Rising to the Challenge – The 2019 Support Cambridgeshire survey

The report concludes

Once again this report gives a snapshot of the Cambridgeshire charity and community sector. What we see are small organisations that are striving to provide services despite experiencing problems with funding.

We see organisations that recognise the importance of training but are on the whole looking to providers to offer free training, especially to trustees and volunteers. We are also seeing differing training needs for volunteers, trustees and staff.

We also know that the training offered across the county is not equal, with groups being able to access far more training locally where the district council supports the Support Cambs partners.

We can see a clear desire for organisations to share their experience and to connect with, and network with other organisations that may have had similar experiences or similar problems.

Peer support for different functions (that are often quite isolated in small groups) is also recognised as being important. Having a variety of different ways that organisations can come together is important as staff, volunteers and trustees are often available at different times.

Organisations recognise the importance of having Support Cambridgeshire representing them at meetings and promoting and celebrating the sector. As organisation size grows the importance of having a trusted, impartial and knowledgeable voice at the table increases, that said across all income sizes the bulk of organisations recognise that the sector needs to be championed.