our team worked hard to understand customers' needs, helping them to enhance productivity and run their voluntary organisations more effectively.
Our affordable, shared workspaces in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Inverness have continued to provide voluntary sector teams with great places to work. SCVO workspaces have become 'hubs' for the setor, bringing even more value to tenants by facilitating joint working for organisations working across similar areas from the same sites.
Our Salesforce team played a big part in enhancing our member and customer experience through various projects across the organisation. As well as this, the team also worked on the development of crucial projects to streamline our own internal business operations and to support SCVO's partner organisations.
Making our sector’s voice heard and recognising its importance continued to be a key priority for SCVO. Our policy team were dedicated to building important relationships with key policy-makers to make sure that the sector’s concerns were expressed in both the Scottish and UK governments and parliaments, and achieved this through valuable interactions with a broad range of people.
Championing the contribution and impact of the sector
SCVO led the high profile #NeverMoreNeeded campaign to raise awareness of the contribution and impact of the sector during the pandemic.
In the last year, we worked with partner organisations to carry out research and develop thinking around a new campaign to support longer term messaging about the essential role of the sector. The new #EssentialSector campaign started development, ready to launch in late 2023.
SCVO’s 2022 Scottish Charity Awards were held in-person for the first time in two years at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Glasgow. Sally Magnusson hosted this special event where we celebrated the incredible work of our 44 finalists and revealed our award winners. Our People's Choice vote went global, with over 18,000 votes received. The awards promoted the achievements of the most innovative and effective voluntary organisations in Scotland, and the people working hard to make a difference to the communities they support.
The Gathering, organised by SCVO, is the largest voluntary sector event in the UK. Over two days on 15 and 16 June 2022, amazing people from the voluntary sector and beyond came together at Glasgow's SEC to enjoy a packed programme of workshops, seminars, and training sessions. The Gathering was a chance for people to network and connect, showcase work, to learn from each other and be inspired.
As a champion for the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, we wanted to do what we could to make the Gathering 2022 more sustainable and "greener" than before, to reduce our carbon footprint. Here are just some of the things we did:
SCVO's publication Third Force News (TFN) was established in 1996 and is Scotland's only specialist publication for the voluntary sector.
In 2022/23 TFN published 1,000+ articles on its daily updated news website, and with a huge reach across its social media channels, attracted 1,000,000+ page views.
Throughout the year, TFN produced its influential monthly magazine featuring 100+ external contributors and unrivalled analysis of the sector and its operating environment.
The team also developed a number of ongoing partnerships with voluntary sector organisations and published its annual Guide to Running a Charity or Social Enterprise. This year's guide focused on the cost-of-living crisis and the associated running costs crisis being faced by the sector, providing another platform to share important support information with a wider audience.
Through this work, and through hosting events at The Gathering, TFN played a vital role in spearheading SCVO’s campaigning, and provided a useful bridge between SCVO, the wider sector, policy-makers and influencers.
In 2022/23, we carried out four more waves of SCVO’s Scottish Third Sector Tracker (funded by funded by SCVO, The Scottish Government, The National Lottery Community Fund and The William Grant Foundation). The tracker comprises research about the voluntary sector, undertaken directly with the voluntary sector.
With refreshed statistics on the size and shape of the sector, we have been able to better demonstrate the breadth of sector activity and its key role in Scottish society. These findings continue to be pivotal in shaping SCVO's policy, digital, communications and support activities, and have shaped conversations in the Scottish Parliament, Third Force News and mainstream news media.
We’re reaching more people in the voluntary sector and beyond, helping to bring in new members, supporting the retention of our valued members and championing the work of the voluntary sector to influencers and decision-makers so that the sector’s contribution is better recognised and acknowledged.
Through our work, we’re strengthening SCVO’s position as a supportive, knowledgeable, trusted, inclusive, reliable authority in the voluntary sector (and beyond) with a strong, recognised voice and brand reputation. Here's just some of what we've done to make this happen:
To ensure that voluntary organisations across Scotland were able to benefit from more accessible and flexible funding support, we continued the development of our funding service, collecting feedback to ensure we could deliver a better user experience.
Through 2022/23, SCVO distributed almost £2million of crucial funds, providing a lifeline to organisations and the communities they support.
Our Funding Scotland website continued to provide accurate, personalised and up-to-date information on funding opportunities, helping more than 164,000 people with their funding searches when it mattered most.
