**Euan Leitch, Chief Executive, SURF – Scotland’s Regeneration Forum**

The annual SURF Awards, which recognise community-led regeneration, will mark their 28th year in 2026. The awards not only celebrate grassroots work but also create space for shared learning through workshops that explore what makes projects succeed, and the barriers communities face. Over the past 27 years, one barrier consistently emerges: funding.

**Read more**

Whether communities are regenerating their areas through housing, creativity, employability or other activities, the short-term, project-based nature of the funding cocktail is a major barrier. It limits communities’ ability to reach their potential and creates insecure employment for people living and working locally.

SURF Award winners are increasingly providing services once delivered by the public sector as it withdraws to focus on statutory duties. Across Scotland, local people are running spaces and activities that tackle worklessness, isolation, homelessness, and poverty. That local leadership is a strength, but these organisations often lack the funding security needed to sustain services for as long as demand remains.

The lack of secure core funding places additional personal stress on people within these organisations. Knowing your services are desperately needed but not knowing whether you can continue to deliver them is exhausting. It contributes to staff turnover as employees face the annual prospect of funding ending, and it increases the risk of burnout for those responsible for keeping charities operating and focused on their aims. Delayed funding decisions only exacerbate this.

For these reasons, Fair Funding is one of the four primary asks in our [SURF Manifesto 2026](https://surf.scot/2026-manifesto/), which calls on the Scottish Parliament to deliver this over the 2026–31 term. The issue appeared in several party manifestos, and at my local hustings candidates from all parties said they would support it.

Investing in Fair Funding for frontline work delivered in and by communities is the preventative spend advocated by the [Christie Commission](https://www.gov.scot/publications/commission-future-delivery-public-services/) 15 years ago. It needs implemented now to pay future dividends.

We do not know if we will still be here in a year or not
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There is no local community in Scotland that is not reliant on the voluntary sector. As outlined in [_SCVO’s State of the Sector 2025_](https://scvo.scot/research/stats-size), of the over 46,500 voluntary organisations across the country, an incredible 88% are local. When we drill down even further, 79% of Scottish charities and 98% of community groups are local. Simply put, the sector is dominated by organisations working in their local areas, providing the kind of crucial services and support that communities, and local authorities, rely on.

Such organisations provide employment and volunteering opportunities in every local authority area. They provide services across the spectrum, including all those considered here and beyond. They provide skills, experience, expertise, and dedication, without which communities would be negatively impacted. But the future of these organisations, and therefore the local communities themselves, is worryingly uncertain. The reliance on funding streams that are constantly unfair and unsustainable is creating circumstances that will only lead to more and more local services ceasing to exist, either as organisations struggle to meet the capacity required to maintain them or because those very organisations also cease to exist.

_“Applying for funding is often complex, requiring many hours of input from already over-committed volunteers,”_ explains a Lothian-based community SCIO. _“Small organisations do not have access to paid or experienced fundraisers, so feel they are at a disadvantage.”_

_“Insecure, uncertain, short-term funding means that we are always scrambling to meet the needs of our service users,”_ says a small organisation in the Highland region. _“It means that we struggle significantly with long-term planning. We do not know if we will still be here in a year or not, it’s difficult to remain positive and excited about our essential work.”_

_“\[Sourcing funding\] requires considerable time spent completing forms, writing letters, maintaining detailed records, and providing feedback,”_ adds a small, remote, rural provider of transport. _“None of which guarantees success.”_

With ever-increasing demand for services in local communities across Scotland, and a growing reliance by local authorities on the voluntary sector to provide statutory services, the need for Fair Funding is as clear as day.

_“\[Fair Funding\] would help voluntary organisations carry out their work with much less stress about their future survival as a service,”_ says the rural transport provider. _“In light of increased pressure from governments to deliver more locally based services and for communities to become more self-reliant, any way to make this easier for those who give up their time would be a great benefit to them.”_

_“\[Fair Funding with\] simple application processes for smaller charities who don’t employ a full-time grants or fundraising employee \[would\] allow staff time to focus on service delivery rather than lengthy funding applications,”_ confirms a charity supporting people across local villages.

_“Fair Funding would help to provide more consistent provision of services,”_ adds a community café.

_“Why should communities have to fight for the resources to change their communities?”_ asks a community anchor charity.

