Annual Overview 2021/ 2022

Chief Executive Introduction

2021 2022 was another year dominated by the impact of Covid-19 and the growing cost of living crisis. Despite these challenges, the commitment and response from Scotland’s third sector has been nothing short of inspirational. During this time, the focus for Inspiring Scotland was to be alongside our partner organisations, listening and responding to their needs in a flexible and responsive way, channelling support to build their strength, resilience, and reach.

We were pleased to be able to offer additional financial support to organisations, through new funding programmes and Covid-19 emergency funding. We developed more practical support to organisations, through organisational healthchecks, leadership and wellbeing focused programmes and by leveraging further support via our specialist volunteer network.

We have not done this work alone, we have continued to build partnerships and strengthen networks across all sectors.

A new partnership with The Distillers Charity brings new long term funding to the sector, dedicated to transforming the life chances of young people in Scotland. We have continued to partner with The Scottish Government on a range of strategic areas including equality and human rights and delivering equally safe.

But we must now be ready to address the longer term impact of Covid-19 and the growing cost of living crisis. Inequality is widening and challenges around poverty and mental and physical health are being exacerbated.

We have a new five year strategy, giving renewed focus and commitment to our vision that every person in Scotland is able to live a happy, healthy life free from poverty or disadvantage.

We will focus on:

-Improving the life chances for children and young people

-Supporting people to live flourishing lives

-Embedding the imperative of climate action into our work

-Continuing to challenging ourselves to develop, improve, and extend the ways we support the voluntary sector in Scotland

We  know we can only do this by working across all sectors and we are committed to work together to drive social change and transform lives.

Thank you for being alongside us.

A network of volunteers ready to give their time and expertise to charities across Scotland

The Specialist Volunteer Network (SVN) is one of Inspiring Scotland’s unique offerings to the sector – providing free professional support to charities across the country.

With a network of over 500 Specialist Volunteers, Inspiring Scotland provides a free, personalised service to match the skills of a volunteer to the support needs of the charity, creating a relationship that is fruitful for all involved.

During the period Specialist Volunteers received over 500 requests for support from 200 organisations with 70  of those organisations not in receipt of Inspiring Scotland managed funds. A second corporate partnership  was launched with Edinburgh-based global research and consultancy group, Wood Mackenzie with 21 employees signed up to support five charities.

In addition to individual  SVN projects, mentoring relationships were formed and bespoke trustees training was offered. Specialist Volunteers delivered a wide range of training workshops on; Charity Accounts, Cost Benefit Analysis, Creating Outstanding Service User Experiences, Cyber Security, Excel, GDPR, Leadership, Overcoming Recruitment Challenges, Risk Management, Trading Models and Social Investment, and Wellbeing.

Overview of programmes delivered

Inspiring Scotland managed 19 different funding programmes, each focused on different areas of social impact but rooted to a strategic theme.

11 new programmes were launched in partnership with The Scottish Government and investors. These include: autism 2021, Creative Communities Phase 3, Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Small Grants Fund, Delivering Equally Safe, Equality and Human Rights Fund, Islands Communities Fund, Healthy Islands Fund, Rural Communities Ideas into Action Fund, Thrive (Community Outdoor Play), Urgent Response Fund (Survivors) and the Workforce Wellbeing Fund for Adult Social Work and Social Care.

We continued to partner with other independent investors to develop and manage a programme of grant giving through the Building Brighter Futures Fund on behalf of the Hub Community Foundation and developed a partnership with The Distiller’s Charity to launch the Youth Action Fund.

Thank you

Thank you to all the supporters who make our work possible.

Our investors, who include individuals, business leaders, companies, trusts and foundations and Scottish Government, for the vital financial investment which enables life-changing work to happen.

Specialist volunteers from across Scotland’s business community for giving their time, energy and expertise to support organisations to improve and increase their impact.

Thank you to the leaders and staff in in the organisations we work with, passionate and unwavering in your commitment to be there and support people and communities across Scotland.

Thank you for being with us and for helping more people across Scotland to have happy, healthy lives free from poverty or disadvantage.