The associative sector during COVID-19: An overview of the issues and challenges of lockdown

The associative sector in France constitutes a network of mutual acquaintance and aid that is essential in times of crisis. Lockdown, however, has posed an enormous and unprecedented problem for these organizations-whose physical premises tend to be small at best-when it comes to carrying out their missions. Beyond the difficulties they have been facing on a daily basis for several years-such as decreases in and changes to the form of public financing, the loss of subsidized jobs, modifications to their relationship with the public authorities due to the NOTRe law, and changes to governancelockdown has brought additional challenges, both at the national and regional levels, and for large and small organizations alike.The thoughts that follow will likely need to be qualified depending on the regional impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. That said, we felt it important to draw up an overview of associations' situation in the early days of lockdown as soon as possible, 1 because the questions raised here foreshadow certain developments that are to come in the months and years ahead. The conclusions drawn here are thus incomplete, biased, and dated, and later approaches that rely on a more scientific methodology will no doubt follow. However, this article lays the groundwork and highlights the experience of associations during lockdown. This overview was developed as part of a study of French associations and foundations on behalf of the EU-Russia Civil Society Forum, 2 a network of European nongovernmental organizations that publishes a yearly report on several European Union countries, plus a chapter on emerging nonprofit organizations in Russia. Beyond legal, political, and statistical data, the report's bottom-up methodology relies on fifteen interviews with new and old organizations of varying legal forms, sizes, and sectors of activity. They shed light on the problems encountered by associations and foundations over the last three years, as well as the potentially innovative solutions that have been implemented in response. During lockdown, fifteen people working in associations and foundations (founders, managers, or board members) were contacted