We know that our explanation of the study on the main page will not mean much to a lot of people who read it. This is because the study looks at technical areas that have often been the subject of debate by specialists, and it will look into the detail of what some of that debate has been about. So on this page we try to explain some of these terms and how they relate to this study.
Voluntary and community sector (VCS) organisations often seek support from other organisations to help them to achieve what they set out to. We talk about ‘infrastructure organisations’ to mean other VCS organisations that provide this support.
There are several main types of support that infrastructure organisations can offer. One of the most important is to help organisations to run better, often referred to as ‘organisational development’. This includes such things as advice and training in managing organisations, staffing, finance and fundraising, and complying with legal requirements. This type of support is often also called ‘capacity-building’ and is what this study is considering. Infrastructure organisations often also offer other types of support, such as bringing VCS groups together or representing their interests to the government or funders.
Infrastructure organisations may cover a particular geographic area, type of work or ‘community of interest’. This study will look at the last of these. When we say ‘community of interest’ we are thinking about factors such as a shared identity – most often groups that work and identify with particular types of beneficiary, such as specific ethnic communities, lesbians and gay men, or people with disabilities.
Many infrastructure organisations set up to support others from a similar ‘community of interest’ offer organisational development, along with other types of support. But at the same time, infrastructure organisations based on geographic areas also provide organisational development support. This raises questions about whether scarce resources are being used as best they can, and where ‘community of interest’ voluntary and community organisations can get the best support.