Charities spend too much time debating the terminology around volunteering and not enough time innovating, the chair of NCS Trust and founder of RockCorps, Stephen Greene has warned.
Speaking at an event on volunteering yesterday, Greene, who comes from the USA, said that UK charities, more so than their counterparts around the world “spend a lot time of definitions” which “can be stifling”.
He added: “We should have a much more pragmatic view. We spend 70 per cent of the time talking about what is and what isn’t a volunteer and not enough time on innovation.”
Stacey Adams, chief executive of Raleigh International, said that language was important: “When we use the word ‘volunteering’ a lot on our website 60 per cent of the applicants are girls and when we use words like ‘adventure’ we get much more interest from boys… so we know to be careful about going over the top with the word ‘volunteer’.”
Potential volunteers more demanding
Delegates at Volunteering 20:20, organised by ivo, also heard how the public’s expectations of volunteering, partly as a result of the Olympics had changed, and that they needed to meet these demands.
Jamie Ward-Smith, founder and chief executive of ivo, which acquired the volunteering platform Do-It recently, said: “From Do-It’s perspective the numbers of volunteers are definitely going up. There has been a big surge in different people coming forward to volunteer and with different motivations.”
He explained that volunteering was more of a “lifestyle option” now, with 40 per cent of people that volunteer through Do-It saying that they do so to make friends.
Rob Jackson, consultant, said: “We are seeing people wanting shorter and shorter time commitments. Leadership of volunteers needs to become more flexible and more informal.”
Asked what impact the Olypmics had on volunteering, Ward-Smith said it has raised the profile of volunteering but also that: “Raised people’s expectations as to what they can expect from volunteering.”
Greene added that the Olympics had “made brand ‘volunteer’ acceptable”.
Leon Ward, trustee at Plan UK and voluntary sector blogger, suggested that the term is only used by those within the sector: “We might have made it (the Olympic legacy) up.”