[Red Chair Highland](https://www.redchairhighland.scot/)
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**Red Chair Highland** is a micro-CIC based in the Scottish Highlands, with a primary focus on digital inclusion. Delivering services in local communities across the Highland region, the organisation provides a range of intervention services, device allocation, and connectivity support. The organisation also specialises in delivering media literacy courses, ensuring that people can identify a growing level of misinformation online. Given the unique rural challenges of the region, which includes a higher percentage of older people and a greater number of people who find themselves digitally excluded than many other areas in the country, the work undertaken by **Red Chair Highland** is crucial for people living in towns and villages across the Highland region. And yet, the funding situation that the organisation finds itself in, which staff describe as an “absolute nightmare”, continues to hinder **Red Chair Highland**’s ability to provide full support to service users.

Unsurprisingly, **Red Chair Highland**’s primary costs, aside from retaining staff, relate to the purchasing of devices. But a lack of understanding about digital inclusion from funders has resulted in a landscape where the tried and tested services with evidenced impact are no longer of interest, replaced instead by a desire for the new and innovative for its own sake. Digital inclusion, which seemed to be a hot topic just a few years ago, now appears to have slipped down the lists of priorities for funders, and both local and national government, with the opportunities for funding becoming more restricted as a result. In addition, the accessibility of existing funding continues to be hampered by onerous and complex application processes, and extensive reporting requirements – even for relatively small grants covering, for example, a batch of Chromebooks – both of which are disproportionately burdensome.

The result of that lack of accessible funding is clear. While **Red Chair Highland** can continue to run courses in ten local communities, there remains dozens of other areas across the Highlands that remain without crucial digital inclusion services. While the organisation can support some people by providing devices which, rather than a luxury, can provide a lifesaving connection for people who are otherwise digitally excluded, countless others remain deprived of access to employment, GPs, medical diagnosis management, and much more.

Despite trying to diversify, including attracting funding by undertaking commissioned research projects in the digital space, the situation remains precarious for the organisation and extremely stressful for **Red Chair Highland** staff. Ultimately, for as long as the accessibility of funding does not improve, there remains a continual fear that the organisation may not exist the following year. Without Fair Funding, the work of the organisation will continue to be limited – staff will continue to face anxiety and stress, the future of the organisation will remain uncertain, the main community hub in Inverness will continue to only open three days a week, and people in local communities across the Highlands will continue to be digitally excluded.

Despite the incredible work and dedication of **Red Chair Highland**, the ongoing issue of digital exclusion in the rural areas of the Highlands is increasingly creating unequal members of society. And without funding for the voluntary sector that is fair and accessible, Scotland is actively keeping such people digitally excluded.

[Previous: Tackling the climate emergency](/ff-next-steps-final-copy/tackling-the-climate-emergency) [Next: Distributing & allocating funding](/ff-next-steps-final-copy/distributing-allocating-funding)

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## About SCVO

SCVO (Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations) is the national membership organisation for Scotland's voluntary sector.

Our role is to champion the role of voluntary organisations in Scotland and to support them to do work that has a positive impact.

SCVO supports members and the wider voluntary sector with all aspects of setting up and running a voluntary organisation. SCVO represents the needs and concerns of the voluntary sector to the Scottish government in Holyrood and UK government and Westminster. Through our learning and events programme SCVO offers training and development opportunities to the sector.

Members access an extensive membership benefits package including specialist, in-depth, 1-to-1 guidance from our Information Services team and from professional service partners.

Access to exclusive membership networks (including comms, employers, governance and policy) supports members to grow their connections, stay up to date, exchange ideas and views with peers, and learn through tailored, learning opportunities.

SCVO members enjoy free access to Funding Scotland Premium to stay on top of funding opportunities to support their organisation’s financial resilience.

Discounts and savings savings on SCVO products and services (including our HR service, managed IT support, payroll service and events and training) and partner offers provide members with support to allow them to focus on delivering their organisation’s goals. Further SCVO products and services include [extensive digital support](https://scvo.scot/support/digital), a climate action resource [Growing Climate Confidence](https://climateconfident.scot), a voluntary sector publication [Third Force News](https://tfn.scot) and a voluntary sector jobs and recruitment service [Goodmoves](https://goodmoves.org).

For more information on SCVO membership, visit [SCVO membership](https://scvo.scot/membership)