colin rochester making sense of...

Making sense ofvolunteeringA literature review

December 2006

Colin Rochester

84218 VE CMYK covers 4pp 07/12/2006 14:53

AcknowledgementsI should like to record my gratitude to a number ofpeople who have contributed to the production ofthis report. Angela Ellis Paine and her colleagues atthe Institute for Volunteering Research pointed me inthe direction of key sources and filled my rucksackwith the books, articles and reports that gave memuch of the core reading. Margaret Harris offeredtypically thoughtful and helpful comments on thefirst draft of the review. Jane Andrews provided mewith a guide to the emerging literature on disabilityand volunteering which I would otherwise haveneglected. And Helen Mathie brought intelligence,application and unfailing good humour to theunglamorous but invaluable role of researchassistant. Any sins of omission and commission are,however, my unaided work.

Colin Rochester10 September 2006

© Volunteering EnglandISBN 1-897708-38-6

84218 VE CMYK covers 4pp 07/12/2006 14:53

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Making sense ofvolunteeringA literature review

Colin Rochester

December 2006

84218 VE 2 col text 40pp.qxd 07/12/2006 15:02 Page 1

i i | MAKING SENSE OF VOLUNTEERING

Foreword by Baroness Neuberger 1

1 Introduction: expectations and aspirations 2

2 Making sense of volunteering 3

3 Who volunteers and why 9

4 A changing world 19

5 Challenges and choices 28

6 Tentative conclusions 31

References 34

Contents


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The Commission on the Future ofVolunteering was established by theEngland Volunteering DevelopmentCouncil in March 2006 to develop along-term vision for volunteering inEngland. We will have considered awhole variety of issues by the time wereport, including:• volunteering in all sectors (not just

focusing on the voluntary andcommunity sector) and includingboth formal and informalvolunteering;

• specific issues relating tovolunteering by and within faithgroups and black and minoritycommunities; in rural communities; and by thosewho are perceived to be less likely to volunteer;

• the relationship between volunteering andgovernment (national, regional and local);

• the current volunteering landscape; and • the present position, having listened to the

opinion and experience of volunteers, academics,experts, and practitioners, and the wider public.

Volunteers are integral and essential to oursociety. The giving of time by over 20,000,000people in England each year makes a difference tothe lives of individuals, communities and all sorts ofissues. We know that without the time, effort andactivity of volunteers we would all find it difficult tolead our lives.

We are an independent Commission working forthe good of the wider society, volunteers andvolunteering. As volunteers ourselves, members ofthe Commission have a wide experience andunderstanding of our subject. We are excited by thetask that faces us, and are trying to approach itvigorously, professionally and with huge enthusiasmand dedication to the principles of a society thatvalues voluntary activity.

In order to help us frame the work that we areengaged in, we undertook two separate pieces ofwork during the first half of 2006. We consulted withindividuals and organisations about their vision for

volunteering and asked them what theywanted us to look at. You can find theresults of this consultation on ourwebsite. We also commissioned aground-breaking literature review to tellus what is going on in the world ofvolunteering, not only in England but inthe wider world. We asked for this reportto consider societal changes and theimpact that these will have on the futureof volunteering. Colin Rochester hasdone us proud, and we extend ourheartfelt thanks to him for undertakingthis daunting task. Not only has hedone what we requested, but he hasidentified key challenges and drawn

some tentative conclusions, which have helped usshape our work.

I am delighted that, with the support of theVolunteering Hub and Volunteering England, we areable to publish this report. We are making it freelyavailable as a download from our website as we arecommitted not only to publish the Commission’sthinking as it develops, but to making our informationwidely available. I hope you enjoy and learn fromthis report, as we have, and would be delighted toreceive any comments you may have on it.

The publication of this report marks the end of thefirst phase of the Commission’s activity. We are nowactively seeking engagement from people (whetherthey volunteer or not), volunteer-involvingorganisations, providers of volunteeringinfrastructure, funders, policy-makers, businesses,trade unions, faith groups and anyone else who hasan interest in the issues we are considering. Pleasejoin in the debate and tell us what you know andwhat you think. We need to hear from you if we areto deliver a vision for the future of volunteering thatencompasses your perspectives and needs.

I hope that you find this report as thought-provoking and helpful as I have.

Baroness Neuberger DBEChairThe Commission on the Future of Volunteering

Foreword


While volunteering has been ‘a part of mostsocieties throughout human history’ (Hodgkinson,2003) the current weight of expectation about thecontribution it can make to individual development,social cohesion and addressing social need hasnever been greater.

This is a global phenomenon; in 1997 the GeneralAssembly of the United Nations ‘proclaimed 2001 asthe International Year of Volunteers (IYV) inrecognition of the valuable contribution of voluntaryaction in addressing global issues’ (UN GeneralAssembly, 2005). According to the UN Commissionfor Social Development, on the eve of the launch ofIYV, ‘volunteering constitutes an enormous reservoirof skills, energy and local knowledge which canassist governments in carrying out more targeted,efficient, participatory and transparent publicprograms and policies’ (quoted in Hodgkinson,ibid.). A similar theme is found in the Secretary-General’s report on the follow-up to IYV whichclaimed that volunteerism, when properlychannelled, is a powerful force for the achievementof the Millennium Development Goals and called on‘governments and other actors’ to address theunevenness of volunteering activity betweencountries and regions in order to enable‘volunteerism … to realize its full potential forcontributing to many of today’s global challenges’(UN General Assembly, 2005).

At the European level, a network of 38 volunteerdevelopment agencies and volunteer centres haslaunched a Manifesto for Volunteering in Europe(European Volunteer Centre, 2006) which makes theclaim that ‘voluntary action is … an importantcomponent of the strategic objective of theEuropean Union of becoming the most competitiveand dynamic, knowledge-based economy in theworld’ (p5).

Nationally, the promotion of volunteering is firmlyestablished as a priority for government action.Writing to the newly appointed Minister for theCabinet Office and Social Exclusion in May 2006, thePrime Minister included in his list of ‘key challengesahead for the Government and in particular for yourdepartment’ the ‘aim to increase overall levels ofvolunteering across all age ranges and backgrounds.On young people, the key challenge is to have a

million more young people volunteering within fiveyears’ (Blair, 2006). This is the latest manifestation ofa policy stream that can be traced back beyond theMajor government’s Make A Difference initiative of1992 (Davis Smith, 2001) to the establishment of theVolunteer Centre UK (now Volunteering England) in1973 (Brenton, 1985).

The most recent emphasis is on volunteering as aresponse to social exclusion. The target set in thePublic Spending Review of 2002 – ‘to increasevoluntary and community sector activity, includingincreasing community participation, by 5 per cent by2006’ - was supplemented in the 2004 round by anew objective – ‘to increase voluntary andcommunity activity, especially amongst those at riskof social exclusion including people with noqualifications; people from black and minority ethniccommunities; and people with disabilities or limitinglong-term illnesses’ (Harries, 2005). Volunteering hasalso been seen as a means of delivering a range ofother government policies in the areas of sustainablecommunities, rural communities, health and socialwelfare, criminal justice, education, social inclusion,and anti-social behaviour.

The great expectations of politicians and policy-makers and the rising aspirations of the manyorganisations which promote volunteering andinvolve volunteers in their work has beenaccompanied by a growing research interest both inthe UK and internationally.

This paper will draw on this body of literature – aswell as material produced by and for practitioners –to: • explore the nature of the volunteering

phenomenon of which so much is expected andprovide a map of the territory it covers;

• present key facts and figures about the currentextent and contours of volunteering;

• conduct an analysis of the trends and changesthat will help to shape the future development ofvoluntary action; and

• identify key challenges and problems and offersome thoughts on how to address them.

2 | MAKING SENSE OF VOLUNTEERING

1 Introduction:expectations andaspirations


IntroductionOne of the key tensions or paradoxes identified byJustin Davis Smith in the speech he made at thelaunch of the Commission was the problem of ‘howto re-conceptualise what we mean by volunteeringwithout undermining its intrinsic value’ (Davis Smith,2006). The need for an inclusive but robust conceptof volunteering has been underlined by a number ofstudies which have found that one important barrierto participation in voluntary action is a general lackof knowledge or understanding of the diversity of thepossible activities, organisational settings and thepeople involved (see, for example, IVR, undated;Rochester and Hutchison, 2002; Hankinson andRochester, 2005). This section of the paper willattempt to inform and clarify discussion of theconcept of volunteering by: • presenting three perspectives on voluntary action

and bringing them together into a conceptual mapof the territory;

• identifying the core characteristics ofvolunteering and using them to explore itsboundaries; and

• developing typologies of (a) volunteeringopportunities and (b) volunteers.

Perspectives on volunteeringMuch of the discussion about volunteering in theUK, the USA and some other developed countriesby practitioners, policy-makers and researcherstends to take place within what Lyons and hiscolleagues (1998) have described as the non-profitparadigm. Research in particular is shaped by theinterests of academics in the fields of economics,law and management studies. These focus oncomparatively large and well-staffed nonprofitorganisations which provide public services.Volunteering is seen as philanthropy - as a gift oftime analogous to the donation of money – andrepresents an additional resource for theorganisation, the sector and the economy as awhole. In this view volunteering is essentially aboutunpaid labour which contributes to the work of aformally organised agency and, as such, needs to bemanaged according to the ‘workplace model’ in

which the norms and procedures of managing paidstaff are applied to volunteers (Davis Smith, 1996).And researchers working within this paradigm ‘lookon volunteers as helpers, as people filling a distinct,contributory role in modern society and, moreparticularly, in certain kinds of organizations’(Stebbins, 2004; p2).

A very different perspective on the nature ofvolunteering is found in other parts of the world,notably in Europe and the countries of the south.Lyons et al term this the ‘civil society paradigm’. Itsacademic roots are in political science and sociologyand its focus is on associations – organisationswhich depend entirely on volunteers. ‘Rather thannon-profits that serve the public’ those who workwithin this paradigm ‘are interested in those thatserve their members … organisations that are theproduct of people’s ability to work together to meetshared needs and address common problems’(Lyons et al, 1998; p52). Where the non-profitparadigm treats volunteering as unpaid labour, thecivil society alternative describes it as activism andsees it as a force for social change.

In recent years there has been growing interest inthese kinds of organisations in the USA where theytend to be described as ‘grassroots associations’(Smith, 2000) and in Britain where they are seen aspart of a ‘community sector’ (Rochester,1997;1998). This kind of activity has also been describedhere as horizontal volunteering as distinct from thevertical volunteering involved in the non-profitparadigm.

Alongside the concepts of volunteering as unpaidwork and volunteering as activism we need toconsider a third perspective – the idea ofvolunteering as leisure. It can be seen as simplecommon sense to view volunteering as a leisure timeactivity and it has been identified as such byscholars for more than thirty years (Bosserman andGagan, 1972 and David Horton Smith, 1975 arequoted by Stebbins, 2004). Until recently, however,this perspective has been largely neglected byscholarly writers on volunteering. This may beexplained by the association of leisure with ideas offun and frivolity which are at odds with the seriousbusiness of much voluntary action and with termslike ‘amateur’ and ‘hobbyist’ which are often usedpejoratively.

