Sector Skills

Sector Skills is a comprehensive national programme, created by The Wheel to support skills development for people working in charities, community and voluntary organisations and social enterprises in Ireland.

The Sector Skills programme is accessible by any charity, community and voluntary group or social enterprise, regardless of their membership of The Wheel. This programme is part-funded by the National Training Fund through the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science.

Click on the headings below to learn more about the different initiatives.

For more information on any of these initiatives, please email training@wheel.ie. 

About Sector Skills 

The Wheel is committed to ensuring that nonprofit workers, both paid and unpaid, and the organisations they work in have the skills they need to deliver their varied and important missions across Irish society.  

The 280,000+ strong workforce is the solid foundation on which the social infrastructure of community life in Ireland rests and are central to the delivery of a significant proportion of public services. These skilled workers have demonstrated their capacity, innovative potential, and commitment over decades, especially through the recent turmoil of the pandemic and responses to the migration and cost of living crises. Given that the work of the sector has an impact in every community, tackling the biggest societal challenges, supporting the skills development of these workers is essential to the continued effectiveness of the sector. 

Sector Skills was created by The Wheel in partnership with the National Training Fund to build the capacity and increase the skills of these workers. It has been running continuously since 2005 and thousands of trainees have benefited from one of its initiatives annually since then.

The National Training Fund was established under the National Training Fund Act, 2000, as a dedicated fund to finance a range of schemes aimed at:

• raising the skills of those in employment
• providing training to those who wish to acquire skills for the purposes of taking up employment
• providing information in relation to existing, or likely future, skills requirements in the economy.

The NTF is financed by a levy on all employers and collected through the PAYE/PRSI system. Currently the NTF levy is set at 1% on reckonable earnings.

Research 

A primary aspect of The Wheel’s Sector Skills programme is research. The Wheel carries out regular research into the current and emerging skills needs of the sector. In recent years two significant reports have been published under this strand:

Investment Appraisal of Upskilling Employees in the Nonprofit Sector; 2020, Indecon International Research Economists

Consultation Report on The Support Needs of the Nonprofit Sector; 2021; Sheila Cahill Consulting

Training Links

Modelled on the approach developed by Skillnets Ireland for the private sector, Training Links encourages charities, community and voluntary organisations and social enterprises to come together in “training networks” to identify shared training needs that build the necessary skills needed in their workforces and to apply for a grant to part-fund their shared efforts to address these needs.

In addition to the provision of substantial financial subsidies to the Training Networks directed at training provision, this programme provides much-needed opportunities for sectoral co-operation and shared learning. 

Training Programmes

The Wheel hosts a calendar of training events, both online and in-person, reaching thousands of trainees a year, which addresses cross-cutting sectoral skills needs in areas such as Governance, Regulation, Communications, Fundraising, HR and Finance. 

The Wheel also partners with a range of expert training providers to support specific and emerging training needs. A number of these programmes are accredited, including partnerships with Carmichael, the Law Society of Ireland, Community Action Network, Quality Matters and Grow Remote. 

Leadership Development

This element of the Sector Skills programme is now focused under The Leadership Academy initiative and serves the development needs of leaders right across the nonprofit sector in Ireland. Offerings range from 12-day accredited leadership programmes at QQI levels 8 and 9 respectively, through to half-day unaccredited short courses on specific elements, coaching and mentoring programmes, and targeted events to build networking skills and peer-learning.

View the leadership supports and training here. 

Other Supports

The Wheel provides a wide range of web-based and other training supports for the Irish community and voluntary sector, including:

• The Employer Resources Newsletter. This service is specifically aimed at providing clear and essential information for employers on all matters relating to employment law, policies, practices and procedures as well as practical templates and briefings. It is free and accessible to all and subscribers to this service receive a monthly newsletter. This service is a collaborative initiative between The Wheel in association with Carmichael and Adare.
   
• Good Practice Guides are published resources on priority skills areas for people working in nonprofit organisations. A wide range of guides have been published for a range of skills-levels. Access guides here.
• Social Value Ireland is a network of individuals and organisations who are interested in changing the way Irish society accounts for value. The Network provides supports, resources and hosts regular peer-networking and training on various aspects of impact measurement and analysis. 

Partly Funded By