Key data, trends and insights from the UK Civil Society Almanac 2023

This morning, I attended a webinar organised by NCVO taking us through the key insights from the most recently published UK Civil Society Almanac, which tells the story of financial year 2020-21 and the impact of the first year of the pandemic on charities and volunteers, as they responded to the many challenges we faced. My notes are below. Almanac 2023 Data Sources included: Charity Commission financial accounts of all UK registered charities Government data eg ONS, LFS, CLS NCVO’s own research eg Time Well Spent Data from Scotland (SCVO) Data from Northern Ireland (NICVA) Overview About The Sector The number of charities went down in 20/21. By sub-sector, social services culture and recreation, and religions still the highest numbers of organisations. Within England, more charities in the south. Larger organisations are national or international and smaller organisations are local. Larger organisations in England are disproportionately based in the south. Income from the public and investment have fallen, while income from the government has risen. Impact Of the Pandemic On The Sector 97% of spending is on charitable activities; no decline in grant spending; larger organisations income up by £4.5bn, similar decrease for small. Most voluntary sector spending is on charitable activities Smaller charities spend a larger proportion on charitable activities & governance. Smaller organisatio