Clinks’ state of the sector research gathers the evidence we need to support voluntary organisations and lobby on their behalf. It’s vital that as many organisations respond to our survey as possible.

We have launched our most recent state of the sector survey. Please click here and take 15-20 minutes to complete our survey to tell us your story.

We are thrilled to have partnered again with NCVO and they have been working with us to improve the survey further- making it a lot easier and less time consuming to fill out.

We are continuing to ask questions about the services you are delivering, the needs of your service users and the numbers of staff and volunteers you have. But this year we want to delve a little deeper and explore how you are working to identify and meet the needs of your clients with protected characteristics.

We know there are some groups of people in contact with the criminal justice system that require a unique response from you and we want to know how you are doing this- what is helping you meet those needs and what is acting as a barrier? 

Building on our success

Last year we gathered the most detailed information we have ever had about voluntary organisations working in the criminal justice system. We heard from more of you than ever before- over 220 organisations completed our survey to tell us their story. And in total, the financial data of 752 charities and 220 companies (including social enterprises and community interest companies) was analysed by NCVO.  The information you gave us allowed us to really understand and represent a detailed picture of the challenges and successes you are experiencing.

We took the information you told us, and the results from NCVO’s financial analysis and used that to inform a recommendations paper that we published in December 2017. We have three asks each for government, criminal justice agencies and for you to help address some of the challenges highlighted in the research. And there are three things Clinks has committed to prioritising over the coming year:

1. Supporting organisations to explore alternative fundraising options: Voluntary organisations are diverse and rely on multiple sources for their income, but few receive donations from the public.

1. Assisting organisations to support their staff and volunteers: We will share learning and information from existing programmes to assist our members with providing adequate training and support for their staff and volunteers.

1. Proactively acting as a critical friend to decision makers: We will continue to proactively speak up on behalf of voluntary organisations and act as a critical friend to decision makers to highlight where the development and implementation of policy is likely to be prohibitive to someone’s rehabilitation.

We will be monitoring our success and will report back on the progress we have made via newsletter, social media and our website.

 Please click here and take 15-20 minutes to complete our state of the sector survey and let us know.