The latest Pulse survey was administered to NICVA members during March 2024. A total of 216 participants completed the survey.
The survey covered the following themes:
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Financial Stability including diversification of income
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Transforming the Voluntary and Community Sector
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Communication by NICVA
Please note that while 216 surveys were completed, not all participants answered every question which has led to variation in sample size as noted at Tables/Figures throughout this report.
Key Findings
Financial Stability: Most organisations rated the financial stability of their organisation as fair (43.7%) with 36.2% rating their organisation’s financial stability as excellent or good. Results indicate that two key factors which influenced organisations’ financial situation in the past year were:
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an increase in organisational running costs (65.4%); and
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a rise in demand for services (55.1%).
The most common forms of income diversification reported by participants were applying for grants and/or contracts relevant to their organisation (77.0%) and identifying additional or new funding opportunities (46.5%).
In the past year, 18.8% reported that their organisation had taken no steps to diversify their income.
A total of 15.9% of organisations reduced staff hours, made redundancies or left vacant posts unfilled in the last year with 26.2% considering these measures for the next financial year.
Transformation of the Community and Voluntary Sector
The top priorities to transform the sector include:
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a better understanding of the work of the sector;
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funding and fundraising; and
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support for better partnership and collaboration across the sector.
The majority of respondents (60.6%) rated their understanding of social value as fair, poor or very poor with 39.3% rating their understanding of social value as good or excellent.
Overall, 57.4% of participants reported that they did not currently benefit from the social value clause in procurement.
Communication by NICVA
Members highly rated NICVA’s communication as trustworthy with 91.0% rating this as excellent or good. Accessibility and user-friendliness of NICVA’s communications were rated as excellent or good by 89.2% of respondents.
63.2% of participants reported they were very satisfied or satisfied (63.2%) with NICVA’s media output with 34.4% remaining neutral on this.
72.1% of participants reported being satisfied or very satisfied with NICVA’s advocacy efforts on behalf of the sector in the past year.
Participants identified a number of improvements NICVA could make to communicate with members. Three key suggestions included:
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Tailoring information and network events to specific groups such as smaller organisations, social enterprises or special interest groups;
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NICVA should increase the number of meetings and visits held outside Belfast;
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Clarify the benefits NICVA offers its members.
Who we talked to
- NICVA member organisations who responded to this survey conduct a wide range of work including community development (38.0%), mental health and wellbeing (35.6%), supporting older people (27.8%), employment, education and training (26.4%) and children and family services (22.0%).
- Participants of the survey were drawn from every council area in Northern Ireland. Around thirty percent of organisations (28.7%) worked on a regional basis.
- Organisations we talked to represented voluntary and community organisations from across a range of incomes. Nearly half of participants (48.6%) worked in an organisation with an annual income of £100,00 or under. One third of respondents worked in an organisation with an annual income between £100,001 - £1 million with 16.7% working in an organisation with a large annual income of over £1 million.
You can download and read the full report here.