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2 Making sense ofvolunteering


The idea of volunteering as leisure – and, mostimportantly, as ‘serious leisure’ - has been exploredin a series of publications by Stebbins (see, forexample, Stebbins,1996; Stebbins and Graham,2004). The focus here is on intrinsic rather thanextrinsic motivations for volunteering. ‘Seriousleisure is the systematic pursuit of an amateur, ahobbyist or a volunteer activity sufficientlysubstantial and interesting in nature for theparticipants to find a (non-work) career thereinacquiring and expressing a combination of itsspecial skills, knowledge and experience’ (Stebbins,2004; p5). Stebbins also identifies two other forms ofleisure volunteering – casual volunteeringexemplified by ‘cooking hot dogs at a church picnicor taking tickets for a performance by the localcommunity theatre’ (ibid.; p5) and project-basedwhich is ‘ a short-term, reasonably complicated,one-off or occasional, though infrequent, creativeundertaking’ (ibid.; p7). This might, for example,involve participation in the organisation of a sportingor cultural event.

Each of the three perspectives captures a part ofthe phenomenon of volunteering; we can easilyidentify examples of the different kinds ofvolunteering opportunity and volunteers which canbe explained satisfactorily as volunteering asservice, as activism, and as leisure. Separately,however, they do not adequately reflect thecomplexity of many volunteering experiences whichcombine more than one of these perspectives. If wetake as a model from Billis (1993) the use ofoverlapping circles to identify ambiguities and hybridforms the result is:

A three perspectives model

Alongside the unambiguous forms of volunteeringas unpaid work or service, as activism, and asleisure, we have identified four hybrid forms whereeither the nature of the organisation through whichvolunteering takes place or the combination of rolesundertaken by the volunteer means that more thanone perspective is required to understand the kindof volunteering involved: • volunteering which can be seen as a combination

of unpaid work and activism; • volunteering which can be seen as a combination

of activism and serious leisure;• volunteering which can be seen as a combination

of serious leisure and unpaid work;• volunteering which can be seen as a combination

of all three elements.

Boundaries and definitions Having explored the fuzzy boundaries between threedifferent conceptions of volunteering we turn ourattention to the definitions which can enable us todraw a line between volunteering and otheractivities. At first sight the issue of definition looksstraightforward. Cnaan et al (1996) identified fourdimensions that were common to a variety ofdefinitions they identified from a review of thevolunteering literature: free choice; absence ofremuneration; structure; and intended beneficiaries.

Work by these authors and colleagues (Cnaanand Amrofell, 1994; Cnaan et al, 1996; Handy et al,2000) has led to the development and testing of theprinciple that public perception of who is a volunteeris related to the conception of the net cost of anygiven volunteering situation. This is calculated bymeasuring the total costs to the volunteer andsetting against them the value of any benefitsassociated with the activity. They found that thehigher the net cost the higher the publicly perceivedvaluation of the volunteer (Handy et al, 2000). Afollow-up study by Meijs et al (2004) extended theenquiry to eight countries and found that the basicconcept applied across a range of societies andthere was a consensus as to who could be countedas a definite volunteer. There was ‘some variation …regarding who is least likely to be considered as avolunteer’ but ‘remuneration and less free will have a


UNPAID WORK ORSERVICE

SERIOUS LEISURE ACTIVISM


definite impact on people’s perception of who is avolunteer across all regions’ (ibid.; p32). On theother hand there were differences of culture andcontext such as different views about the legitimacyof some of the ‘perks’ of volunteering.

While there is a measure of agreement about thecore characteristics of volunteering, we do not havea single, simple, objective definition which enablesus to draw a clear line between what is volunteeringand what is not. Instead, we need to look moreclosely at the fuzziness of some of the boundaries.

Formal vs informal volunteering The first of these is the question of structure. TheHome Office Citizenship surveys (undertaken in2001, 2003, and 2005) distinguish between threekinds of participation in community and voluntaryactivities: • civic participation: defined as contact with an MP

or other elected representative or a public official;attending a public meeting or rally; taking part in apublic demonstration or protest; or signing apetition;

• informal volunteering: defined as ‘giving unpaidhelp as an individual to people who are notrelatives’; and

• formal volunteering: defined as ‘giving unpaid helpthrough groups, clubs or organisations to benefitother people or the environment (for example, theprotection of wildlife or the improvement of publicopen spaces).

An increase in the numbers taking part in informalvolunteering was the main element in the HomeOffice’s achievement (in 2003) of its Public SectorAgreement (PSA) target of increasing the numbersinvolved at least once a month in any of the threeactivities by five per cent by 2006 (Home Office,2004). It has also been suggested that informalrather than formal volunteering offers a more usefulapproach to increasing participation in voluntaryaction by people at risk of social exclusion (Williams,2003). It is, however, doubtful whether the publicperception of volunteering or any usefulconceptualisation of it would include individual actsof neighbourliness or citizenship. They could,perhaps, best be seen as acts of service or unpaid

labour which are beyond the boundary ofvolunteering in the diagram on page 4. Similarly, actsof civic participation as defined by the Home Officecan be seen as activism but not volunteering.

Free choice vs coercion A second fuzzy boundary divides free choice fromcoercion. Some forms of activity involve a level ofcoercion that clearly puts them into a category ofnon-voluntary unpaid work. These include someforms of employer-supported volunteering(Tschirhart, 2005); some forms of service learning bystudents in higher education (Paxton and Nash,2002); community service and work experience byschool students; and internships and other unpaidwork experience activities which represent anecessary preparation for employment.

Other activities may involve ‘moral coercion’.Parents may not experience volunteering to help runservices they want their children to benefit from asentirely uncoerced. Similarly, people holding office ina community organisation may not feel they have theoption of resigning if there is no suitable successorin view.

Even in the field of volunteering as leisure the ideaof completely free choice has to be qualified: after allit ‘normally includes the clear requirement of being ina particular place, at a specified time, to carry out anassigned function’ (Stebbins, 2004; p4). Stebbinssuggests that alongside coercion and choice we needto discuss the concept of obligation: ‘People areobligated when, even though not actually coerced byan external force, they do or refrain from doingsomething because they feel bound in this regard bypromise, convention or circumstances’ (ibid.; p7).Volunteering thus involves obligation but this istypically outweighed by the rewards it brings and theoption for the volunteer to exit from the activity at aconvenient point in the future. In any case it mightwell be an agreeable obligation rather than adisagreeable one. And, compared with the demandsof work and one’s personal life, the obligationinvolved in volunteering can be seen as flexible.

For love or money? The third dimension of Cnaan et al’s framework – theabsence of remuneration – is also problematic.

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While the conventional wisdom is that good practicein volunteer management means that volunteersshould not be out of pocket as a result of theirinvolvement but should not receive any othermaterial reward, this is by no means universallyapplied. Blacksell and Phillips (1994) found that asignificant proportion of volunteers in their study hadreceived some kind of payment over and above thereimbursement of expenses. The ambiguity of thisboundary has also been emphasised by the use ofother kinds of material reward – such as birthday orChristmas gifts; free theatre tickets; parties; the useof comfortable hotels for board ‘away days’; and soon. These practices are less common in Britain thanin the United States and have been seen asinappropriate by some volunteers (see, for example,Tihanyi, 1991; Rochester and Hutchison, 2002).There have been a number of suggestions thatpayment should be made for some forms ofvolunteering including charity trusteeship andHousing Association board membership (CharityCommission, 2003; Ashby and Ferman, 2003) andcommunity activity by local residents (Williams,2004). These have been met with the argument thatany remuneration will undermine the gift relationshipwhich is the essence of volunteering while ‘if a jobneeds to be done, people should be paid the goingrate for doing it’ (Forster, 2004; p38). Suggestionsthat volunteering by students in higher educationshould be rewarded by the remission of tuition feesor the award of course credits (Ellis, 2003) have alsofailed to gain support. Alongside the concern aboutundervaluing voluntary action and employing peopleon substandard wages the research evidence alsosuggests that material rewards are unlikely tomotivate large numbers of people to volunteer or toensure that they continue to give their time (Ellis,2005; Locke et al, 2003).

Cui bono? Finally, we need to explore the extent to whichvolunteering can be seen as benefiting other peopleor the environment as well as the volunteer and heror his family. It is widely accepted that the motivationto volunteer is usually a blend of self-interest andaltruism (Stebbins, 2004). Some definitions raise thebar by requiring the activity to produce public goods

or deliver public benefit (Dekker and Halman, 2003).This might lead to the exclusion of a great deal of‘volunteering as leisure’ in clubs and associationswhich are seen as benefiting their members ratherthan delivering public benefit. On the other handmany of these organisations can be seen as ‘mixedbenefactories’ (Lohmann, 1992) which produce bothmember and public benefits (Rochester, 1997). Asimilar case can be made in respect of self-help ormutual aid groups as a specialised part of theassociational world (Borkman, 1999).

Conclusion Volunteering is a complex and multi-facetedphenomenon the boundaries of which are unclear.It is comparatively easy to find consensus aboutwhat is definitely volunteering on the one hand andwhat is clearly not on the other hand. But the pointon each of Cnaan et al’s dimensions at which anactivity ceases to be acceptable as volunteering is amatter of judgement and different individuals andcultures may reach different interpretations of wherethe boundary lies.

Typologies The final part of this attempt to ‘make sense ofvolunteering’ looks at ways of categorising andclassifying volunteering opportunities on the onehand and volunteers on the other. This has beenincluded for two reasons. In the first place, it aimsto ensure that we capture the full range and varietyof voluntary action and those who engage in it.And, in the second place, it will help us to avoidmaking assertions about volunteers andvolunteering as if they were homogeneous and helpus to identify the distinctive characteristics ofspecific kinds of volunteering activities and ways ofengaging with them.

A typology of volunteeringA useful typology of volunteering has beendeveloped as part of the preparations for the UNInternational Year of Volunteers (Davis Smith, 2000;Dingle 2001). Based on a synthesis of the twoparadigms identified by Lyons et al (1998, see abovep3), it provides a definition broad enough to



encompass the full range of volunteering in all itsdiversity. The typology identifies four distinctivestrands within volunteering:• mutual aid or self-help: probably the oldest form of

voluntary action, in which people with sharedproblems, challenges and conditions worktogether to address or ameliorate them.Sometimes described as voluntary action ‘by us,for us’.

• philanthropy and service to others: this is whatmost people in Britain would identify asvolunteering; typically involving an organisationwhich recruits volunteers to provide some kind ofservice to one or more third parties;

• participation: the involvement on a voluntary basisin the political or decision-making process at anylevel, from participation in a users’ forum toholding honorary office in a voluntary andcommunity sector organisation;

• advocacy or campaigning: collective action aimedat securing or preventing change which includescampaigning against developments seen asdamaging to the environment and campaigningfor better services, for example for people withHIV/AIDS.

Different types of volunteer The key distinction increasingly made betweentypes of volunteer is between long-term and short-term volunteering (Danson, 2003; Macduff, 2005).

The long-term volunteer is distinguished by a highlevel of dedication to a cause or organisation and astrong sense of affiliation with the organisation andthe work of its volunteers. S/he is likely ‘to have astrong emotional investment in their volunteer roleand in the sense of personal worth and identity theygain from their participation’ (Danson; p36).

