Assessing financial vulnerability and risk in the UK's charities during and beyond the COVID-19 crisis

There are significant public concerns about the impact of the economic consequences of COVID-19 for UK voluntary organisations. The lockdown has caused the cessation of income generation activities involving face-to-face contacts; it will be followed by longer-term impacts depending on the scale and duration of the post-crisis recession. The impact will be highly differentiated, between organisations of different missions and size, and between communities. Central and national government, funders, voluntary organisation infrastructure bodies, and organisations themselves require analysis of these impacts if they are to make informed decisions.

The immediate needs are for understandings of:

1. exactly what sorts of funding streams are at risk, and how the reduction or cessation of that funding has differentiated impacts

2. the extent to which the economic impacts of COVID-19 will differ in magnitude and character from previous shocks to voluntary sector income (there is a baseline degree of fluctuation in organisations incomes and expenditures, but we anticipate the crisis will affect far more organisations);

3. ongoing differential impacts depending on the progress of moving out from lockdown.

Our work will contribute to an improved evidence base, providing actionable information on the exposure to risk of charities, drawing on a growing volume of administrative and transactional data. This will provide more granular, policy-relevant data on the impacts of economic change on charitable organisations. In turn this will provide a firmer evidential basis for interventions such as targeted financial support for strategically-significant charities.