Annual Survey of Charities and Community Groups 2023

Out of difficulties grow miracles. The state of the voluntary sector in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis.

Support Cambridgeshire have completed its annual survey to find out about the state of the voluntary sector in Cambridgeshire, and this year we have also worked with a data scientist to analyse what national data from the Charity Commission and 360 Giving tells us about local charities.

We know that local charities and community groups have continued to deliver vital support and services through the pandemic and now through the cost of living crisis, but this survey points to the toll this is taking on staff and volunteers.

Challenges faced by local charities

Fewer organisations were optimistic that this year would be better than 2022 for them compared to 12 months ago. Groups are struggling to find the funds and volunteers they need to meet the demands put on them.

Across the county the amount of money going into the sector and the number of groups available to offer support is uneven.

We can not take our local charities and community groups for granted. The work they do is still #NeverMoreNeeded. We know that so many people rely on, or benefit from, their work.

The partners in Support Cambridgeshire will continue to offer all the help and advice they can to enable our local voluntary sector to thrive and prosper, but we need others to join in this effort or we will see more groups closing and more services disappearing.

2023 State of the Sector survey

Download the main survey report

Download

5 things the Cambridgeshire ‘State of the sector’ research makes me want to shout about

Read the blog that highlights some key points.

A deeper analysis of the voluntary sector

This year we have worked with David Kane of Kane Data to analyse some of the data that is available from national datasets. The report is based on an analysis of data from the Charity Commission for England and Wales, supplemented with additional data including:

Geographic data, including postcode lookups, from the Office for National Statistics
Population data from the Office for National Statistics
Inflation data (using the RPIX measure) from the Office for National Statistics
Charity Classification from charityclassification.org.uk
Data from grantmakers was published using the 360Giving Data Standard.

We worked to exclude those charities that were obviously mistakenly connected with the county as well as charities that mainly worked nationally or internationally but were based in the county. We also excluded independent schools and university colleges.

This report helps us understand the numbers and sizes of charities and how they are spread across the county, it also gives us an indication of the grants that come into the sector from those grant funders that publish their data on the 360m giving platform.

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