Insight Gloucestershire was founded in 1858. We remain the only charity providing face-to-face support for those living with sight loss in the very rural county of Gloucestershire.
Our aim is to ensure that everyone newly diagnosed or living with sight loss in Gloucestershire has equal and timely access to the support and services they need and are empowered to pursue independent lives.
Our objectives are to ensure everyone living with sight loss in our region know where they can find support relevant to them. To provide a range of good quality, high impact services guided by the views and needs of people living with sight loss. And to build a strong and sustainable organisation.
We directly support more than 1,500 people. In addition, we are there to represent and support the more than 3,000 people in Gloucestershire with significant sight loss, and 5,800 with moderate sight loss (affecting their day to day lives). 80% of our clients are over 65, with most being over 80 years of age.
We offer both practical and emotional support, empowering individuals to live independently by providing necessary tools and fostering social connections to combat isolation.
Summary
In 2023, the board of Insight Gloucestershire approached Sight Support West of England to manage the organisation. Facing significant challenges, the Trustees recognised the need for Sight Support’s capacity, expertise, and experience to prevent the charity from failing.
Sight Support West of England operates just across the border from Insight Gloucestershire and has been managing Wiltshire Sight alongside their own operations for six years. Despite being established only in 2018, Sight Support has proven itself as a resilient and sustainable organisation. The management team, unchanged since its inception, has demonstrated their expertise through the successful turnaround of Wiltshire Sight.
Under their leadership, Sight Support and Wiltshire Sight have grown significantly, expanding from a team of 10 staff and 8 volunteers to 29 staff and 122 active volunteers in just six years. This growth reflects their ability to deliver effective management, strategic development, and impactful service delivery.
To secure Insight Gloucestershire’s future, we now want to cement the formal partnership with Sight Support and Wiltshire Sight to move beyond a contracted management situation to a formalized shared management structure. This will involve significant management work and external expert advice, to enable us to work out the operational aspects of the partnership, and to develop a robust cost-sharing financial model. The aim is to create a partnership model that works for all 3 charities, maintaining independence whilst benefiting from significant cost-sharing arrangements, and sharing good practice to ensure a consistent, high-standard service for people across the region.
Achieving this will require significant management time, alongside legal and financial advice, and the capacity building fund would enable us to achieve an enormous amount in the next 12 months.