The Third Sector Trends Study is the largest and longest running survey of the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector in the UK. As a longitudinal study, it was designed to explore the structure, dynamics, purpose, energy and impact of the sector in the context of change.

After another long period of ups and downs and twists and turns in the voluntary sector, Third Sector Trends is back in England and Wales to see how social, political and economic change has affected the way organisations work and what they achieve.

Many charities, social enterprises, cooperatives, CICs, clubs and societies have been helping with this study every three years since 2010. We’re now asking them to take part again. And if a new organisation, we’re just as keen to see what they do, how things are going and what they’re achieving.

Whether big or small – thriving, struggling or just going along as normal – we need to hear from all types of organisations and groups. It’s quick and easy to do, interesting and really helps to build a picture about how the voluntary sector responds to change and initiates change in society.

It’s completely confidential, incredibly relevant to the voluntary sector and those who support it and only happens every three years. So please tell us how it’s going and have your say on what you think the future holds.

The study is live and you can take part now  – click this link.

What will be explored in 2025?

In this seventh iteration of the study, the aim is to get at least 6,000 responses (and a minimum of 500 responses in each English region and in Wales if we can) to produce comparable data for time-series analysis – but we’re hoping for 7,500 responses.

We’re going to be exploring in more depth issues surrounding:

• Sector leadership – and we’ll try to determine what gets leaders want to get up in the morning and what makes them worry at night.  And being a big study, we’ll get a sense of where there’s evidence of leadership vitality.
• The environment:  nobody really knows much the sector contributes to the environment  – so we’re going to look at that, focusing not just on reducing energy and recycling, but also bio diversity and contributing to liveability.
• Campaigning and influencing:  in 2022 we did ground-breaking work on attitudes to campaigning and influencing – this time we want to know if anyone out there is listening – especially in relation do local devolution agendas.
• Sector vitality: we hear a lot about the third sector playing a vital role in society – but what underpins that?  We need to get a better idea on what creates ‘vitality’ within the sector – is it about responding to demand or is about initiating change?

The study will also use its longitudinal data to focus on the following trends:

• How has sector structure changed? This will include analysis by organisational location, organisational size, age, legal form, purpose, and spatial range of activity.  Special emphasis will be placed on changes in patterns of sector funding.
• Are there signs of change in sector purpose? The study has assessed the impact of a long period of government austerity policy in the last decade, the Coronavirus pandemic in 2020-21 and currently ‘cost of living crisis’ (2025 survey). We will be in a unique position to examine how responsive the Third Sector has been to changing needs.
• Has the ‘people energy’ of the sector changed? In 2022, it was clear that the sector was struggling to recruit and retain employees. We need to see how organisations are faring with more pressures imposed upon them with raised National Insurance cost, rising wages and lower levels of labour market participation. The regular volunteer workforce declined after Covid-19, we need to know whether the sector has recovered – and if not, to identify critical areas of decline.
• Relationships with trusts and foundations. During the Covid-19 crisis, many trusts and foundations relaxed their grant-making practices. In 2025 we intend to examine how the quality and depth of relationships with trusts and foundations has changed – or has reverted to previous patterns prior to the pandemic.
• Relationships with public sector and health organisations It is often claimed that there has been a progressive shift towards devolved decision making in the public and health sectors. In tandem, such policies claim to be committed to involve the Third Sector. But how does that feel on the ground to voluntary sector organisations? We intend to find out.
• Relationships within the Third Sector In the aftermath of the pandemic, the extent of intra-sector working declined to some extent.  We need to know whether this has bounced back now that organisations are free to work without restriction. More importantly, we need to look at how productive those relationships are in impact terms
• Sector social impact. Crucially, the study will update its analysis on sector impact at both national and regional levels using the well-established methodology developed by this study.

More detail about the study

The study is designed to complement rather than compete with existing studies such as NCVO’s Civil Society Almanac and build on data produced by 360 Giving on sector grant funding.

The study was initiated in 2008 by Northern Rock Foundation. Community Foundation North East is now responsible for its legacy. In 2025 the study is being supported financially by Community Foundation North East, Lloyds Bank Foundation England and Wales, Wales Council for Voluntary Action and Millfield House Foundation

Since 2012, the research programme has been run by Policy&Practice, St Chad’s College, Durham since when, its geographical coverage expanded, first to Yorkshire & Humber in 2013, to the whole of the North of England in 2016 and to England and Wales in 2019.

In the run up to the launch of the survey, all community foundations and local infrastructure organisations across England and Wales have been contacted to seek their support to build the sample. We’re getting a very strong response, as always, and hope that this will raise the profile of the study and increase the chances of hitting our target of at least 500 in every English region and across Wales.

