Get involved in the State of the VCSE Sector Survey
Why taking part matters
The State of the VCSE Sector research is a major piece of work mapping the size, scope, diversity, and impact of voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations across Greater Manchester.
Your contribution helps ensure the activities, needs, challenges, and strengths of organisations like yours are fully represented. The stronger the evidence, the stronger our shared voice when advocating for funding, resources, and recognition.
Because you’re a valued member of Manchester Community Central and an important part of Greater Manchester’s VCSE Sector, we want to make sure you know this research invitation is genuine – and that your participation is really important.
Who should fill in the survey
The survey will ask questions about your organisation’s finances (income, expenditure, reserves, funding sources, and assets), staffing and volunteers, activities and beneficiaries, and governance. It may be helpful to gather this information before you begin. If someone else in your organisation is better placed to complete the survey, please feel free to forward this email to them.
Complete the survey here
What’s in it for you
By completing the survey, you will receive:
- A free Individualised Insights Report tailored to your organisation, which benchmarks you against organisations in the borough (it’ll look something like this Report)
- Your organisation will be entered into a £250 prize draw (one per locality)
- Access to the wider findings through:
- borough-level reports
- a GM-wide report
These will all be publicly available in Summer 2026.
A big thank you
Thank you in advance for taking the time to take part. Your insight is hugely valuable – not just for this research, but for the visibility and strength of the VCSE sector across Greater Manchester.
If you have any questions please contact us at info@mcrcommunitycentral.org
Complete the survey here
State of the VCSE Sector 2021
The State of the VCSE Sector 2021 Survey included eight key sections, which encouraged respondents in each of the 10 Greater Manchester localities to describe their organisations, workforce, volunteers and impact, the work that the VCSE sector undertook in each of those localities and the impact of the global Covid-19 pandemic on their work and communities.
This research has been commissioned by Salford CVS on behalf of the 10GM partnership (Action Together in Oldham, Rochdale and Tameside, Bolton CVS, Macc in Manchester and Salford CVS), other local infrastructure organisations and local authorities in GM, and GMCVO and undertaken by the Centre for Social and Health Research at the University of Salford. This report forms part of a wider collection of reports, which, may be downloaded from www.10gm.org.uk. To describe growth patterns and trends and draw some comparisons, this survey is based on previous State of the Sector questions originally developed by Sheffield Hallam University (2012 and 2017).
Download all the reports below
State of the Sector report 2021
| Full report | Headlines for Manchester |
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Greater Manchester State of the VCSE Sector 2021 Launch
| Part 1: Method and findings | Part 2: Speech by Greater Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham and panel |
State of the Sector report 2017
| Full report | Summary | 10 things you should know about the VCSE sector in Manchester |
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State of the Sector report 2012
| Full report | 8 things you should know about the VCSE sector in Manchester |
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Greater Manchester State of the Sector reports
The State of the Sector reports from the Greater Manchester boroughs can be downloaded from the 10GM website here
The Greater Manchester wide report can be downloaded from the 10GM website here