We were proud to support learning and professional development within the sector for thousands of people in 2022/23. Our affordable, flexible and sector focussed training programme means that our learners had access to relatable content and courses to enhance their professional skills and knowledge. Be helping individuals across the sector to shine in their roles, they in turn can help their voluntary organisations to thrive!
With social isolation and digital exclusion lingering as an after-effect of the pandemic, and the presentation of new global external challenges, the importance of our Connecting Scotland project did not diminish.
Between March and June 2022, Connecting Scotland rapidly delivered an emergency response to support displaced people fleeing the war in Ukraine. Working in close partnership with Ukrainian Associations in Edinburgh and Glasgow, as well as Local Authority resettlement teams, over 2,600 devices and over 2,100 mobile WiFi connections were distributed to support Ukrainians settling in Scotland.
This emergency work took place alongside our continued support of digitally excluded households across Scotland's 32 council areas. By the end of 2022, our Connecting Scotland programme had provided over 61,000 households in Scotland with a Chromebook or iPad, along with two years of free unlimited internet access.
In 2022 we also began evaluating phase two of the programme to understand the impact and benefits for participants:
Following the Connecting Scotland programme closing for new applications, we are in the process of developing a new service and support for existing device recipients and participating organisations which will focus on essential digital skills to support people through the cost of living crisis.
SCVO’s digital team continued their hard work in upskilling the voluntary sector workforce with the skills they needed to drive forward their organisations. In 2022/23, thousands of charities and social enterprises:
SCVO’s digital inclusion team has continued its work to build capacity for partnership working in the digital inclusion space resulting in many positive outcomes:
Early 2023 also saw the launch of SCVO's new #Connect23 engagement events which gave people the opportunity to get together to explore Scotland's digital landscape and the brilliant digital inclusion work already taking place.
Throughout 2022/23, SCVO was committed to demonstrating leadership to the sector through our support to voluntary organisations, and by publicising our own journey to net zero.
We continued raising general awareness of the role of the voluntary sector in the climate crisis. This included recognising and promoting good practise and also working to encourage wider non-environmental charity activity to mitigate the climate emergency.
We also came to the end of our Cop26 Legacy project, funded by Paths for All, delivering free accredited Climate Emergency training for voluntary sector staff and volunteers.
This marked the start of an exciting new project as SCVO became lead delivery partner for the first iteration of our climate confident website and net zero scorecard, an important project which will be further developed in 2023/24.
Despite another challenging year, SCVO is proud of our many achievements and the achievements of the sector. We continue to be a credible and trusted partner by voluntary sector organisations, the public and private sectors, and to see our member and supporter base grow.
In 2022/23 we asked our staff for feedback about our approach to blended working and how this was impacting on our culture and internal communications. We received positive feedback about SCVO's working culture, with staff feeling supported by their line managers to achieve their work objectives from home and from the office.
We held our first all Staff Away Day since 2019 towards the end of 2022, with the focus of the day being for everyone to re-connect following the pandemic restrictions and changes to our working environments. At this event, we shared that our objectives for 2023/24 would have a focus on anti-racism and climate conscious work. This set the foundations for January 2023 where all SCVO staff participated in a three-day programme of anti-racism active learning with Viana Maya of pRESPECT, to support us with our commitment to becoming an anti-racist organisation.
Our people have been central to the work SCVO has been able to do to support Scotland’s vibrant voluntary sector. We are proud to not only have been able to
bring new talent to the organisation, but to have enhanced what we offer our team through initiatives including:
Gaining our Gold Investors in People status
Becoming a top 10 Flexibility Works Employer
Becoming a Living Hours employer
Of course, we’ve not been without our own challenges, including the rising costs which are impacting on everyone, and we have been reflecting on how we use our buildings in the new context of blended working.
We have continued our work to address the climate and nature emergencies and have focused on how we progress our work to become a more diverse, anti-racist organisation. We have made some progress but there is still much to do.
In common with most of our sector, income-generation – especially unrestricted income – is a challenge, and we work hard to keep our influencing work as relevant as possible
Looking ahead, SCVO’s focus will be on developing our services to support the sector and identifying new opportunities to replace lost income to continue to support our work.
We'd love to hear your thoughts, comments and feedback on our Impact Report.