There are three ways in which long-termvolunteers tend to be recruited. They may seek outthe organisation as a means of pursuing an existingcommitment to the cause (and thus recruitthemselves); they may become increasinglyconnected with the organisation over time; and theymay be brought to the organisation ‘because of aclose connection with the existing circle ofvolunteers’ (ibid.).

Long-term volunteers ‘will tend to shape their ownjob, adapting their time and energies to whatever is

needed to make the cause succeed’ and are ‘willingto do whatever type of work is required … althoughthis may not be exciting or rewarding in itself’ (ibid.).

By contrast, the relatively new phenomenon of theshort-term volunteer has an interest in the causewhich falls well short of dedication. S/he does not‘usually view the organisation or their involvement asa central part of their life’ (ibid.).

Short-term volunteers tend to be ‘recruitedthrough participation in a specific event, such as aweekend sports programme’ or ‘by forced choice –they are asked by a friend or employer to volunteer’(ibid).

They are looking for ‘a well-defined job of limitedduration’ and want to know from the start ‘exactlywhat they are being asked to do and for how longthey are committed to it’. They will tend to undertakeonly one kind of work and, while ‘they may wellvolunteer throughout their life, they do not usuallyremain too long with any one organisation’ (ibid.).

Macduff (2005) has suggested that a betterdescription of short-term volunteering is episodic –defined in her dictionary as ‘made up of separate,especially loosely connected episodes; or limited induration or significance to a particular episode,temporary, occurring, appearing or changing atirregular intervals, occasionally’ (p50) – and hasidentified three different forms of it.

The temporary episodic volunteer offers a fewhours or at most a day of his or her time on a one-offbasis. S/he may ‘pass out water bottles at amarathon, cook hamburgers at a party for homelesschildren, or arrive at a beach to clean refuse’ (p50).This is a form of volunteering often found in the teamchallenges of employer-supported volunteering.

The interim volunteer is involved on a regular basisbut for a limited period of time – less than sixmonths. Examples might include a student on awork experience placement or the members of atime-limited task force.

The occasional episodic volunteer provides‘service at regular intervals for short periods of time’which may range from a month to a few hours ‘butthe manager of volunteers can count on this personreturning year after year’ (p51). An example from theUK might be the volunteer who solicits donationsduring Christian Aid week.

Macduff finds common ground with Hustinx

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(2001) in describing these episodic forms as ‘newvolunteerism’ by contrast with the older tradition of‘classic volunteering’.

The table below (taken from Hustinx, 2001; p65)shows the different characteristics of the twomodels.

The contrast between the two models ofvolunteering is clearly related to the pithierdistinction made by Evans and Saxton (2005; p41)between the decreasing number of ‘time-driven’volunteers and the growing number of ‘cause-driven’ volunteers; rather than treating volunteering

as a means of spending time, people areincreasingly seeking specific experiences andrewards.

Danson (2003) has also identified anothervolunteering type – transitional volunteers – whoconsist of those who use ‘volunteering as an activityto forge a path back into the community’ (p237).They include ‘housewives re-entering the jobmarket, those with emotional disturbances movingback into interaction with others, those withdisabilities learning new skills’ (ibid.).


Classic volunteerism

Culture Identifies with traditional cultural norms

Choice of Based on: organisation • traditional cultural identities

• great loyalty• delegated leadership• solid structure

Choice of field Based on:of action • traditional cultural identities

• inclusion and exclusion

Choice of activity Based on:• traditional cultural identities• needs of the organisation• idealism

Length and Long term (unlimited in time)intensity of Regularcommitment Unconditional

Relationship with Unilateral, ‘altruistic’, ‘selfless’the beneficiary

New volunteerism

Individualisation

Personal interestWeak tiesDecentralised structureLoose networks

Perception of new biographical similaritiesTaste for topical issuesDialogue between global and local

Balance between personal preference andorganisation’s needsCost/benefit analysisPragmatic

Short term (clearly limited in time)Irregular or erraticConditional

Reciprocal


Facts and figures Who volunteers?The key source for statistics about volunteering inEngland is the series of Citizenship Surveysconducted by the Home Office since 2001 (Attwoodet al, 2003; Home Office, 2004; Murphy et al, 2006).The headline figures for the 2005 survey (Murphy etal, 2006) are that:• 76 per cent of those questioned had taken part in

some kind of volunteering activity - formal andinformal - at least once in the past year (up from74 per cent in 2001);

• 50 per cent had been involved at least once amonth (this suggests that 20.4 million people havebeen involved at this level, a significant increasefrom 2001’s figure of 18.8 millions or 47 per cent).

For formal volunteering:• 44 per cent had taken part in formal volunteering

at least once in the past year (up from 39 per centin 2001);

• 29 per cent had been involved at least once amonth (this translates as 11.8 million people, anincrease of 800,000 on the figure of 11.0 millionsor 27 per cent in 2001).

The survey also provides a breakdown by age,sex and ethnicity of those involved in volunteering atleast once a month which shows that:• more women volunteer than men (54 per cent to

45 per cent for all kinds of volunteering and 31 percent to 27 per cent for formal volunteering only);

• more white people are involved than people fromminority ethnic groups (50 per cent to 44 per centfor all kinds of volunteering and 29 per cent to 24per cent for formal volunteering only). But thisbroad statement obscures differences in theparticipation rates of different minority ethnicgroups. Black and mixed race people were foundto have higher rates of participation than the whitepopulation while Asian and Chinese/Other peoplewere less likely to be involved (see table);

All kinds Formal of volunteering volunteering

(%) only (%)Mixed race 58 34Black 52 30White 50 29Asian 39 20Chinese/Other 39 20

• the 16-19 age group have the highestparticipation rates in both volunteering of all kinds(63 per cent) and formal volunteering (32 percent);

• the 75 and over age group have the lowest ratesin both volunteering of all kinds (38 per cent) andformal volunteering (21 per cent);

• in other age groups the rankings vary accordingto the definition of volunteering used:

All kinds of volunteering (%)

16 to 19 6320 to 24 5235 to 49 5165 to 74 5025 to 34 4950 to 64 4875 and over 38

Formal volunteering only (%)

16 to 19 3235 to 49 3265 to 74 3150 to 64 3020 to 24 2625 to 34 2575 and over 21

The survey also focuses on those at risk of socialexclusion - defined as minority ethnic groups, thosewithout qualifications, and those with limiting long-term illnesses - and looks at their participation involuntary activities at least once a month:

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3 Who volunteersand why


• those with no qualifications were less involved inall kinds of volunteering (38 per cent) than thosewith qualifications (52 per cent) and much lessinvolved in formal volunteering (16 per centagainst 31 per cent for those with qualifications);

• those with limiting long-term illnesses were lessinvolved in all kinds of volunteering (44 per cent)than those without (51 per cent) and in formalvolunteering (23 per cent as against 30 per centfor those who had none.

The full report on the 2005 survey has not yetbeen published so, for further information about thekinds of people most likely to get involved in formalvolunteering and about the kinds of volunteeringwith which they are involved, we turn to the report ofthe 2003 survey (Home Office, 2004).

Its findings on formal volunteering are based onthe minimal criterion of participation on at least oneoccasion during the previous twelve months ratherthan the ‘at least once a month’ definition used asthe basis for figures from the 2005 survey. Thiscriterion was met by 42 per cent of thoseinterviewed.

On this basis the survey found that involvement involunteering varied according to respondents’socio-economic characteristics.

Variations were clearly associated with:• age: participation rose from 41 per cent of those

aged 16-24 to a peak of 49 per cent in the 25-34age group before declining steeply to a low of 27per cent with the 75s and over;

• socio-economic group and educational attainment:there was a clear relationship between occupationand participation: 58 per cent of those in thehigher managerial and professional group hadparticipated compared with 24 per cent of thosein routine occupations and 26 per cent of thosewho were long-term unemployed or who hadnever worked. Similarly, those whose highesteducational qualification was a degree had aparticipation rate of 60 per cent; this comparedwith 46 per cent for those with GCSE Grades A-Cor equivalent; and 24 per cent for those with noqualifications;

• religious affiliation: there was a positive relationshipbetween formal volunteering and religious

practice – 57 per cent of those practising religionhad been involved in volunteering as against 38per cent of those who did not. The overall patternof positive association was found in all ethnicgroups with the exception of those of Pakistaniorigin;

• caring responsibilities: the highest participationrates were found among those with caringresponsibilities – 58 per cent of those with a childaged five to nine as against 39 per cent for thechildless, and 46 per cent among those caring fora sick, disabled or elderly relative as against 41per cent by those without caring responsibilitiesof that kind;

• ethnicity: rates were highest for White and BlackAfrican people (both 43 per cent); lower for Asian(37 per cent) and Black Caribbean (38 per cent);and lowest for Chinese people (27 per cent).Within the Asian category rates were higher forIndians (41 per cent) and lower for Pakistanis andBangladeshis (31 per cent and 30 per centrespectively). Patterns of involvement by agegroup vary between ethnic groups. While Whitevolunteering peaks in the middle years, that ofAsians decreases consistently as people get olderand rates of Black volunteering show modestincreases with age. For most groups there is nostatistically significant variation in relation togender but Black women have much higherparticipation than Black men (44 per cent asagainst 37 per cent). Asian people born in the UKwere far more likely to volunteer than those bornin other countries – a participation rate of 48 percent - but place of birth is not significant forvolunteering by Black people;

• sex: with the exception of the Black group, thereis no significant difference between theparticipation rates of men and women.

Another important set of findings looks at rates ofinvolvement in terms of geography:• there are significant regional variations; the South

West (51 per cent) and the South East (49 percent) had the highest rates of participation whilethose in the North East (33 per cent) and Yorkshireand Humberside (36 per cent) were well below thenational average for England of 42 per cent;



• there were even greater differences betweendifferent types of area as defined by the ACORNclassification system

1. Involvement was highest in

those categorised as areas of ‘Affluent Greys,Rural Communities’ at 62 per cent and ‘WealthyAchievers, Suburban Areas’ at 53 per cent. At theother end of the scale were ‘Council EstateResidents, High Unemployment’ with a rate of 27per cent and ‘People in Multi-Ethnic Low IncomeAreas’ at 28 per cent;

• similar variations were found using the minorityethnic density of the area as a measure: in the 10per cent of areas with the lowest density ofminority ethnic households the participation ratewas 50 per cent compared to 34 per cent in theareas of highest density. Similarly, those areasranked as the 10 per cent least deprived by theIndex of Multiple Deprivation had participationrates of 52 per cent while in the 10 per cent mostdeprived areas the rate was 31 per cent;

• given these findings, it comes as little surprise tolearn that participation rates were significantlyhigher among people who reported that theydefinitely enjoyed living in their neighbourhood (45per cent) than in those who did not (30 per cent);among those who felt that many people in theneighbourhood could be trusted (49 per cent) ascompared to those who felt that none could betrusted (27 per cent); and other similar measures(Home Office, 2004: Tables 6-21 to 6-25).

What do they do? By far the most common types of formal voluntaryactivities undertaken by respondents were:• raising or handling money/taking part in

sponsored events (53 per cent); and• organising and helping to run an activity or event

(49 per cent).

