North-east third sector survey 2012.

Atorough, Peter

Abstract

The aim of this survey is to highlight the importance of the Third Sector and deliver a general overview of the services provided including social and health care, social enterprise and trading. Our conclusion is that Third Sector organisations in Aberdeen City and Shire depend on a variety of sources of revenue and income. While a significant number mainly provide a public-sourced service, this is increasingly under threat. There is little capacity to take on more work from the public sector. Organisations and social enterprises depend primarily on trading, membership and corporate fundraising which spread risk more effectively. Volunteering is also important to the Third Sector with as many as 40% of the workforce being volunteers. This helps to reduce costs and provide much needed help in a time of fewer resources and it also has the advantage of providing training and work experience for the volunteers. Interestingly, 80% of respondents had recruited in the past 12 months, with 31% doing so because they required more staff. Third Sector organisations typically spend between 5% and 10% on training but less than 1% on marketing/advertising. The satisfaction with the level of public awareness and value of the sectors activities appears to be low and much more use should be made of social media as a low cost option. Participant organisations want to collaborate more and this should be encouraged. Overall it appears that the sector appears optimistic for the future.

Citation

ATOROUGH, P. 2013. North-east third sector survey 2012. Aberdeen: Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce.

• Report Type: Research Report
• Online Publication Date: Jan 31, 2013
• Publication Date: Jan 31, 2013
• Deposit Date: May 20, 2013
• Publicly Available Date: May 20, 2013
• Publisher: Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce
• Keywords: Third sector; North East Scotland; Volunteering
• Public URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10059/819
• Contract Date: May 20, 2013