Research methodology and analytical techniques

Third Sector Trends is an online survey which draws in large numbers of respondents so that in-depth comparative and time-series analysis can be undertaken. But no survey can be big enough to generate accurate data on sector structure or finance.

Consequently, baseline data are constructed from sector registers including the Charity Commission, CIC register, CASC register and Register of Societies (including cooperatives, community benefit societies, credit unions, etc.). These data, which are mapped geographically, can then be used to ‘scale up’ survey findings. We can do this by types of area such as nations and regions, but also by the indices of multiple deprivation,  urban-rural distinctions or by the density of the local ethnic minority population.

The triennial survey involves intensive work over an extended fieldwork period to build a large sample. In 2025 the survey will begin in June and run to the middle of July. It is then paused for the summer and returns in September for four more weeks. The survey will be hosted by Online Surveys which allows people to take part on their PC, laptop, tablet or smartphone.

More information on the study’s history, aims, methodology and publications can be located here: Third Sector Trends in England and Wales – St Chad’s College Durham

The last two years’ research work has led to a lot of productivity with report writing on a range of projects.  We’ll be a lot quieter in 2024 as preparations are made in the run up to the seventh iteration of Third Sector Trends in 2025 and further analytical work on existing data takes place – especially in relation to the voluntary sector’s contribution to local health and wellbeing.  The Borderlands research project will continue into 2024 and it is anticipated that a report on the findings will be published in late summer/early autumn.

Here’s the link to our annual report on our work,  connections and publications in 2023:Policy&Practice Annual Report 2023

The sixth iteration of the Third Sector Trends Survey ran across England and Wales this summer producing a nationally representative sample with 6,070 responses.

We’ll be looking at the structure, purpose, energy, finances, relationships and impact of the voluntary and community sector in the coming months. But to begin with, a briefing report has been written to provide some tasters on things that will be explored later in greater depth.

Big representative studies that are regularly repeated help to show the effect of major events such as the Coronavirus pandemic or the current cost-of-living crisis. And often the findings can be surprising.

As can be seen in the chart below, larger charities have come out from the pandemic quite well financially but smaller ones were more likely to struggle.

Early headline findings about the financial confidence of the voluntary sector can be compared with previous rounds of the study. Compared with 2019, it looks like charity leaders’ confidence has bounced back. When we did an interim study in the depths of the Covid crisis (June 2020) we found that only 13 per cent of organisations thought that income would rise in the next two years.

The complete analysis of the data from Third Sector Trends will take many months. Results will be published in regular briefings and reports. But you can find a briefing on the early headline findings here.

We asked people who had taken part in the survey, if they’d like to tell us how things are going, now that the results had started to come out. Here are some examples (some quotations have been edited to preserve anonymity using [square] brackets). If you have read this page once before, new stories from charities appear at the top:

“[We] operate within and around the Carlisle area, we deal solely with young adults between the ages of 16 and 25 years of age. Our main focus being the prevention of homelessness with that age group. Like many cities and towns up and down the country, [our medium sized city] does have a problem with suitable accommodation for many of the underprivileged groups or individuals. and there is very little support in the area, or likely to be. We have noticed the need in our client base to extend the age of support and that the difficulties are becoming more complex with the cost-of-living issues, and the impact of the COVID pandemic on the well-being of a number of people. What we see is more difficulties being presented but less face-to-face, so we have adapted to using facebook and the telephone to resolve a number of issues. The lack of face-to-face itself is a complex issue in that, as a supporting agency you are never quite sure if people don’t want to come or that their social anxiety is hitting new highs. With our client group I believe it is the latter. And to counter this, we offer counselling.”

“Our work is evolving from mainly working to resolve social isolation and improve people’s wellbeing to now needing to focus on how we can help people focus on their core needs such as heating and eating. We are working to figure out how we can best address these issues – but we may have issues around our capacity and are concerned for the wellbeing of our staff and volunteers who are working with these issues front line.”

“We are working in challenging environments which are becoming even more complex with the cost-of-living crises when we have not yet fully come out of the Covid-19 Pandemic. There is a reduction of funding available for groups to apply for or not enough core funding to support organisations who are struggling to provide much needed local services. Many of our projects are time expiring and there is not enough replacement funding available to keep much of the good working going.”

“We are busier than ever now and it’s a real challenge”

“We’re doing pretty well- we’re doing lots of training for new members, which is good!”

“We are doing well – the staff team is excellent. That said, we have a fairly substantial gap in our budget (largely for salaries) this year – we do have funding applications in, in progress and planned, and it’ll be OK… but it’s a constant challenge! We also haven’t yet properly costed the impact of ‘cost-of-living’ – this will have an effect on staff, too.”

“Covid dealt a hard blow to membership and income generation, and the projects that we could undertake. We are recovering.”

