Earlier this month, NCVO released the results of the third quarterly Charity Forecast survey . This survey looks at the opinions of charity leaders – chief executives and trustees – on a variety of topics, particularly looking at finances, staffing, campaigning and other issues in their own organisations and their opinions on wider issues such as the state of the sector and its relationship with government.
For me, the most striking finding is the difference between charity leaders’ confidence in their own organisations future – in general they are positive, even in these tough times – and their confidence in the economy of the sector – they believe the sector is in for a tough time ahead. Although this difference has narrowed in the latest survey, there is still a large gap between the two.
So what is going on here? Are these charity leaders right to be so confident in their own futures but not about the sector? Well an important point to make is that this phenomenon is not unique to charities. Populus has recently run a zeitgeist poll which attempts to gauge the nation’s mood across a variety of indices, including optimism, prosperity, society and well being.
These findings show a similar pattern to the Charity Forecast survey. When asked about their optimism for the future of themselves and their own family respondents, were generally positive, giving an average response of 6-7 on the optimism index (10=positive, 0=negative). But the index for Britain in the future has an index of 4. Similar findings can be found in many polls, for example those that find people are worried about the state of the NHS but that people who use the NHS are satisfied with their own care.
I can think of two possible explanations to explain this, but there are probably many more:
The respondents are overly pessimistic about the wider sector, and the true picture is shown by their confidence in their own organisations. Research shows that even in a recession, the majority of firms in the private sector carry on almost as normal – if this holds true for charities then leader’s confidence in their own organisations isn’t misplaced.
Or the respondents are right about the problems in the wider sector, but the results for their own organisations are too optimistic. Either the charity leaders surveyed are wrong about their own organisations future or the survey sample doesn’t reflect the population – perhaps if you’re a Chief Executive of a charity struggling in a recession it’s less likely that you would want to complete a survey.
As is often the case with this type of question, I think the real answer is a complex mixture of both. We’ll be tracking these trends throughout the recession and the eventual recovery so we should be able to tease out the answers over time.
David
NCVO Research TeamEarlier this month, NCVO released the results of the third quarterly Charity Forecast survey . This survey looks at the opinions of charity leaders – chief executives and trustees – on a variety of topics, particularly looking at finances, staffing, campaigning and other issues in their own organisations and their opinions on wider issues such as the state of the sector and its relationship with government.
For me, the most striking finding is the difference between charity leaders’ confidence in their own organisations future – in general they are positive, even in these tough times – and their confidence in the economy of the sector – they believe the sector is in for a tough time ahead. Although this difference has narrowed in the latest survey, there is still a large gap between the two.
So what is going on here? Are these charity leaders right to be so confident in their own futures but not about the sector? Well an important point to make is that this phenomenon is not unique to charities. Populus has recently run a zeitgeist poll which attempts to gauge the nation’s mood across a variety of indices, including optimism, prosperity, society and well being.
These findings show a similar pattern to the Charity Forecast survey. When asked about their optimism for the future of themselves and their own family respondents, were generally positive, giving an average response of 6-7 on the optimism index (10=positive, 0=negative). But the index for Britain in the future has an index of 4. Similar findings can be found in many polls, for example those that find people are worried about the state of the NHS but that people who use the NHS are satisfied with their own care.
I can think of two possible explanations to explain this, but there are probably many more:
As is often the case with this type of question, I think the real answer is a complex mixture of both. We’ll be tracking these trends throughout the recession and the eventual recovery so we should be able to tease out the answers over time.