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To survive, every voluntary organisation needs to develop. Organisational development is the name given to interventions that aim to help an organisation to grow and change, such as quality or performance improvement. Organisational development can mean a number of things:

  • more: extending existing service, growing staff/volunteer base
  • better: developing people, learning from mistakes, updating equipment
  • the same: if funding or resources are scarce
  • different: diversifying or specialising

In the past many funders only funded direct project costs, and not core costs such as organisational development. However some funders, such as the National Lottery Community Fund now provide funding for core organisational costs or capacity building, proportionate to the specific activities they are funding. This is known as Full Cost Recovery.

Last modified on 14 July 2026
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