Other frequently mentioned activities were:• leading a group or being a member of a

committee (29 per cent);• providing transport or driving (23 per cent);• giving advice or information or counselling (23 per

cent); and• visiting people (20 per cent).

Respondents also mentioned:• secretarial, administrative or clerical work (18 per

cent);• befriending or mentoring people (14 per cent);• representing (12 per cent);• campaigning (8 per cent); and• other forms of practical help (28 per cent).

The 17.9 million people who had been involved informal volunteering on at least one occasion in theprevious year are estimated to have contributedapproximately 1.9 billion hours. This is equivalent to1 million full-time workers and, at the 2003 nationalaverage wage, was worth about £22.5 million. Thecalculation is based on an average figure of eighthours spent on activity of this kind in the four weeksbefore the interview which, assuming a consistentlevel of involvement across the year, would providean annual total of 104 hours per person.

How did they get involved?The survey also asked interviewees how they foundout about opportunities for formal volunteering.

From somebody else already involved with the group 48%Friends or neighbours 37%School or college 21%Through previously using the services provided by the group 20%Place of worship 18%Local events 10%Local newspapers 8%Promotional events, volunteers’ fairs 6%Employer’s volunteering scheme 5%

An international comparison Formal volunteering is taking place on a large scalein England and Wales and the number participatingis growing, but how do the scale and main featuresof volunteering here compare with the experience ofother countries?

Drawing on data from two major internationalstudies - the European Values Survey and the World

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1 The ACORN classification system is a means of classifying areas according to various Census characteristics. There are 55 area types which are then collapsedinto the 17 higher level groups quoted in this review. For fuller details see Appendix A to the report of the 2003 HOCS survey (Home Office, 2004).


Values Survey - Hodgkinson (2003) has calculatedthe percentage of the adult population which isinvolved in volunteering for 47 countries in North andSouth America; Western and Eastern Europe; Asiaand Africa. Britain has the second highestparticipation rate of the seventeen countries fromWestern Europe included in the table - 43 per cent -behind Sweden’s 54 per cent. Other Westernindustrialised countries with higher rates are theUnited States (66 per cent) and Canada (47 percent). High rates of volunteering are also found in thevery different societies of Asia - China (77 per cent),Hong Kong (64 per cent), the Philippines (57 percent) and South Korea (47 per cent); of Africa –Central African Republic (75 per cent) and SouthAfrica (59 per cent); of South America – Chile (43 percent); and of Slovakia (49 per cent).

Hodgkinson’s table also calculates the rates ofinvolvement in different fields of activity – socialwelfare, religion, the environment, and sports. Thesefigures show a bias towards volunteering in the fieldof social welfare in Britain which is shared only bythe USA – and to a lesser extent Canada – amongthe more developed countries in the table. This canbe seen in an edited version of the table covering thedeveloped countries with the highest rates ofparticipation in volunteering.

Country All Social Religion Environ- Sportwelfare ment

USA 66 36 37 8 8Sweden 54 15 23 4 17Canada 47 21 18 4 13Britain 43 33 6 8 4Finland 37 14 7 2 13Denmark 33 9 3 2 14Belgium 32 12 6 3 8Iceland 32 13 5 1 11Netherlands 31 12 11 n.a. n.a.

Explanations There are four kinds of explanation for why somepeople volunteer and some do not: socio-economicfactors; individual motivation; opportunity or access;and the influence of history or culture.

The first set of explanations suggests thatvolunteering is associated with demographics andthe propensity to become involved is related tofactors such as age, gender, education andoccupation. For a very long time, the stereotype ofthe British volunteer has been the white, middle-aged, middle-class woman. The evidence from theHOCS survey shows a much more complex picturewith comparatively high levels of participation fromyounger adults and members of some BMEcommunities; and, in terms of the 2003 survey, nostatistically significant differences between theparticipation of men and women. There is, however,a marked difference in involvement between thedifferent social classes as defined by occupationand level of educational attainment. More generally,researchers have not found the links between socio-demographic characteristics and rates ofvolunteering strong enough to provide a completeexplanation for the differences (Dekker and Halman,2003). On the other hand, it might be useful to notethe view of Lyons and Hocking (2000) that theevidence from Australia suggests that there are three‘paths into volunteering’. In the first place people intheir thirties and forties get involved because of thevoluntary work associated with the services theirchildren need (this might be an explanation for theHOCS finding that people with children volunteermore than those without). Secondly, people in ruralareas tend to be involved in volunteering because ofthe paucity of professional services. And, thirdly,well-educated and older people are committed tothe idea of public service.

The second set of explanations is based on theview that some individuals are more likely tovolunteer than others. At its simplest this is the ideathat volunteers have personalities which are morehelpful and generous than other people. A morenuanced view suggests the propensity to volunteer -the ‘volunteerism-activism attitude’ - is a blend offeelings about voluntary action, that it is effectiveand produces a feel-good factor as well as being amoral duty (Bales, 1996). The motivation tovolunteer has been the subject of a huge amount ofliterature, particularly in the USA. Understandingwhy individuals volunteer has been widely seen asthe key to effective recruitment as well as the means



of aligning specific kinds of volunteer activity to theaspirations of the volunteer.

A well-tested instrument for exploring motivationis the Volunteer Functions Inventory developed byClary and his colleagues (Clary and Snyder, 1999;Clary et al, 1992). This consists of a series ofstatements about reasons for volunteering fromwhich the respondent is invited to select thosewhich most clearly match her or his own beliefs. Thestatements are based on a classification of six kindsof psychological function:• values: people volunteer as a means of acting on

important beliefs such as helping those lessfortunate than themselves;

• understanding: volunteering is a means ofpersonal learning and the development of skills;

• social: people choose the behaviour which isvalued by their peer group;

• enhancement: volunteering is seen as a way offeeling better about oneself;

• protection: the obverse of enhancement wherepeople embrace volunteering as a way of dealingwith negative feelings about themselves; and

• career: people want to gain experiences which willenhance their employability.

The VFI and other approaches reflect the viewthat people get involved in volunteering for a varietyof reasons, self-interested as well as altruistic andinstrumental as well as expressive. Such mixedmotives are common at the level of the individualvolunteer. There is a growing tendency toemphasise the ‘selfish’ nature of muchcontemporary volunteering (Evans and Saxton,2005) which may lead to the underestimation of therole still played by values as a motivation forengaging in voluntary action. The most commonvalue associated with the propensity to volunteer isaltruism but there are others of perhaps equalimportance – solidarity and reciprocity on the onehand and justice and equality on the other (Dekkerand Halman, 2003). These key values areassociated with the teachings of the main faithtraditions (Lukka and Locke, 2003).

Understanding people’s motivation to volunteeris, however, rather more problematic than thisaccount would suggest. In the first place, the

explanations given by volunteers tend to berationalisations of their behaviour and are expressedin a conventional vocabulary which prompts theminto certain kinds of stock answers – especiallywhen administered through a questionnaire. ‘It mightbe completely unacceptable for a “buddy” toterminal patients or a volunteer in a politicalorganization to say that they do the work for fun, justas it may be considered pretentious to suggestanything else when doing voluntary work for a localchoir or sports club’ (Dekker and Halman, 2003; p5).Beyond the ticked boxes may lie a different andmore complex set of reasons why people becameinvolved (Brooke, 2002). Secondly, the cocktail ofmotives that lead people to engage in volunteeringmay be very different from the factors that maintaintheir involvement. Volunteers, for example, whobecome involved in the office of a campaigningorganisation in order to enhance their employabilitymay become committed to the values and cause ofthe organisation and remain as volunteers long afterthey have achieved their initial purpose (Moore,1996). A great deal of attention has been given tounderstanding initial motivation and comparativelylittle to explaining why people stay. There is littleconsensus among the explanations we do have(Locke et al, 2003).

In any case, the propensity to volunteer willremain no more than that without an incident ortrigger to convert it into involvement in a specificpiece of voluntary action. The findings of the HOCSsurvey (Home Office, 2004) that people found outabout opportunities to volunteer through word ofmouth came as no surprise; the great majority ofpeople who volunteer do so because they have beenasked – usually by someone already involved withthe activity or by a friend or member of their family.Access to volunteering is thus made possible bypeople’s membership of social networks; the typesof area in which voluntary action flourishes tend tobe those with the most highly developed sociallinkages while the motivation to volunteerassociated with the values of religion is likely to betranslated into action through membership of acongregation or faith-based group. A recent studyfrom the US found that, while levels of financialdonations were explained by personal

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characteristics and values, the giving of time wasmore likely to be promoted by community ties(Jones, 2006).

Finally, rates of involvement in voluntary actionand the areas and forms of activity which are salientin any society are shaped by historical and culturalfactors at the wider societal level. The USA’s highrate of volunteering, for example, stems from ‘thehistorical legacy of a volunteer culture of addressingcitizen need’ (Hodgkinson, 2003; p41). Like the USAand unlike the countries of Northern Europe,volunteering in Britain is heavily biased towardssocial welfare (ibid.). There is great concern about anapparent shift in culture away from norms ofsolidarity and participation in congregations andassociations towards individualism, which has notaffected the rates of participation so much as theways in which people approach volunteering. Dutchvolunteer organisations, for example, have begun tocomplain about ‘revolving-door volunteers’ who flit‘from one fashionable field of activity to another’(Dekker and Halman, 2003; p8). Cultural differenceshave also been used to explain the ways in whichpeople from minority ethnic communities areinvolved in activities which might be seen asvolunteering: there are powerful pressures withinAfrican-Caribbean and Chinese communities to carefor members of one’s family and neighbours(Obaze,1992; Rochester and Hutchison, 2002).

Specific communities andcategories Young peopleGovernment has had an explicit interest involunteering by young people since the 1960s whenit ‘was seen as an antidote to, or palliative for, anti-social behaviour by teenagers’ (Sheard, 1992; p32).Investment by more recent administrations inMillennium Volunteers and the implementation of theRussell Commission’s recommendations can beseen in similar terms – as the positiveencouragement of pro-social behaviour to setalongside the use of anti-social behaviour ordersand other measures of social control.

Research undertaken for the Russell Commission

(Ellis, 2005) provides us with some key insights intoyoung people’s attitudes towards, and involvementin, volunteering. In contrast to earlier findings thisstudy suggested that ‘young people volunteer at asimilar, or higher rate, when compared to olderpeople’ (piii) and found that they were involved in awide range of voluntary activities. It also found thatmany young people had a positive view ofvolunteering and those who thought it ‘not cool’ orboring were a minority. Those who were involved involunteering had ‘a wider appreciation of its scopeand potential’ (ibid.) while those who did notvolunteer tended to have a narrow and stereotypicalview of what was involved.

The image or ‘brand’ of volunteering was thusseen as one of the barriers to wider participation.Those who get involved find the experience moreenjoyable and rewarding than they had expectedwhile non-volunteers are largely unaware of thepotential benefits from participation. There were alsoproblems with accessing information aboutopportunities to volunteer – both the initial problemof finding out where to look for information and thenof finding a way through the mass of information thisuncovered. Other obstacles to getting involved wereidentified as lack of time (especially as volunteeringwas seen as competing for attention with studyingand paid employment); cost of travel and childcare;negative peer pressure; and, for some young people,lack of confidence and fear of rejection.

