# Time to move on from emergency funding say VCSE leaders

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2020/08/17/time-to-move-on-from-emergency-funding-say-vcse-leaders/
- Published: 2020-08-17T08:30:42+01:00
- Author: Melanie May

**It is now time to move back to more conventional cycles of funding and away from
the demands of applying for and issuing short-term emergency grants, a new briefing
from The Institute for Voluntary Action Research has found.**

 

[The Institute](https://www.ivar.org.uk/) has been producing regular briefings on
the challenges faced by VCSE leaders during Covid-19, based on what it is hearing
through the online peer support sessions it is running for VCSE leaders. The latest,_
[Between a rock and a hard place](https://www.ivar.org.uk/briefing-paper/between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place/)
_is published today, Monday 17 August.

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In it, it reveals that VCSE leaders now see the idea of linear progression in funding
from emergency to recovery and then to renewal becoming unhelpful as restrictions
are tightened in virus hot spots, with a difficult winter predicted, and medical
solutions to Covid-19 not yet been found.

 

However, both funders and VCSE organisations need to move on from the demands of
applying for and distributing six-month grants, and the challenge is now to move
back to more conventional cycles of one, three and even five-year funding, without
losing the urgency and lightness of touch that has characterised the immediate response
by so many.

 

According to the briefing, at the forefront of VCSE leaders’ minds are:

 

 1. **Staff and personal welfare, **with comments including: ‘_Our clients are really
    suffering at the moment, which means staff are hearing difficult stories and clients
    are becoming harder to help – they are starting to take their frustrations out 
    on our staff more, which is very hard.’_
 2. **Navigating the easing of lockdown: **_‘Like many others, we’ve come out of the
    crisis phase and we’ve survived it. But planning for increasing capacity with physical
    distancing, infection prevention and having control measures in place is going 
    to make our services very, very limited.’_
 3. **Long-term strategy: **_‘The support that clients will need in six months will
    not be what they normally need. We are having to rethink our strategy for the long
    term.’_

 

The briefing also shares what VCSE leaders say they most need, with the top three
being: access to peer support, supportive funding structures, and collaboration 
and cross-sector engagement.

 

As well as moving on from short-term funding, the briefing calls for funders to 
develop and prioritise:

 

 * **Trust**: by selecting organisations whose values and ambitions align with their
   own and then backing their knowledge, experience and skills.
 * **Flexible funding**, with trust best expressed through genuinely unrestricted
   funding, which grantees can use as they see fit in response to changing circumstances.
 * **Support: **by respecting organisations’ own analysis of their needs and circumstances,
   and funding them to create the capacity to engage with and use support, and giving
   them the freedom to decline it, if the timing or focus isn’t right for them

 

[The briefing](https://www.ivar.org.uk/briefing-paper/between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place/)
can be read in full on the Institute’s site.

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