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About General support

Support providers

Support providers (you may also hear them called ‘second tier’, ‘umbrella’ or ‘infrastructure’ agencies), deliver support services to organisations.

 
National and regional levels

The role of support provider organisations and networks at a national level is to provide resources, evidence and good practice to other support providers.

The role of support provider organisations and networks at a regional, sub regional and local level is to provide support services to frontline organisations.

 
General and specialist

Support providers may be generalists, such as a Council for Voluntary Service (CVS) or Volunteer Centres, or specialists such as Rural Community Councils or Racial Equality Councils. They may work individually, but more commonly they form groups or networks to work together, these are sometimes known as 'consortia'.

Support services

Support services provided by providers can also be either generic or specialist.

Generic support services

Include, for example helping frontline organisations develop fund raising strategy, find out about best practice for recruitment or find and support volunteers.

They may also help frontline organisations to be strategic, for example facilitating joint strategy development in terms of Local Area Agreements (LAA's).

Specialist support services

Include for example, advice on adapting offices for disabled access.