Young people valued group and team activitiesand were looking for volunteering opportunitieswhich offered flexibility within a structuredprogramme; the chance to influence decision-making but with clear limits on their responsibilities;and the opportunity ‘to progress to leadership attheir own pace’ and with support and back-up fromolder people.

Older people At the other end of the age spectrum – the 50s andover – we have evidence from a review of the 26projects that made up the Home Office OlderVolunteers Initiative (Rochester and Hutchison,2002) and from a more recent study of the role ofvolunteering in the transition from work to retirement(Davis Smith and Gay, 2005). In a number of ways,



the experience and attitudes expressed by oldervolunteers involved in the HOOVI study echo thoseof the young people of ‘Generation V’. Older peoplenot involved in volunteering tend to have narrow andstereotypical views of the range of opportunities tovolunteer and are pleasantly surprised about theenjoyment and benefits of volunteering when theydo get involved. Lack of knowledge about what wasavailable was one of the key barriers to involvementin volunteering. Other obstacles included thepolicies and practices of volunteer-involvingorganisations; practical issues like health andmobility problems and cost; the attitude of the olderpeople themselves; and cultural barriers to theparticipation of older people from black and minorityethnic communities.

Older people, like their younger counterparts,wanted flexibility in the demands made on their timewithin a structured environment; opportunities totake on responsibility for their own work; and tocreate and develop their contribution to the work ofthe organisation. Like young people, too, theyplaced an emphasis on the benefits to them of thesocial interaction involved in volunteering. Unlikeyounger volunteers, however, many – but not all -older people find the experience of volunteering avaluable means of keeping busy and giving shape orpurpose to their life. In this respect, Davis Smith andGay make a useful distinction between differenttypes of post-retirement volunteers: while someolder people look to volunteering to replace the waytheir lives were given purpose and structure by paidwork, others are seeking a complete break from it.Similarly, they distinguish between ‘lifelong’volunteers who have always been involved; ‘serial’volunteers who are returning to voluntary action nowthat lack of work and family responsibilities givethem the space to do so; and ‘trigger’ volunteerswho become involved for the first time as the resultof retirement.

A recent survey of 470 volunteer-involvingorganisations undertaken by Volunteering in theThird Age (VITA) and Volunteering England hasprovided evidence of the extent to whichorganisations depend on the work of oldervolunteers. Two thirds of the combined total of1,300,000 volunteers covered by the survey were 50

or older and 31 per cent of them were aged 65 orover. People aged 50 or over contributed 68 per centof the total number of volunteer hours in the sample.Organisations valued the work of older volunteersfor their willingness to contribute more hours overlonger periods than younger people; the skills andexperience they brought with them; and theirwillingness to take on a wide range of tasks(VITA/Volunteering England, 2006 forthcoming).

People at risk of social exclusion There is, then, a considerable amount of commonground between the under 24s and the over 50s intheir attitudes to volunteering, the obstacles to widerinvolvement, and the nature of a satisfactoryvolunteering opportunity. To what extent can weextend the analysis to other specific groups orcommunities? The Institute for VolunteeringResearch’s exploration of ‘the link betweenvolunteering and social exclusion’ (IVR, undated)found that most of the barriers to wider participationin formal volunteering that they identified werecommon to the three kinds of people involved in thestudy – individuals from black and minority ethnicgroups; people with disabilities; and ex-offenders.

Barriers were of two kinds, the psychological andthe practical, with the individual volunteers and non-volunteers who took part in the study putting theemphasis on the psychological and the volunteer-involving organisations which participated tending tofocus on the practical obstacles. Once again, theimage of volunteering was a major factor: the ‘long-standing stereotype … that [volunteering] is aformal, organisation-based activity carried out bywhite, middle-class, middle-aged people … ispersistent; this means that many people continue tofeel that volunteering is not an activity they canidentify with’ (ibid.; p24). Respondents also felt thatvolunteering as an activity was not valued in amaterialistic society and many of them wereunaware of the ways in which volunteering couldenhance the lives of those who participated or of thefull range of volunteer roles available. They alsoshared the concerns expressed by the young andolder people in the studies mentioned above aboutthe time commitment involved (which theyoverestimated) and their lack of personal

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confidence. Two other concerns were, however,more specific to these groups of people – anxietyabout the attitude of other people to them and thefear of losing welfare benefits.

The practical barriers identified by the studyincluded two familiar problems – access toinformation and concerns about the costs involved(especially for those who were unemployed or onlow wages). They also involved questions ofprocedure and administration; over-formalrecruitment procedures were off-putting to someand volunteers were lost through delays in thedecision-making process.

Finally, the volunteers’ wish lists included, interalia, the need for the experience to be enjoyable,sociable (working in a team), supported (by staff andpeers), and to give them a sense of ownership.

Disability and long-term illness Traditional images of volunteerism depict disabledpeople as the ‘helped’ rather than the ‘helpers’ butthere is evidence that many disabled people areactive and visible volunteers involved with a widerange of organisations (SKILL, 2005; Roker et al,1998). The traditional view also fails to acknowledgethe growth of self-help and campaigningorganisations of rather than for people withdisabilities (Oliver, 1990; Barnes et al, 1999).

A study conducted by Volunteer DevelopmentScotland (2005) sheds further light on theexperiences of people with disabilities andvolunteering. In Scotland, as in England, fewerdisabled people volunteer than the population atlarge - 17 per cent as against 24 per cent. What theVDS study gives us is interesting evidence about thedifferences between people with disabilities and thepopulation at large in two – possibly inter-related –aspects of the volunteer experience, how they gotinvolved and which roles they play.

While most disabled people’s route intovolunteering had been through being asked to help,20 per cent of them had been introduced tovolunteering through their local Volunteer Centre, avery different proportion to volunteers as a wholewhere the figure is 6 per cent. None of them hadbecome involved via the internet (which raisedconcerns about the accessibility of websites) but

some reported that being a previous user of aservice provided by the organisation had led to theirinvolvement as a volunteer while others had beenreferred from an educational institution, Job Centreor a social worker.

The most common role was providing a service orsupport. This was undertaken by more than half ofall respondents which was, by some distance, morethan the combined total for helping to raise moneyand organising or helping to run an event. And aremarkable 35 per cent served on a committee asagainst the overall Scottish figure of 11 per cent.

Overall this is an up-beat report; more than half ofthese disabled volunteers reported that theirexperience had been positive and a similarproportion had not experienced any barriers toparticipation. Of the non-volunteers, half intended toreturn to volunteering while the other half had notruled out volunteering again – subject to their futurehealth or situation. Those who had negativeexperiences or had encountered barriers toinvolvement cited problems of physical access,fluctuations in their own health and the attitudes ofthose around them. Some of those interviewedcould be seen as transitional volunteers who wereusing the experience to gain confidence and skills toimprove their employability while others were long-term volunteers who were using their involvement involunteering as an alternative to paid work.

Other studies have highlighted the environmental,attitudinal and medical barriers faced by disabledpeople in accessing volunteering opportunities(Andrews, 2003; IVR, undated) and listed the rangeof benefits identified by disabled people from theirinvolvement in volunteering. These includedimprovements in mental health; social contacts andmaking friends; the opportunity to make a differenceto the community (usually in relation to disabilityissues like access and benefits); and the opportunityto help other disabled people (Andrews, 2005).

Mental health While the links between volunteering and mentalhealth have not been intensively researched there isevidence to suggest that participation in voluntaryaction has a beneficial impact (Howlett, 2004).Volunteering England’s recent guide to involving



volunteers with mental health problems is based ona project funded by the Department of Health whichfound that ‘many people who have had experienceof mental ill health feel that volunteering has been apart of their recovery, and has often been one of themost important routes back into “normal” life’ (Clark,2003; p4).

The project’s Volunteering for Mental Healthsurvey of 120 people with direct experience ofmental ill-health found that volunteering providedthem with opportunities for: creating structure in life;increased social interaction; improved confidenceand self-esteem; increased self-awareness; givingsomething back; greater understanding; workingwith others for common goals; learning more aboutfuture options – work, education, etc.; and improvedskills and knowledge.

It also identified the key concerns or barriers tovolunteering for people with mental health problems.While one of these was specific to this particulargroup – concern about how they would be affectedby medication and the side effects of drugs – therest of the list is familiar ground: they wereconcerned about their lack of skills and confidence;they were worried about other people’s ignorance ofmental health issues and their attitudes towardsthem; and they were anxious about howvolunteering might affect their benefits and how theycould afford the costs of travel and lunches.

Refugees and asylum seekersRefugees and asylum seekers arrive in the countrywith a rich array of experience, skills andqualifications. Those with refugee status,humanitarian protection or leave to remain (and theirfamilies) have the legal right to undertake paid workbut often find it very difficult to secure employment.Those seeking asylum - or appealing against adecision to refuse them asylum - have not been ableto take paid work since a Home Office decisiontaken in 2002. But they are, despite a good deal ofmisleading information about this, allowed tovolunteer (Wilson, 2003).

Many refugees and asylum seekers work asvolunteers within their own communities or withwider groupings of refugees. But they also have agreat deal to offer organisations in the wider

voluntary and community sector in return for theopportunity to get work experience, learn new skillsand obtain references for paid employment. At thesame time, volunteering can give these oftenvulnerable and socially excluded people the chanceto do something useful while they wait to see if theywill be given the right to stay and work; they mayalso rebuild their self-esteem and come to termswith the experience of seeking asylum (ibid.).

Studies of volunteering by refugees have tendedto focus on the transitional nature of the experienceas a route into paid employment. Those interviewedby Stopforth (2001) confirmed its importance forreferences, for gaining work experience in Britain andfor regaining confidence. This study also suggestedthat volunteering had a significant effect on theemployment chances of those refugees who havealso achieved British graduate qualifications. Morerecently, Tomlinson and Erel (2005) report thatopportunities for employment for refugees areconcentrated in the VCS given that refugees arestigmatised by private sector employers; thatopportunities are comparatively scarce and tend tobe short-term and/or part-time; and that ‘the processof transition from volunteer to employee was notstraightforward and usually involved numeroussetbacks and disappointments’ (ibid. p39).

Volunteering in religious and faith-basedorganisations While overall there has continued to be a decline inparticipation in religious observance, the growingnumbers of people following religions other thanChristianity, as well as contributing to the richdiversity of cultures in England, has ensured that thecontribution of religious and faith-basedorganisations to voluntary action has remainedsignificant and has, since 1999, been increasinglyrecognised by government as a key element involuntary activity and community involvement(Lukka and Locke, 2003).

The findings from interviews with communityleaders and active members from eight differentfaiths in three English cities conducted by Lukka andLocke suggested that, despite the distinctive waysin which each of them operated, there wereimportant commonalties in the experience of

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voluntary action across them all. The first of these isthe extent and nature of their voluntary activities.‘Faith communities carry out a wide range ofvoluntary activities, and there are many similaritiesbetween communities in the types of activitychosen’ (ibid.; p10). Lukka and Locke havedeveloped a typology of faith-based volunteeringwhich includes routine activities such as services forolder people, women’s groups and activity classesand clubs; the provision of more formally organisedwelfare services; the mobilisation of large numbersof volunteers when religious festivals are celebrated;and responses to disasters and other specificcauses.

