The Office for Civil Society has won backing from the Treasury for a new fund, hoped to be worth around £40m, to help voluntary organisations which are in danger of closure.

An OCS spokeswoman said: “The Office for Civil Society is looking to set up a new fund to support voluntary organisations, specifically those who deliver high-quality services, to better prepare for the longer term."

“The fund will help make these organisations more sustainable and secure their futures.”

The fund, which has not yet been named, could provide a mixture of direct grants, funding for third-party support, while access to pro bono and peer support will also be explored.

“The fund responds to growing concerns around the vulnerability of these types of organisations financially,” the spokeswoman said. “We want the sector to look again at what it needs to start to do to secure its long-term future and this is part of that objective.

“Last year the OCS made a case for funding during the spending round process and this was successfully agreed.

“We hope that this will be around the £40m mark though this is to be confirmed.”

She said the OCS had already undertaken “initial targeted engagement with stakeholders” on the shape of the fund, but would be conducting a wider consultation from early April onwards.

“The intention is that we are able to launch the fund by the end of 2014, so that we can start to get funding out to those in need as early as possible in 2015/16,” she said.

Nick Hurd, minister for civil society, said in November last year that he was considering a fund to help medium-sized organisations which were carrying out valuable work but had been forced to dip into their reserves to survive the recession.

Asheem Singh, director of public policy at Acevo, said his organisation had called for a Community Recovery and Sustainability Fund in its recent Budget submission.

“The fact that the Cabinet Office have acted along these lines shows that they are listening to the needs of community organisations,” he said.