COVID-19 Impact on Charities (June 2020)
On 05 May 2020, OSCR emailed the principal contacts of all Scottish charities to ask for their help with completing a short survey. The survey asked questions on the impact to the charity of coronavirus (COVID-19) and the subsequent lockdown measures. The research was conducted until 15 May 2020, with 4,827 responses providing insights from a large number and representative cross section of registered Scottish charities.
The results told us that:
- charities have been active in countering the impact of COVID-19 on their organisation, with 95% having taken some type of action
- cancelling or postponing planned work or events was the single most common impact of COVID-19 and the associated lockdown upon charities, with 78% affected in this way
- over half of the charities (51%) had lost income from fundraising. Two in five (42%) had lost income from other sources such as trading
- nearly a third (29%) of charities had seen a decrease in the number of volunteers with which they engaged
- one in five (20%) reported a critical threat to their financial viability in the next 12 months
- one in five (20%) Scottish charities predicted that they would be unable to do the work they were set up to do at some point in the next 12 months.
The survey also asked respondents to submit recommendations to OSCR. The most common recommendation asked us to continue with the current level of support (17%). Besides that, charities asked for more general support on funding, more flexibility with deadlines/payments and for OSCR to inform them on government guidelines.
