Unlocking the potential of Bristol’s communities
Impact Report 2020-21
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Nurturing communities Welcome to Voscur’s Summary Impact Report for 2021. Having survived ‘the lockdown year’ of 2020 many of us are still working to minimise the impact of the Covid19 pandemic, which has been extremely challenging for everyone. This year, we feel it is particularly important to honour the outstanding work of our members and the wider sector. So let’s focus, just for a moment, on the positive actions, collaborations and innovation that emerged during the pandemic. Many organisations changed how they worked overnight and we want to celebrate their adaptability, resilience and service. City partners, funders and decision-makers are also looking at new ways of working and rethinking what it means to
Vital statistics
Sandra Meadows MBE, Voscur CEO
nuture communities, to build on assets and to drive for equity. Difficult as it has been for so many, the global pandemic has provided opportunities for greater collaboration and the sharing of ideas, learning and resources. I’m very proud that Voscur has been able to play an important role in enabling and supporting change and transformation. As a charity ourselves, we’ve also adapted much of our work as a result of the pandemic; deepening our engagement within local communities and developing our service offer with new initiatives such as the VCSE Academy. Bristol has a wealth of talent, knowledge and expertise across all communities and we look forward to continuing our work with members, the wider sector and our city partners to unlock and release our collective potential.
£6.3m of new income secured by local organisations supported by Voscur
1.2m unique page views of the Voscur website
£6.3m
1.2m
855
855 people trained from 732 organisations
5,281 Twitter followers
5281
563
563 support sessions provided for 220 diverse organisations
96%
96% of learning participants reported a useful and/or significant difference to their capacity
Targeting our work for impact and inclusion Bristol’s VCSE sector is changing and so is Voscur’s enabling and coordinating function. The VCSE sector is more culturally diverse, geographically dispersed and operationally diversified than ever. In response, Voscur’s capacity building support is targeted at groups experiencing the greatest inequalities as we work, with partners, to embed greater equity and inclusion across the sector and city. The diagram below illustrates the increase in the proportion of organisations we support in terms of priority geographic areas, equalities-led groups and emerging/microsized organisations:
Asha Mohamed Caafi Health Errol Campbell Friends of Caswell Thompson
Micro-sized (+16%) =32% From priority areas (+8%) =28%
“Caafi Health supports underserved communities with accessing traditional health care services more effectively. We contacted Voscur who’s been really supportive in helping us set up and being the go-to point for information. We didn’t know what we were doing in terms of funding and who to approach and [Voscur’s Development Officer] Jenny was very insightful. She had a lot of experience, a lot of knowledge.”
Equalities-led (+4%) =28%
2018-19 2019-20 2020-21
“The Health Park is nearly 20 years old. It was setup because local residents wanted to tackle poor health in the community. I see Voscur as a space where digitally and physically I can speak to people so when I’ve got a conundrum I can call someone and hope that they can walk me through a process to find a solution.”
Heather Williams Knowle West Health Park “Friends of Caswell Thompson is dedicated to raising awareness in the community because one in four black men will develop prostate cancer. Voscur have been fantastic with help with getting us from A to B. And when I say A to B, it wasn’t a straight path but lots of hurdles, and hills and valleys to go through, and without Voscur we wouldn’t have been able to navigate.”
Using Covid19 as a catalyst to build greater equity Bristol’s VCSE Strategy Group started as part of a One City response to the Covid19 pandemic. Witnessing the communities and organisations we work with experiencing the most negative impacts of the crisis required a more nuanced approach to achieving the objectives we’ve always pursued: equality, empowerment, independence. Black South West Network (in partnership with Locality and Voscur) undertook sectorwide research to gather data and intelligence to help us identify key priorities for the sector, our communities and the city. Based on this research (‘Designing a New Social Reality’), and wider intelligence from across the city, Voscur has been working closely with a wide range of partners and stakeholders as part of the VCSE Strategy Group, to draft a new strategic action plan which will deliver on the research recommendations. Recommendations include a cultural shift towards equity, funding and commissioning for the long-term, building community agency and creating a new, citywide democratic forum for the VCSE sector.
Analysis of demand for support shows funding and organisational development in most demand to maintain services and adapt service delivery through the pandemic, as illustrated in the chart below: % 40
Capacity building Funding “Voscur is very very good at bringing the VCSE sector together, at supporting it and being the go-to agency where that support and nurturing is needed. And I have to say I do wonder what the sector would have done without them, quite frankly.”
Andy Street Feeding Bristol & City Funds
30
Making connections
20
Specialist support Resources
10
Startup
0
Collaboration
2018-19
2019-20
2020-21
Jane Kippax & Jane Chong Step & Stone
“We started Step and Stone because we’re both parents of children with Downs Syndrome and we know how poor job prospects are for young people with learning disabilities. I think Voscur have been really brilliant actually. We’ve had some really good advice on governance and transitioning to a Charitable Incorporated Organisation. They gave us some very detailed feedback on one of our grant applications which was invaluable.”
Go to voscur.org/impact2021 to watch many of the organisations featured in this summary tell their impact stories in more detail.
Bird images: Freepik.com All other images: David Whittaker
Thank you to our team - staff, trustees, volunteers - for your tireless commitment, and our member organisations that make the city such a great place to live and work. Thank you to our funders: Bristol City Council The Access Foundation Big Society Capital Sport England Barrow Cadbury Trust
For more information on becoming a member of Voscur and the range of benefits, visit www.voscur.org/about/joiningonline or call us on 0117 909 9949
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Impact Report 2020-21 Supporting Voluntary Action
Royal Oak House, Royal Oak Avenue, Bristol BS1 4GB Voscur is a registered charity and a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee. Company no. 3918210. Charity no. 1148403