29/05/2010 – Recession forces London charities to take steps to combat the effects
A report by the London Voluntary Service Council (LVSC) shows that more than 90 per cent of voluntary organisations in London have had to take action in order to survive the recession.
Of 60 organisations polled in the capital by the LVSC for their second report based on their ‘Big Squeeze’ initiative, 93 per cent said that they had taken steps to combat the worst effects of the recession, such as using more volunteers or generating more of their own income. The figure is up 15 percentage points on the same survey last year.
Sixty-eight per cent of voluntary groups reported that workloads had risen because of the recession, with respondents witnessing an increased workload of up to 50 per cent because of enquiries about unemployment and debt.
Ninety-seven per cent of respondents said the downturn had affected the communities they worked with in the past year, up two percentage points since 2009.