“We are a mental health charity working with people in a deprived part of the country. We deliver a range of services aimed at improving mental health, preventing crisis and developing resilience. We face a challenging funding environment with competition for funding higher than ever and rising costs. We face a recruitment crisis like many places but it is enhanced by our inability to pay market rates. The NHS trusts instead of working alongside us and investing in our skills and community knowledge seem intent on pitting themselves as our competitors in a bid to justify their own income streams.”

“We have just re-opened after the pandemic. We are on a reduced timetable due to loss of many volunteers. We are trying to gauge the demand for our services after a two-and-a-half year closure.”

“Housing development in this area of the South West has increased phenomenally. This has pushed agricultural land prices up and put land purchase beyond our reach. We are an environmental organisation and are dismayed at the Government’s war on nature. The removal of European protections for wildlife and our environment is depressing for our members.”

“We have now stabilized our number of third age member numbers which are now slowly increasing. There is still some concern over Covid issues from some.”

“Stable and becoming financially sustainable.”

“With a lease responsibility for the building we are experiencing difficulties with the cost of energy and heating.”

“The operating environment right now is far more challenging than at any time during the pandemic. Statutory thresholds are so high that demand is escalating to levels that are not possible to respond to in the VCSE sector and much of that demand is not best-fit with our services. Far too many people with severe and enduring mental health challenges and people in real emotional crisis are being referred to counselling and therapy services when they are not in a position to be able to begin a therapeutic healing and recovery journey. They need crisis support, stabilisation and, in some cases, medical intervention. They are being pushed from pillar to post which is re-traumatising. The system around us is spiralling downwards and is breaking. With future prospects of cuts and continued under-investment this will only get worse. The story is the same for any charity we speak to that is trying to support victims and survivors of abuse and violence or other vulnerable individuals.”

“Tough. Retail sales down. Room hire okay but people don’t want any increases in fees.”

“We are currently in negotiations to join up with another group which would help both our groups in different ways.”

“For [our charity], the past five years have been a real struggle. There has been no funding available from the local City or County Council. The whole of the COVID period was a huge disappointment – especially trying to force vulnerable adults to use on-line learning from home. These adults barely have money to buy food and are reliant on food banks and during the COVID period their Universal Credit was cut by £20. These adults (many who cannot read or write English) were forced to look for employment and prove to the job centres that they were actively looking for employment. Yet, centres like ourselves were forced to close and not provide the basic services that we provided in the community.”

“The Energy crisis has encouraged people to take up our energy services. Unfortunately, we are a micro charity and have no paid employees, it is difficult to keep up with the demand. Funding is so difficult to find.”

To find out more about how Third Sector organisations manage to keep going through difficult times, see our latest report: Going the distance: how Third Sector organisations work through turbulent times – St Chad’s College Durham (stchads.ac.uk)

There’s a good deal of nervousness amongst leaders of Third Sector organisations just now about the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on their ability to meet the needs of their beneficiaries. Inevitably, these worries also make them think hard about the wellbeing of their own organisations.

Third Sector Trends has been tracking sector mood every three years since 2010. We started at a time when the impact of the 2008 financial crash was still rebounding around the economy. By 2013 government had adopted dramatic austerity policies which were tearing into local authority budgets. In 2016, the survey returned to a nation convulsed with excitement or anxiety about Brexit.

By 2019, thankfully, things were looking better in the economy and government was talking about ‘levelling up’ and investing heavily in ‘left behind places’. But little did we know that Covid would turn everything upside down again by spring 2020. And now the big worry is the cost-of-living crisis and an uncertain economic future.

The voluntary sector has had to contend with its fair share of problems since the financial crash of 2008. In an in-depth study of a representative sample of 50 organisations over the last 15 years in North East England and Cumbria, Third Sector Trends has watched how charity leaders navigate their way through choppy waters.

The latest report, Going the distance: how third sector organisations work through turbulent times, has just been released.

How can Christian organisations obtain the money they need whilst holding on to their principles? How vigilant should churches and other Christian organisations be about the provenance of money which they receive through donations, grants or from investments?

Professor Fred Robinson of Policy&Practice was awarded a Leech Fellowship to look at how Christian organisations think about money, particularly money that comes from sources that appear to have values that conflict with a Christian ethos. 

The problem of ‘tainted money’ has recently been generating a good deal of controversy in relation to the sponsorship of arts, culture and sport. There are also some lively debates about university endowments and the legacies of slavery. Christian organisations will get increasingly drawn into these issues — and they should have something credible to say about the positions they adopt and the actions they take.

You can find the most recent publication from Fred’s work on this topic here, published in August 2022 by Reform https://www.stchads.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Money-Talk-piece-in-Reform-Mag-1.pdf.

We’ve had a busy year. To see the work we have completed this year and to see what’s coming in 2022, you can read the report by clicking this link.