Volunteering is the giving of one’s time and energy freely and by choice without concern for financial gain.
The word volunteering is used for a range of activities such as community service, self-help, charity, neighbourliness, citizenship, public service, community action, community involvement, trustee, member and helper.
The benefits of volunteering can be a two-way exchange of time, knowledge, skills and experience.
In 2009, in a bid to instil the volunteering ethos in young people, Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that all young people had to complete 50 hours of community service by the age of 19.
Eric Pickles has announced that his Department for Communities and Local Government will give a coalition of youth volunteering bodies £10m to train 2,700 new adult volunteers.
Ian Allsop stakes his claim for the gold medal in the 2012 cynicism marathon.
The Centre for Social Justice has said a scheme which gives companies tax relief for subsidising voluntary work carried out by their employees would boost donations to charities by around £1bn a year.
Voluntary Action Westminster has welcomed Westminster Council’s new consultation on a proposed civic contract, but warned that proposals for benefit claimants to do more community work, should have no element of compulsion.
Carrying the can
Rachel Holmes considers whether charities should be worried about vicarious liability for their employees and volunteers.
David Philpott is reminded of the real meaning of Charity, with a capital 'C'.
Children’s secretary Tim Loughton told a gathering of local authority heads of children’s services and commissioning managers this week that they should consider funding Charity Award-winning CSV project Volunteers in Child Protection.
One of the UK’s oldest environmental charities has made a last desperate plea for volunteers to take over its services as it succumbs to the crippling financial climate and admits it can no longer pay staff.
Volunteering England has moved employment minister Chris Grayling to say that Work Programme providers should always pay charities for their services, following reports that volunteer centres were asked to take on Work Programme clients for no payment.
The government has confirmed that around half the National Citizen Service pilot projects for 2012 will charge participants either fees or refundable deposits or require them to raise small fundraising targets in return for a place on the scheme.
The National Council for Voluntary Organisations has published a report calling on community groups and statutory bodies to work together to prevent a repeat of last summer’s riots.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbott, president of NCVO and chair of the Red Tape Task Force, has called on umbrella bodies, such as NCVO, Acevo and Navca, to set up and manage charity consortia which can bid for public sector contracts.
The government’s flagship volunteering programme for 16-year-olds, National Citizen Service, is to grow nine-fold by 2014 to provide 90,000 places.
The Council of the European Union has released a report into the role of voluntary activities in social policy, concluding that “volunteering activities can not replace the overall responsibility of the state to ensure and provide economic, social and cultural rights”.
An online school for volunteers and organisations for volunteers has been set up by a group of European voluntary organisations.
Peter Westgarth wholeheartedly supports David Blunkett MP's idea for a volunteering programme for young people, but urges those with the purse strings to remember those organisations already doing excellent work.
Volunteering: An untapped resource
Joe Evans explains what charities should do to encourage more young people to volunteer.
Labour MP and former Home Secretary David Blunkett has proposed a national nine-month volunteering programme for at least 20,000 young people in a bid to “change values and attitudes fundamentally” and prevent future riots.
Sir Stephen Bubb, chief executive of Acevo, has warned Prime Minister David Cameron that an extension of National Citizen Service will not be a catch-all answer to addressing issues surrounding last week’s UK riots.
The recent riots have done more to illustrate the concept of Big Society than the government has achieved since the last election, says Robert Ashton.
Natwest has launched CommunityForce, a £2.8m grant fund to help local charities raise the publicity of their work and attract volunteers.
Volunteering among young people has fallen back to 2008 levels, a situation that could get worse as funding is diverted to the National Citizen Service, according to research consultancy nfpSynergy.
Volunteering charity CSV is undertaking a wholesale strategic review which involves asking key stakeholders how they think the charity should respond to the “challenging context” it operates in.
The number of people applying to volunteer at one of the largest housing groups in the West Midlands has tripled over the past few months with nearly 250 submitting applications.
Nick Hurd, minister for civil society, has said the Department for Work and Pensions has to do more to tackle the “big problem” of job centres putting off jobseekers from volunteering.
Kevin Curley, chief executive of Navca, has asked MPs whether the government’s new volunteering scheme National Citizen Service is justified alongside the loss of support for volunteering at local levels.
Back off the ropes - transforming the Samaritans
A quiet revolution is taking place at Samaritans. Tony Farnfield, in the finance corner, explains.
The charity National Film and Television School has been fined £17,500 and ordered to pay costs of £4,787 after a volunteer was left permanently paralysed after falling 2.25 metres from a mock staircase on set.
The Department of Health has announced grants totalling £6m to fund volunteer-led health and social care projects.
A diverse group of civil society organisations have outlined what they want from the Big Society in a film and report launched in Westminster today, and put to Big Society adviser Lord Wei and minister for civil society Nick Hurd.
