Volunteering England will lead the charge in the UK's efforts for the European Year of Volunteering after receiving £78,000 from a £580,000 pot provided by the Office for Civil Society (OCS) and the European Commission (EC) to help encourage volunteering.
The umbrella body will oversee activities undertaken by five organisations that will lead the key themes for the UK's participation.
Four of these five organisations, which will each receive £37,000, have also been announced by the Cabinet Office:
- Volunteering charity v and youth charity Catch22 will partner to lead the children and young people theme;
- Age UK will lead activity for health and social care;
- Groundwork West Midlands will lead on the environment; and
- Arts and Business will lead on culture and the arts.
The organisation leading on sports will be announced shortly, a spokesman for the OCS advised, as will the three further partner organisations which will each receive £67,000 to deliver employer supported volunteering, volunteer management and volunteering access for underrepresented groups.
The OCS has provided £327,000 of the funding while the EC provided £253,000.
The appointment of Volunteering England as leader in the European Year of Volunteering comes after the body saw a 50 per cent drop in funding earlier this year, despite winning its place on the OCS strategic partners list, forcing the organisation to cut its staff from 54 to 22 posts.
