The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations is the membership organisation for Scotland's charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises. Charity registered in Scotland SC003558. Registered office Caledonian Exchange, 19A Canning Street, Edinburgh EH3 8EG.
Coronavirus Third Sector Information Hub
Thanks for visiting the coronavirus information hub
In March 2022 we took the decision to wind down the hub as a standalone resource.
We are still providing guidance and support to help organisations respond to the pandemic, but this is now part of our main website:
Celebrating the Coronavirus Information Hub
The info hub was launched in March 2020, as a ‘single source of truth’ for the voluntary sector.
Although the hub was hosted on SCVO’s website, it was informed and made successful through a collective effort. Funders, Third Sector Interfaces (TSIs), national intermediary organisations and others came together to highlight problems, interpret guidance and award emergency funding.
We worked hard to strike a difficult balance with the hub, making sure it was comprehensive enough to help the majority of voluntary organisations. But not going into so much detail that it felt unmanageable.
Helen Bain, YTAS“The SCVO website is one of the most helpful resources to us…every time I come to the site you've already thought of it and it's really reassuring- I've been forwarding to people left right and centre and I really do appreciate it."
Some of the statistics on use of the hub also show how valuable it was, particularly in the first year of the pandemic:
- 1.25 million pages were viewed in the two years from March 2020- March 2022
- The most popular content was about funding – receiving 75% of all traffic.
- Other key topics were coronavirus restrictions (10% of traffic), employee support (10% of traffic) and digital change (5% of all traffic).
- Emergency funding was awarded by a unique collaboration between 8 funders, 250 grant assessors, 32 infrastructure organisations, 48 business advisors and the Scottish Government.
- £75 million of emergency funding was awarded – the information hub was the single entry point for applications, assessment, awards and monitoring of grants
- Traffic and queries received through the hub gave us insights into needs across the sector. We used this to develop hundreds of webinars (like our Opendoor and DigiShift webinars), with help from our partners.
Never more needed
SCVO is part of the UK-wide #NeverMoreNeeded campaign – to help remind government, funders, donors and the general public of how essential the voluntary sector is now and in the future.
We worked with Media Co-op, Penumbra, Home Start, Food Train, Cornerstone, Scouts Scotland and Maryhill Integration Network and many other organisations to create a film for the campaign – take a look: