The four "C"s of the voluntary sector: community, commissioned, commissioning and campaigning

If you think the diversity found in the 3,387 charities based in Norfolk is significant remember this doesn’t include unregistered charities, various social enterprise structures and the many informal community associations. Some research suggests the total number of voluntary and community sector organisations in Norfolk is more in the region of 10,000.

Whatever the exact number, there is no escaping the huge diversity in the voluntary and community sector. We’ve found it’s helpful to start using four labels to describe the different nature of parts of the sector. We call these the four Cs.

Community

Community organisations are small, and are usually run and led by volunteers. They often do not want to engage in policy and strategy as ‘not relevant to them’ but are both impacted by it and influence wider delivery.  Collectively they provide a significant range and scale of services and form the backbone of community grassroots activities. They often have no desire to grow or develop into commissioned organisations.

Commissioned

Commissioned organisations primarily deliver services with funding from the public sector. They tend to be staff-led on a day to day basis although their delivery models may make heavy use of volunteers. They tend to have more formal systems and structures in place and a greater interest in engaging on strategy and policy issues.

Commissioning

Commissioning organisations at the larger end of the scale tend to be staff-led, compared to smaller organisations that are often entirely volunteer-based. Commissioning organisations generate income from assets, trading or fundraising and then commission delivery with that income around a particular social goal. This may include commissioning themselves to deliver services. Some commissioning organisations may engage in wider policy and strategy work but others will focus on ‘doing their own thing’, as their income generating nature does not force them to engage.

Campaigning

Campaigning organisations at the larger end of the scale also tend to be staff-led whilst, again, some smaller organisations may be entirely volunteer-based. Their focus is on bringing about social change in a particular area through raising awareness and engaging in policy, service and strategy development.  Different organisations will have a different balance between strategic engagement with stakeholders in their field and ‘shame, shock, shouldn’t be allowed’ public activism. There is often an overlap between commissioned and campaigning organisations where they have been involved in developing a service in response to the issues they perceive. This can create a perception of a conflict of interest around strategic engagement and fairness and transparency in the commissioning process.