Secondly, volunteering is absolutely key to theexistence of the institutions of faith communitieswhich ‘depend almost entirely on voluntary actionfor their survival: a large proportion of membersvolunteer regularly and an even larger numberoccasionally’ (ibid.; p11).

A third common feature is the similarity of thevalue base and of the factors that influence themotivation to volunteer. Living according to the spiritof their religion was associated with giving time ormoney to help others; taking responsibility for thosein need; and a commitment to social justice andequality.

Other research has highlighted differencesbetween voluntary action by members of religiousorganisations and other forms of volunteering(Cameron et al, 2005). These include ‘a greatercommitment to organizational values … which canlead them to do too much and so suffer from burn-out’; ‘greater expectations … that their views will betaken into account’; ‘ a greater sense of reciprocity’;and such volunteers tend to have ‘a sense ofownership of the organization as well as the task’(ibid.; p163).

These findings echo Margaret Harris’s pioneeringstudy of Christian and Jewish congregations (1998)which identified the key role played by volunteers intheir activities; their ability to provide ‘quiet care’ formembers of their congregations; and the markeddifferences between the majority of congregationalvolunteers and the ‘inner group of willing people’who undertake the bulk of the work. Harris is alsoconcerned that the current trend in social policy to

create a larger role for religious and faith-basedorganisations as vehicles for meeting need does nottake account of the comparatively small scale of theresources – including volunteers – at their disposal(Harris, 1998; Harris et al, 2003).

Sports volunteers Something like one eighth of the population takespart in formal volunteering in a sports context atleast once a year and 45 per cent of them had madetheir contribution to one of the 106,000 localgrassroots clubs organised by their members(Nichols, 2006 forthcoming). While the number ofvolunteers involved is large, the contributions theymake in terms of hours is unevenly spread with 18per cent of the volunteers contributing 62 per cent ofthe total hours. Clearly these stalwarts play a keyrole and may determine how clubs react to pressurefor change but we know little about them (ibid.).Other volunteers contribute in varying degreesthrough the National Governing Body (NGB)structure for each sport at regional and nationallevels. Together the local clubs and the wider NGBstructure offer a means through which governmentcan ‘promote active citizenship, develop sports foryoung people, contribute to social inclusion andpromote sports participation for health benefits. Itmay also provide, through the NGB structure, thevehicle for policies to promote excellence in sportingachievement’ (Nichols et al, 2004; p32). Their abilityto continue to do so, however, may be challenged byan increasingly competitive market for potentialmembers; the impact of government policyrequirements as conditions of local or nationalgovernment funding; technological change; and anincreasingly risk averse society (Nichols, 2006forthcoming).



Societal trendsThis section of the report seeks to identify keychanges in our society that are likely to affect futurepatterns of involvement.

An ageing populationThere has been a significant change in the ageprofile of British society with the numbers of thoseaged 65 and over increasing by 28 per cent andthose under 16 falling by 18 per cent between 1971and 2003 (Social Trends, 2006). This will beaccentuated by the downward drift of fertility rates:more women are remaining childless and those whohave children have started childbearing atincreasingly older ages (ibid.).

Changing perspectives on retirement These trends have been accompanied by changingperspectives on retirement. While the retirement ageis expected to rise, there are increasing numbers ofyoung retired people who are fit and active. On theother hand their ability to become involved involuntary action may be constrained by thechildcare responsibilities many assume asgrandparents and, for some, the alternativeattractions of travel and commercial leisure pursuits.

Changes in patterns of employment Despite the recent decision to raise the age ofentitlement to the state pension, working lives havebecome shorter as increasing numbers of youngpeople have extended their education to degreelevel. By 2003, one in six of the adult populationwere graduates (Social Trends); in 2002 nearly 3million people were beginning their tertiaryeducation (Evans and Saxton, 2005); and thepresent government has set a target for participationin higher education of 50 per cent of young adults.There has also been a significant change in thegender balance: the employment rate for men fellfrom 92 per cent in 1971 to 79 per cent in 2004 but itrose for women from 56 per cent to 70 per cent overthe same period (Social Trends, 2006). At the sametime, 81 per cent of male and 50 per cent of womenmanagers, higher officials and professionals workedmore than 45 hours in a typical week (ibid.).

Increases in real personal income There have been significant increases in realpersonal income (after housing costs) for all levels ofBritish society between 1986 and 2003 (Evans andSaxton, 2005) and the amount spent on lessessential items – including recreation and culture –has risen much faster than spending on essentialslike food, housing, water and fuel over the past 35years (Social Trends, 2006). Growing wealth,however, has not been equally shared and the gapbetween the richest and the poorest has widened.And, even though the proportion of householdsearning less than 60 per cent of median disposableincome has fallen from the peak of 21 per cent in1999, it remained at 17 per cent in 2001-03 (SocialTrends, 2006).

Composition of households There have been marked increases in the number ofone-parent and single person households in GreatBritain. The proportion of children living in lone-parent families tripled between 1972 and spring 2004to 24 per cent. In 2003-04, one in six adults aged 16and over lived alone. The number of young adultsliving at home with their parents in England has alsorisen to 58 per cent of young men (aged 20 to 24)and 39 per cent of young women of the same age.

Communities of place There have also been decreases in the importanceand strength of community ties based on location.Modern patterns of employment and the increasedmobility brought by car ownership mean that peoplecannot rely on finding work in the place where theylive and do not depend on local shops and facilities.

Multi-cultural communities The communities in which people live and work areincreasingly characterised by a diversity of culturesand faiths. Volunteering has a continuing role to playwithin communities and could be of increasingimportance as a means of providing bridgesbetween them.

A virtual society ICT has become ‘the new way of life’ (Evans andSaxton, 2005). Mobile phone ownership rose rapidly

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4 A changing world


from 16 per cent of the population in 1996-97 to 70per cent in 2002-03 (Social Trends, 2006) and 77 percent in 2005 (Evans and Saxton, 2005). Access to theinternet has also grown quickly – from 10 per cent in1996-97 to 45 per cent in 2002-03 (Social Trends,2006). In the past two years, it has become moreequally spread across the genders and age groups(for example the rate for the 55-64 year olds is 60 percent and this rises to 70 per cent across the 16-44age groups) but access to occupational groups ismore unequal, with ABs at 80 per cent; C1s and C2sat 63 per cent and 51 per cent; and DEs at the verylow rate of 29 per cent (Evans and Saxton, 2005).

Secularisation The process through which religious belief andobservance has declined and religious organisationshave lost many of their adherents and much of theirinfluence with other social institutions has been afeature of the past forty years or more (Torry, 2005).In 2000, 60 per cent of the population claimed tobelong to a specific religion with 55 per cent beingChristian. However, half of all adults aged 18 andover who belonged to a religion have never attendeda religious service (Social Trends 32, 2001).

Loss of trust in the political process There is widespread concern about a decline inparticipation in the political process which appearsto match the haemorrhage of support from thechurches. Turnout in parliamentary elections hasfallen precipitately since 1992 (although 2005 saw asmall recovery over the all-time low of 2001) whilemembership of political parties has plummetedsince 1964 and active participation in them hasdeclined even more steeply (Power Inquiry, 2006).

According to the Power Inquiry into Britain’sDemocracy, the appearance of apathy created bythese indicators is misleading; there is anabundance of research evidence that very largenumbers of British citizens are engaged incommunity and charity work outside politics whileinvolvement in pressure group politics such astaking part in campaigns and demonstrations,joining consumer boycotts or signing petitions hasbeen growing significantly over a number of yearsand there is increasing participation, through the

internet and its blogs and discussion forums, indebates about political and social issues.

Disengagement from the formal political process isthus a response to dissatisfaction with the systemsand structures for political decision-making. Powercalls for major shifts in political practice to reflect theneed for more flexibility and responsiveness in thesystem and for citizens to be able to exercise a moredirect and focused influence on the decisions thatconcern them. Imaginative ways in which peoplecan be involved in decision-making are discussed inthe Involve report on People and Participation (2005).These include Appreciative Inquiry; Citizens’ Juries;Citizens’ Panels; Consensus Conferences;Deliberative Meetings of Citizens (Democs); andPlanning for Real.

Consumerism and choice The increase in personal disposable income, formost but not all people, and greater mobility andwider access to information technology haveunderpinned the development of an increasinglyconsumerist society which offers a growing range ofchoices to its members. A typical supermarkettoday stocks a range of 40,000 products rather thanthe 5,000 it had available in the early 1980s. With theprivatisation of utilities since 1990, consumers nowhave a choice of 16 providers of electricity, 22 gassuppliers, and 11 telecommunications companies.And developments in technology have brought achoice of 900 TV channels when once there wereonly four (Evans and Saxton, 2005). Furthermore,successive Conservative and New Labouradministrations have adopted the rhetoric andpractices of the commercial sector and sought toapply them to the work of government and thedelivery of public services (Deakin, 2001).

Regulation and risk During the last twenty-five years the conviction hasgrown that the world in which we live is beset bydanger and that it is a major governmentresponsibility to reduce to a minimum the many risksto which the population is exposed (Rochester, 2001).According to Gaskin (2005; p42) ‘economic, socialand cultural changes have destroyed collective beliefsystems and individual responsibility, replacing it with



a sense of vulnerability and a tendency to blameothers when things go wrong’.

Developments in public andsocial policyThis section will highlight recent key developmentsin public and social policy that are likely to have animpact on volunteering. It will use the distinctionemployed by Kendall (2003) between ‘horizontal’agendas – policy developments explicitly addressedto volunteering as a whole and involving governmentas a whole - and the ‘vertical’ agendas of policieswhich take forward the work of individualdepartments and agencies which have implicationsfor voluntary action. A third sub-section will look attwo broad policy streams which are also relevant tovolunteering – civil renewal and social inclusion.

The horizontal agenda There has been a long history of government interestin and support for volunteering from the establishmentof the Volunteer Centre (now Volunteering England) in1976 through the Opportunities for VolunteeringScheme launched in 1982, the Make a Differenceprogramme which ran from 1994-6; and specificprogrammes for young people (Millennium Volunteers)and older people (the Home Office Older VolunteersInitiative and the short-lived Experience Corps).

Since taking power in 1997 New Labour has alsoincluded volunteering as a major theme within itsCompact with the voluntary and community sectorand invested in its development through includingvolunteering as the remit of one of the hubs ofexcellence funded under the ChangeUp programme.

The Compact’s Code of Good Practice forVolunteering (Home Office/Compact Working Group,undated) sets out the essential principlesunderpinning a ‘framework of partnership betweenGovernment and the voluntary and communitysector’. Both parties committed themselves to:• maintaining best practice in the promotion,

development and celebration of volunteering; and• ensuring that volunteers are brought into policy-

making processes, both internal decision-makingand responses to government consultation.

Voluntary sector organisations should:• budget adequate resources to support volunteers

(management or peer support, office space andequipment) and reimburse their out-of-pocketexpenses including care costs; and

• acknowledge the nature and extent ofvolunteering in their annual and project reports.

Government agreed to:• examine how the contribution of volunteering

could be shown in national economic accounts;and

• encourage employment practices that allow timeoff for volunteering in partnership with employersin all sectors.

