CFO and OCVA are excited to announce that we were successful in our application to the National Lottery to fund a research project to help understand and develop the best model of infrastructure support for Oxfordshire’s micro and small community and voluntary organisations and groups.

What do we mean by ‘infrastructure’? Infrastructure support can be described as the combination of capacity building, skills, advocacy, physical resources, and structures which support voluntary and community organisations in serving their communities and delivering services and activities. Infrastructure support also refers to the organisations and networks that exist to help organisations and community groups to achieve their missions. Source: Department for Communities, Northern Ireland

Building on the research of the BOB Health Alliance and the OCVA/CFO Volunteer Vision community research carried out in 2022-23, there is a clear need to independently engage with and better understand the infrastructure needs of our micro/small VCSE sector. These voices, ideas and actions need to be brought together into an overall delivery model, which currently does not exist.

This research project will:

• Engage with multiple groups across the sector (formal and informal).
• Provide a general overview of the ‘state of the sector’: challenges and opportunities.
• Explore any key convergence and divergence of issues, opinion, and challenge within the sector.
• Let people and organisations ‘tell their stories’ – what is the reality of place-based community work, what is needed to thrive?

 

The research and framework of delivery will also look into the VCSE sector as whole in order to draw the best practice and collaborative work from all sizes of organisations and activities.

If you’re a small community group (e.g. hall committee, lunch club etc) or small charity and you want to be involved in the research then please get in touch by emailing [email protected]  otherwise watch this space for more information!