TLDR: Critical Insights from Mid-2026’s Key Sector Reports

Aug 2026

We’re only halfway through 2026, and already three major reports – NCVO’s new strategy Together for a Stronger Society, Charity Digital Skills Report 2026, and and Rosterfy’s State of UK Volunteer Management 2026– have given us plenty to consider.

To save you reading all three cover to cover (the Charity Digital Skills Report alone runs to 807 responses and 177 pages!), we’ve pulled out what matters most. The short version: there’s real, hard-won progress here. But there’s also a clear and slightly uncomfortable pattern running through all three – the charities already ahead are pulling further ahead, and the ones who need the most help are often the ones least able to get it.

NCVO’s new strategy: less “doing it all”, more “doing it together”

NCVO launched their new strategy this summer in Together for a Stronger Society. It presents a thoughtful, inspiring perspective informed by over 250 hours of interviews and input from 800+ members, partners and sector experts. The big shift is NCVO stepping back from trying to deliver everything itself, and instead repositioning itself as a convenor. As the strategy puts it, the goal is “to bring together people, ideas, skills and relationships from across civil society” rather than holding responsibility for all of this in-house. So, rather than picking a single cause or bracket to champion, NCVO’s goal is now to improve the conditions the whole sector operates in.

With that goal in mind, a few things stood out:

• NCVO openly acknowledges that the challenge is bigger than them, or any one organisation – or even any single sector! The complexity and scale of the sector’s difficulties challenge will require greater coordination from everyone involved. This must involve government and the private sector, too, if we are to muster the resources and decision-making influence needed to make real progress. Refreshingly, NCVO also acknowledged the need for open-hearted cross-organisation coordination between us all in civil society, demanding we all overcome the competitiveness pushed upon us from the scarce funding environment.
  • AI is framed as a key innovation tool, but within a strong ethical lens (which the sector has always prioritised). NCVO’s noble ambition is for AI to benefit the whole sector, not just those already best resourced to use it – hold this thought for later when we dissect Charity Digital’s AI report!
  • Drawing together focus on innovation and cross-sector collaboration, corporate partnerships and experimental impact models are flagged as areas we all should explore further. More broadly, there is a call to action to look beyond the resourcing solutions we’ve all used to date – if the well has dried up, we need to look for other sources! This will require experimentation and some courage to think, and use our hard-won time and resources, differently.

And a fun one for the road: did you know NCVO has a Chief Influencing Officer? I didn’t before attending the strategy launch! It’s a brilliant title that represents NCVO’s work in representing and championing our sector’s voice, and reflects CEO Katie Lee’s drive for the sector to be recognised as the genuine economic and social powerhouse that it is (remember: NCVO pegs the sector as contributing £17b to the UK’s economy!)

Volunteering is having a good year, and we know where to grow next year!

Rosterfy’s State of UK Volunteer Management 2026 shares a fascinating portrait about the current status of volunteering. It won’t surprise you to hear that volunteering is perhaps more critical than ever, with 92% of organisations reporting volunteers are mission-critical to their work (of course, this does also point to a lack of funded in-house capacity), and Volunteer numbers growing at almost half of organisations surveyed. This is made possibly by the uplifting finding that recruitment is getting easier (46% say it’s easy now, up from 35% last year)!

Beyond the quantitative, the report shared a key qualitative headline: connected, integrated systems are the single biggest predictor of a genuinely good volunteer experience. Where those systems are missing, things fall through the cracks, volunteer experience is at risk, and retention difficulties begin to rear their head.

A few things stood out to us specifically:

• Only 48% of organisations have a volunteer management system, and adoption is heavily skewed by size – roughly three-quarters of the largest organisations have one, against just a quarter of the smallest. Cost, and simply not having the capacity to even research a system, are the two biggest blockers.
  • Just 14% of organisations currently rely on corporate volunteers. That’s a lot of headroom for growth in a channel we happen to know quite a bit about.
  • Training is one of the weakest scores in the entire report – only 53% say it’s easy to give volunteers appropriate training, and developing volunteers’ professional skills makes the top eight challenges.

Rosterfy positions the growth in volunteering as positive but to be taken with caution. One year does not a status quo make! Continuing to build our sector’s strength in volunteer management – particularly by building out the cohesive systems that give volunteers a good experience – is key for maintaining this momentum.

Most of us are off the blocks with AI, but skills are the stopping point

The Charity Digital Skills Report 2026 is, frankly, enormous. But the quality of the findings are well-worth it, thanks to the skilful research and collation by the authors.

The topline numbers show real momentum. 79% of charities are now using AI, which is a 3% lift from last year. That might not sound like a huge increase in volume, but the more interesting detail lies in how AI is being used; 81% say they’ve made digital progress this year, compared to 61% in 2025. Good stuff.

The takeaways:

• Limited skills and technical expertise is now the single biggest barrier to AI progress, cited by 56% of charities – and identical for large and small organisations alike. The starting line is the same for most of us.
  • However, Only 36% of small charities have, or are developing, an AI policy, compared to 79% of large charities.
  • And additionally, larger charities are also far more likely to carry out user research (80%, vs 66% of small charities) – another area where specialist expertise just isn’t easy for smaller teams to access on their own.
  • This said, 59% of all respondents said building digital skills among staff and volunteers is a top priority, a big jump from 43% last year.

Taken in full, this means that we’re all on the same page that AI is important, and we want (and need!) to get across it. However, the report goes on to issue a warning: without funders and support organisations stepping in, “it is the largest and most skilled charities that will benefit most from AI… deepening inequalities.” Sound familiar? It’s almost word-for-word the same concern NCVO raises about making sure AI’s benefits are shared rather than hoarded. Funding for digital work is getting harder to find too, as only 17% of charities managed to include digital costs in an application this year – down from 30% last year.

What it means for charities right now

Half-way through the year, it’s worthwhile to pause and take stock on all these changes. Undoubtedly, a lot feels like it’s changing both for good and for what may feel like bad. It is however, galvanising to see NCVO’s leadership ring out the message that we need to band together – meaning all of us working to make the UK a better place, regardless of remit.

Link UP’s contribution here is to de-escalate the isolation and fear of things like capacity demands and skill gaps, and remind charities that you don’t need to build every capability alone! Our Skilled Volunteers can help plug exactly the kinds of gaps these reports describe – from digital skills and AI policy, to IT support in creating online volunteer systems. If any of this has struck a chord, we’d love to hear from you.