There are three strands to the work of theVolunteering Hub (www.volunteering.org.uk/aboutus/volunteeringhub):• strategy and management, with an emphasis on

ensuring that ‘organisations from all parts of thevoluntary and community sector (are) fullyinvolved in the Hub from the start’;

• information dissemination, good practice andmanagement development; and

• modernising infrastructure, to make it ‘lean, robustand securely funded, locally, regionally andnationally’.

The Hub’s agenda is to:• enable far more people to volunteer – many of

them through employer-supported volunteering;• develop a more diverse population of volunteers

including many more from under-representedgroups such as rural communities, and refugees;

• ensure that more volunteers are more activewhere they are most needed, with organisationsworking in the most deprived communities; and

• ensure that all volunteers are well managed andsupported so that they continue to volunteer.

It plans to deliver its aims by:• encouraging more people to volunteer from every

community as the result of a marketing campaign;and increasing the numbers of employer-supported volunteering by developing anationwide infrastructure and promoting nationaland regional events;

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• improving the quality of volunteer management bydeveloping a national training strategy forvolunteer managers; rolling out a qualityaccreditation process to ensure consistent levelsof effectiveness; and promoting the Investors inVolunteers’ standards; and

• providing access (online) to a ‘huge range ofvolunteering-related materials’.

Until recently, responsibility for government’sinvolvement with volunteering rested with theVolunteering and Charitable Giving Unit within theActive Communities Directorate of the Home Office(it was transferred to the Cabinet Office in May2006). The Unit’s remit was ‘to increase overalllevels of volunteering across all age ranges andbackgrounds. On young people, the key challenge is to have a million more young peoplevolunteering within five years’ (Blair, 2006). Itpursued this goal through five initiatives(http://communities.homeoffice.gov.uk/activecomms/encourag-vol-and-charit-giv/):• the Year of the Volunteer 2005;• the Volunteering for All programme;• support for mentoring and befriending;• the GoldStar volunteering and mentoring

exemplar programme; and• implementation of the Russell committee’s

recommendations.

The Year of the Volunteer 2005 The Year of the Volunteer 2005 (YV05) was anational campaign across the UK, funded inEngland by the Home Office to the tune of £7millions and by pro bono contributions valued at afurther £3 millions and delivered by a network ofpartners led by CSV and Volunteering England. Itsmain aim was to create awareness of volunteering,increase the opportunities for people to becomeinvolved in it and encourage more people toparticipate in voluntary action.

These aims were addressed through a marketingand communications strategy involving: anadvertising campaign, public relations and othermarketing activity; twelve themed months; grantsand awards to local organisations to developvolunteering opportunities in their area; numerousactivities to celebrate the achievements of

volunteers; and the promotion of employeevolunteering.

The evaluation of YV05 (GfK NOP SocialResearch, 2006) found it difficult to pin down theexact degree to which it had achieved its aims partlybecause of the absence of a benchmark and partlybecause of the difficulty of ‘direct attribution ofoutcomes to YV05 activity’. It did, however, findevidence that awareness of volunteering had beenincreased and more opportunities for volunteeringhad been developed. It also found that it had led tomore collaboration between organisationsconcerned with promoting volunteering.

On the other hand the short-term nature of theprogramme and lack of lead-up time together withthe absence of a clearly targeted communicationsstrategy had constrained what could be achievedand, in particular, there was little evidence ofimpact on the awareness of volunteering andinvolvement in it among the more hard to reachgroups – young people, those with noqualifications, black and minority ethnic groupsand people with disabilities.

Key lessons drawn from the experience of theYear were:• the need for a longer lead-in time;• the desirability of simplifying decision-making by

a single lead organisation;• the need for an overall strategy (and the

evaluation provides detailed recommendations onhow to achieve this);

• the importance of addressing the image ofvolunteering, ‘to move it away from the traditionalperceptions found in this review to one that canbe relevant to different groups in society … asparticipation in volunteering continues to grow,so those left reside in the increasingly moredifficult groups to reach, be they theunemployed, the unqualified, and the disabledand so on. A range of carefully differentiatedmessages, delivered via appropriate media andusing targeted access methods will help attractsome in these groups’;

• the need for ‘enhanced care of volunteers’ inorder to retain them and encourage them torecruit others by word of mouth. Conversely,dissatisfied volunteers are a poor advert.



Volunteering for AllVolunteering for All is a two year cross-governmentinitiative led by the Home Office and part of thelegacy of the Year of the Volunteer. Its aim is toidentify and remove barriers to volunteering andincrease volunteering by adults at risk of socialexclusion and to increase cross-governmentworking. Organisations with a ‘strategic England-wide coverage and [the ability to] secure substantialpro bono (particularly media) support’ have beeninvited to tender for the delivery of ‘a series ofindividually targeted campaigns to raise awarenessamong … target groups’. The £3 millions availablewill be allocated in proportion to the size of eachtarget group:• those with no qualifications (estimated numbers

10,907,959 or 30.7 per cent of the adultpopulation);

• those with disabilities or long-term limitingillnesses (6,085,392 or 17.1 per cent)

• BME (3,049,699 or 8.6 per cent); within this groupthere is a specific focus on Asian and Chinesecommunities, particularly those not born in the UK.

The Volunteering for All programme is thus aresponse to the lessons learned from YO05 on theone hand and the findings of HOCS on the other.

Mentoring and befriendingIn 2001 the Home Office conducted a survey ofmentoring and befriending and also set up aMentoring Fund which supported 38 projects.Following further research commissioned by theHome Office eight of these projects were selected fortwo further years’ funding as ‘exemplars of goodpractice’ under the GoldStar programme (see below).

Over the same period £4.1 millions were invested inorganisations providing infrastructure support to smallmentoring and befriending projects. This involved:• a grant to enable the National Mentoring Network

to create a Mentoring and Befriending Foundationwhose role will include ‘ensuring that key nationalbodies (eg Learning and Skills Councils, PrisonsService, Connexions, Youth Justice Board) areaware of the role mentoring and befriending canplay in support of [their] strategic objectives’;

• funding for the further development of theinfrastructure in four regions where there are the

greatest number of mentoring and befriendingprojects;

• more limited funding to support the salary of onefull-time worker in each of the other five regions.

The GoldStar volunteering and mentoring exemplarprogrammeThis is a two-year programme with a budget of £5millions launched in November 2005. A total of 44projects will be funded to ‘act as exemplars of goodpractice in recruiting, managing and retainingvolunteers, mentors and befrienders’ from thegovernment’s target groups (people with noqualifications, those with disabilities or long-termlimiting illnesses, and people from BMEcommunities).

Two thirds of the funding will meet the costs of theprojects and the other third is allocated to meetingthe costs of sharing their experience with othervoluntary organisations.

‘The GoldStar programme will also includenational and regional events and dedicatedpublications, all aimed at spreading the benefits ofgood practice as widely as possible.’ (http://communities.homeoffice.gov.uk/activecomms/encourag-vol-and-charit-giv/goldstar)

Implementation of the recommendations of theRussell CommissionThe Commission was set up in May 2004 and,following extensive consultation with young peopleand voluntary and community sector organisations,produced its report two years later (Russell, 2005a).It called for ‘the creation of a new nationalframework for youth action and engagement toenhance the diversity, quality and quantity ofvolunteering opportunities for young people’(Russell, 2005b; p12). It set an ambitious ‘aspirationof attracting 1 million more young volunteers acrossall forms of volunteering activity’ which would meanthat ‘more than half of all those in the 16-25 agegroup would participate’ (p5). And it proposed thesetting up of ‘a dedicated implementation body totake the lead in delivering the framework, bringingtogether young people … the voluntary andcommunity sector, business and government aspartners to make volunteering a valued part of thelives of most young people’ (p5).

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This vision and the 16 more detailedrecommendations through which it was to beimplemented have been accepted by Government,which has provided funding to a new independentcharity v (www.wearev.com) to take the proposalsforward. The key features of the Russell frameworkare:• a series of campaigns to raise awareness of

volunteering linked to a national web-basedvolunteering portal which will ensure access toinformation on volunteering opportunities; and thecreation of 200 Youth Volunteer Adviser and 200Youth Volunteer Development Manager posts toensure that young people receive high qualityadvice and guidance on volunteering;

• action in schools, colleges and higher educationinstitutions to make it commonplace for youngpeople to volunteer while in education;

• giving young people access to a ‘menu ofopportunity’ with details of the full range ofvolunteering activities; and ensuring that theopportunities exist for all of them through creatingup to 300,000 short-term, group-basedopportunities per annum, up to 80,000 part-timevolunteering opportunities, up to 12,000 full-timeopportunities per annum, up to 1,000opportunities for international volunteering, andtapping into the potential for volunteering byyoung people within the public sector;

• quality assurance: the encouragement ofvolunteer-involving organisations ‘to meetminimum standards governing the access,involvement, development and reward of youngvolunteers’; and

• measuring the impact of these measures andensuring attention is paid to evaluation andlearning.

Some vertical agendas Health There is a long history of volunteering input into theNational Health Service. Volunteering England’sprecursor, the Volunteer Centre, was established inlarge part to provide a national focus for the work ofthe rapidly expanding numbers of NHS volunteer co-ordinators during the 1960s and 70s (Brenton, 1985).The contribution of volunteering to the NHS has

been recognised by the Department of Health’scommissioning of a report which aims to ‘informlocal practice, and help to harmonise and regularisesupport for NHS volunteer involvement so that itbecomes more consistent and coherent across NHSorganisations’ (Hawkins and Restall, 2006; p3).

While the main purpose of this document is toprovide guidelines for practice it does throw light onthe contribution made by volunteers to the NHS. Theauthors have identified more than 90 different ‘thingsthat volunteers do within the NHS’ and noted thechanging patterns of voluntary action in the healthservice: ‘some of these roles (such as providinglibrary trolleys or fundraising) pre-date the NHS;other roles reflect newer developments such asinvolvement in Patient and Public Involvementactivities, governance, service and policydevelopment activities, self-help groups andinitiatives such as the Expert Patients Programme(EPP)’. ‘Volunteers’ they conclude ‘bringtremendous value to the National Health Service in avariety of roles that enhance services to patientsprovided by paid staff and assist the NHS inimproving and developing services’ (ibid.; p3).

In a foreword to the document, the ParliamentaryUnder Secretary of State highlights three keybenefits of volunteering to the NHS: offering servicesthat bring a more personal touch; fostering betterlocal ownership and helping commissioners tounderstand local need; and the direct contributionmade to the health and well-being of the volunteersthemselves.

EducationLike Health, Education is a policy area wherevolunteers have played a major role in the past aswell as the present. The DfES describes schoolgovernors as the ‘largest volunteer force in thecountry’ and estimates that there are some 350,000of them. Given the prevailing trend of devolvingdecision-making and management to the level of theindividual school, the role of the school governor hasbecome increasingly demanding.

The DfES is also interested in promotingvolunteering by young people through theMillennium Volunteers programme and hascommissioned a review of Gap Year Provision(Jones, 2004).



A third growth point is the increasing use ofvolunteer mentors for under-achieving schoolstudents.

