Everyone in Scotland has a part to play. The emergency response from independent funders – including commitments to speed, flexibility and additional funding – has already proven crucial to the voluntary sector during the coronavirus pandemic.
SCVO is working with funders to support a collaborative, aligned response to coronavirus, both in the short and long term, to ensure the voluntary sector remains resilient through Scotland’s recovery to a new normal and as the process of economic and societal renewal begins.
Collaboration
SCVO is facilitating an online space for funders to share information and collaborate around the development and deployment of funds to support resilience, and planning for response and recovery. Fortnightly meetings are also held online.
See our briefing paper on funding, the voluntary sector and coronavirus for more information. If you are a funder and would like to contribute to this mapping or join the growing community please get in touch at funding@scvo.scot.
SCVO is also bringing together a small coronavirus impact steering group to collaborate with sector partners and shape future SCVO and wider sector-specific research.
Intelligence
Many funders are gathering intelligence and carrying out reviews to help inform strategic funding decisions. This evidence is being collated and used to update the main areas where funding is needed.
We ask that funders submit their reports to for inclusion in SCVO’s public Evidence Library. Please email the title, author, date published, web link or attachment, and a short description to research@scvo.scot.
Sharing this information will allow SCVO to produce research on coronavirus and its impact on the voluntary sector, such as our report from June 2020 on what we know so far.
Openness
Where possible, it is helpful for funders to provide information that assists us in analysing any data in a consistent way.
We recommend that funders adopt the 360Giving Data Standard to ensure a level of uniformity in the reports submitted to us. The main ‘grants’ sheet includes sections for:
- Basic information about the grant;
- Planned dates for the grant;
- Planned dates of the activity;
- Details of the recipient organisation;
- Details of the funding organisation;
- The location of beneficiaries;
- Details of the grant programme funding is from;
Funders can ensure that funding made in response to the crisis can be tracked – and the best use of resources can be made – by publishing their grants data in the 360Giving Data Standard including ‘COVID19.’
If you are not already publishing grants data in this way, this could be a good opportunity to begin thinking about how your organisation could transition this way.
