The findings from the fourth wave of the Scottish Third Sector Tracker are **[available now](https://scvo.scot/research/evidence-library/the-scottish-third-sector-tracker-wave-four-findings-summer-2022)**.

### Key findings — summary report

The wave 4 summary report presented key insights into Scotland’s third sector. The report covers challenges, risings costs and the impacts on organisations and their beneficiaries, staffing and volunteering, financial health, and funding.

Particularly evident in this report was the increased prevalence of staffing issues and shortages, volunteer shortages and financial challenges in the third sector. Organisations had seen costs rise across all areas of business, and approximately one third of respondents made use of financial reserves between April and August 2022.

Further, many organisations reported concern about the impacts of the cost of living crisis on their beneficiaries, and in open responses gave insights into issues relating to mental health and wellbeing, rising food and energy costs, and increasing hardship and vulnerability in the communities they serve.

Short term funding was found to be dominant, and respondents described the challenges such agreements create for planning for the future and employment. Behind securing funding for core activities, multi-year funding agreements was respondents’ second most frequently reported fair funding priority.

Download the report here - [Summary report](https://scvo.scot/research/evidence-library/the-scottish-third-sector-tracker-wave-four-findings-summer-2022)

### **Key findings** — infographic summary

The findings from the fourth wave of the Scottish Third Sector Tracker showed the impact of rising costs becoming increasingly apparent, both for third sector organisations and the communities they work with. Overall, 93% of organisations said they were experiencing rising costs in at least one area of their business, compared with 86% in April.

Organisations reported sharp rises in costs across almost all operating areas. The most pressing being the cost of materials and supplies (76% of the sector); transport costs (61% of the sector); energy costs (50% of the sector) and staffing costs (43% of the sector). Of organisations seeing rising costs, 43% felt this was having a negative impact on their ability to deliver their core services or activities.

To mitigate these impacts, 40% of organisations had applied for funding from new funders and one in three had used their financial reserves. One in ten had to reduce their services or work.

Almost 80% of organisations reported they were seeing increasing financial hardship in the groups and communities they work with and 64% of organisations considered that demand for their services had increased, with 23% saying that demand had significantly increased. The majority (80%) of those organisations seeing an increase in demand for their services were able to meet most or all of that demand.

Rising costs were not the only challenge third sector organisations reporting facing in the three months since April, with 72% reporting shortages and issues with staffing and volunteers and one in three difficulty planning for the future.

Only one quarter of organisations reported being able to award staff a pay rise since April, typically a rise of between three and five percent.

[**Infographic summary**](https://scvo.scot/research/evidence-library/the-scottish-third-sector-tracker-wave-four-infographic-summary-summer-2022)

### Data tables

The weighted and raw data is available in the data tables. The data tables allow you to disaggregate the findings by organisation size (turnover); geographic location; type of organisation (e.g. Social Enterprise) and many other variables.

**[Data tables](https://scvo.scot/research/evidence-library/the-scottish-third-sector-tracker-wave-four-data-tables-summer-2022)**

[Previous: Wave 5](/research/scottish-third-sector-tracker/waves/wave-5) [Next: Wave 3](/research/scottish-third-sector-tracker/waves/wave-3)

---

## 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)