June 30, 2025

To: The voluntary and community sector

Subject: !!!URGENT!!! Please complete this survey !!! Deadline – YESTERDAY !!!

Sigh. Ever felt overwhelmed by the number of surveys trying to gather data about the voluntary and community sector, and perhaps wondered if it’s actually worth your time filling them in?

We’re very aware we’ve pushed a number of surveys out recently, and there’s another big one now live, so what happens once you’ve filled them in?

I started my career in research, so I can get pretty excited about a nicely formatted spreadsheet of data, or, better still, a collection of comments that help to explain the data. But data’s only useful if it changes something for the better…

And it does.

Lots of people have no idea of the full scale of Cumbria’s voluntary and community sector, and it’s really helpful for us to have the figures to hand. I remember a text message from a senior Police office moments before he presented some slides about the strength of Cumbria’s community response to the pandemic to a national meeting.

“Are there really over 2,000 VCS organisations registered in Cumbria?”

“Yes”

“That’s more organisations than I’ve got Police Officers!”

And then he went on the make the case during the presentation that the size of the voluntary and community sector meant that it’d be silly for the Police, or any other public sector organisation, not to find ways to work with us.

Recently, we’ve also seen some of the key factors and figures about Cumbria’s voluntary and community sector incorporated into the new Cumbria Economic Strategy – including that there are more than 10,000 full time equivalent staff employed within the sector in the county.

Of course, it’s not just the numbers. Often, it’s more important to know what’s bothering you, and why. Sometimes it’s things we can change because they’re within our direct control; sometimes it’s things that we can talk to partner organisations about (for example, funding processes, or access to safeguarding training). Sometimes we see a quick change, sometimes it takes a bit longer – but if we don’t know about, we can’t talk about it!

Here’s the ask!

We’ve just started a big push to get you all to fill in the next round of the Third Sector Trends study. This is undertaken by Prof Tony Chapman from Durham University, and because it’s been running since 2008, it’s possible to track what’s changing across the sector.

So yes, it’s another questionnaire. But this one’s only every few years, and it’s the “big one” we’d really like you to complete. You can find out more about the questionnaire, and take part, here

And once you’ve completed it, you might want to refresh your memory about what it found out about Cumbria’s VCS last time around? We presented the headlines from this to the senior management teams of both new Unitary Councils soon after they were formed; hopefully it’s been useful in helping them understand how we can all work together.

How much do you know about Cumbria’s Third Sector?

Of course, data’s important to Cumbria’s VCS organisations too, so, coming up next time, a round up of some of the best places to find those headline facts and figures for your grant applications and reports…

 

 

 

Carolyn Otley
CEO
Cumbria CVS