Criminal justice The Youth Justice Board for England and Walessupported 80 community mentoring projects between2001 and 2004 which provided mentoring for youngpeople aged between 10 and 17 who had offended orwere judged to be at risk of doing so. These projectshave been evaluated by a team from LondonUniversity’s Institute of Education (St. James-Robertset al, 2005). The schemes, which targeted youngpeople from BME communities and those who haddifficulties with literacy and numeracy, recruitedbetween them a total of 3,400 volunteers who workedwith 4,800 mentees. Many of the projects reportedimprovements in attendance and behaviour at school;in literacy and numeracy skills; and inaccommodation (including moving back into thefamily home) and family relationships, and mentoringpromoted greater involvement by the young people incommunity activities like sports and social clubs.Mentoring was not found to provide a ‘magic bullet’;the evaluation team concluded that their study did‘not support wider implementation of mentoringprogrammes as a means of preventing or tacklingyouth crime’ although they did feel that some of thefeatures of mentoring were valuable and should beincorporated into other forms of intervention (YouthJustice Board for England and Wales, 2005; p5).

Historically, volunteering has played a key part inthe administration of the criminal justice systemwhich continues to rely on the unpaid work of laymagistrates, prison visitors, special constables andpolice cadets. More recently, Neighbourhood Watchschemes have involved very large numbers ofparticipants (although the trustees of the NationalNeighbourhood Watch Association have voted towind up the national body on the grounds ofinsolvency) and the Metropolitan Police Service hascreated a wider range of behind-the-scenesopportunities for volunteering.

Rural communitiesDEFRA and the new Commission for RuralCommunities (established in 2005) are committed to

the implementation of a rural strategy to address theneed for social and economic regeneration, tacklerural social exclusion and protect the naturalenvironment (DEFRA, 2004). Within this overarchingstrategy, DEFRA has committed resources todevelopment of the infrastructure of the VCS and iscommitted to supporting the work of VCSorganisations and parish councils in building socialcapital and ensuring fair access to public services.

Policy streamsTwo broad areas of policy which involve a number ofdifferent government departments providesignificant challenges – and opportunities - forvoluntary action.

The first of these policy streams is civil renewalwhich ‘is about people and government, workingtogether to make life better. It involves more peoplebeing able to influence decisions about theircommunities, and more people taking responsibilityfor tackling local problems, rather than expectingothers to’ (www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1500186).

Launched by the then Home Secretary, DavidBlunkett, in 2003, civil renewal has three keyingredients:• active citizens: people with the motivation, skills

and confidence to speak up for their communitiesand say what improvements are needed;

• strengthened communities: community groupswith the capability and resources to bring peopletogether to work out shared solutions; and

• partnership with public bodies: public bodies willingand able to work as partners with local people.

The civil renewal agenda is being taken forwardby the government’s Together We Can action plan(Home Office 2005) which brings together 12government departments to address four policystrands:• citizens and democracy: ‘together we can ensure

that children and young people have their say andstrengthen our democracy’;

• health and sustainability: ‘together we can improveour health and well-being and secure our future’;

• regeneration and cohesion: ‘together we canrevitalise neighbourhoods and increase

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community cohesion and race equality’;• safety and justice: ‘together we can build safer

communities and increase confidence in thecriminal justice system’.

To take this agenda forward the government hasestablished a Civil Renewal Unit(www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp? id=1500186)which has been transferred to the Department forCommunities and Local Government as part of therecent reshuffle. As well as leading on the co-ordination of the Together We Can initiative, the Unithas responsibility for implementing three aspects ofthe action plan: • Active Learning for Active Citizenship programme: a

programme of regional hubs trying out differentapproaches to citizenship education for adults,running to 2006;

• Civic Pioneer network: a network of localauthorities signed up to work with communities tohelp them have more influence on the way localservices are designed and carried out; and

• Guide Neighbourhoods programme: fundingexperienced residents from successfulneighbourhoods to help other communities totackle similar problems.

The government also established an ActiveCitizenship Centre which has provided a range ofresearch reports on different aspects of civil renewalincluding greater public involvement in servicedelivery, social capital and community cohesion.

The second of these policy streams - socialinclusion – has been a high profile issue for much ofthe Labour government’s first and second terms inoffice but appears to have slipped down the agendamore recently. As part of the new arrangements ingovernment which accompanied the Cabinetreshuffle, the Social Exclusion Unit which had beenset up in 1997 has been disbanded. Some of its staffhave been transferred to a new Social ExclusionTaskforce which will ‘concentrate on identifying themost at-risk and focus on specific hard-to-reachgroups including children in care, people with mentalhealth problems and teenagers at risk of pregnancy’(Armstrong, 2006).

As we have noted above (page 2), the PrimeMinister’s letter of appointment (Blair, 2006) included

the directive that ‘you should also aim to increaseoverall levels of volunteering across all age rangesand backgrounds. On young people, the keychallenge is to have a million more young peoplevolunteering within five years’. Interestingly, thistask is not included in the otherwise comprehensivestatement of ‘next steps’ announced on 13 June(Armstrong, 2006).

The changing face ofvolunteering This review of the volunteering literature highlightssome developments in volunteering that appear tobe trends that will help to shape its future.

Episodic volunteering Researchers and other commentators believe thatepisodic volunteering is increasing and that it isgrowing at the expense of traditional long-termcommitment but there is little firm evidence that thisis the case. Empirical data about this kind ofvolunteering tends to be concentrated in the area ofheritage and recreation, especially to do with theorganisation of festivals. In any case, these are twomodels of volunteering rather than types ofvolunteer and there is some evidence that individualvolunteers take part in both kinds of activity. Handyet al (2006) also found that habitual episodicvolunteers, while contributing fewer hours per yearthan their long-term counterparts, had volunteeredfor significantly longer periods of years.

Employer-supported volunteering Here again, there is little, if any, firm statisticalevidence to support the widely-held view thatemployer-supported volunteering has increased andis increasing both in the USA and the UK, thoughthere is a considerable body of more anecdotal data.Much employer-supported volunteering is episodic;a common activity takes the form of a team-buildingexercise involving such tasks as painting acommunity building; clearing environmentaleyesores, or tidying the overgrown gardens of olderpeople. It may also take the form of providing expertadvice and support to a specific programme or



project or the longer-term commitment of boardmembership (Tschirhart, 2005; Rochester andThomas, 2006).

Virtual volunteeringMuch of the discussion about the impact onvolunteering of a society which increasinglyconducts its business and personal relationships bymeans of ICT rather than face to face hasconcentrated on the need to use the new technologyto recruit and retain volunteers (Evans and Saxton,2005). There is some evidence, however, that thevoluntary activity itself can be undertaken on avirtual basis (Murray and Harrison, 2005) and it ismore than possible that this will become anincreasingly attractive option for volunteers who areused to operating in a virtual world as well as those,like some older people and people with long-termlimiting diseases, who have problems with mobility.A recent international study of virtual volunteering(Cravens, 2006) concluded that online volunteerscould provide organisations with enhanced capacitywhile ‘online volunteering can be a positive side to“globalisation”, happening at a very local, personallevel for people and organizations all over the world’(p22). The scope for this form of voluntary action isunderlined by the claim that the onlineencyclopaedia composed and edited by more than amillion volunteers may make the WikipediaFoundation the world’s largest nonprofit effort(Chronicle of Philanthropy, 2006).

Transnational volunteering and the gap yearAnother burgeoning area of voluntary activityinvolves the movement of volunteers from onecountry to another. There have been examples ofcross-national volunteering since the nineteenthcentury and, more recently, it has been the focus ofwell-known programmes delivered by organisationssuch as Voluntary Service Overseas in this country,the Peace Corps in the USA, and the United NationsVolunteers internationally. But it has taken on a newsignificance with the ‘recent dramatic increase ofactivity’ in its scale ‘and the form such activity takes’(Davis Smith et al, 2005; p63). VSO recorded anincrease of 59 per cent in applications forvolunteering opportunities between 1999 and 2000

and a 17 per cent increase in the number ofvolunteers sent overseas (Thomas, 2001 quoted inDavis Smith et al, 2005). Much of the growth hasbeen fuelled by the increasingly common practice ofyoung people taking a gap year as part of thetransition from school to university or betweencourses. A review of the phenomenon undertakenfor the DfES (Jones, 2004) estimated that there were‘upwards of 800 organisations’ offering 350,000overseas volunteering placements in 200 countries(p15). Transnational volunteering is not, however,restricted to the young: VSO recruit increasingnumbers of experienced professionals rather thanyoung graduates (Rochester and Hutchison, 2002)and the idea of a career break has grown inpopularity.

Young people’s activism Cross-national volunteering can be seen as‘volunteer tourism’ which benefits the youngvolunteer more than the organisation with whichs/he is placed and their constituents or users (DavisSmith et al, 2005), but it can also be seen as tappinginto a rich vein of enthusiasm and commitmentwhich is more about creating social change thanservice. The success of the student campaigningorganisation People and Planet and the widespreadsupport for campaigns like Make Poverty Historyprovide further evidence of an interest in action oractivism that does not easily translate into the usualterminology of volunteering.

TimeBanksThe TimeBank network claims to be ‘transformingthe image of volunteering to reflect its vital role in ahealthy society and the dynamic affect it can haveon the lives of volunteers’ and ‘inspiring andconnecting a new generation of people to volunteerin their communities’ (www.timebank.org.uk). Areview of the work of time banks (Seyfang, 2001)found that they were beginning to achieve theirobjectives of ‘building social capital and promotingcommunity self-help through mutual volunteering,targeting socially excluded groups’ albeit on amodest scale at this early stage of theirdevelopment and had ‘great potential to transformvolunteering for the twenty-first century’ (ibid.; p30).

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This section of the report discusses some of thechallenges and choices for the future developmentof volunteering identified by a review of the literature.

The first of these is the challenge of rationale.Government policy and the aspirations of volunteer-promoting organisations both treat as self-evidentthe value and importance of increasing theproportion of the population engaged in volunteeringdespite the fact that a considerable number ofpeople are giving a great deal of time to voluntaryaction and that participation rates comparefavourably with most comparable societies.

There are three broad rationales for involvingmore people in volunteering and each of them mightlead to a different approach to making this happen.If we place our emphasis on the benefits ofvolunteering to the individual our principal concernwill be to extend the opportunity of securing thosebenefits to the sections of the population who areless likely to take part. If the main driver is the needto recruit a larger unpaid work force to addresssocial need and take forward the public and socialpolicy agenda, the strategy might be to targetgroups of the population with a greater propensity tovolunteer and to seek to convert short-term orepisodic volunteering into longer-term commitment.It is arguable that, as the population acquires greaterpersonal disposable income and a higher proportionof the population is educated to degree level, theremight be a natural increase in the numbersvolunteering. The third rationale is that volunteeringhelps to improve the quality of life in thecommunities in which people live. In this case thestrategy would be to encourage and promote self-help and associational forms of voluntary action atlocal level.

This discussion leads to the second challenge, thequestion of targeting. The Home Office has identifiedas its priorities increases in volunteering by youngpeople (aged 16-24) and three categories of peopleat risk of social exclusion – those without educationalqualifications, people with disabilities and long-termlimiting illnesses, and members of BME communities(it is interesting, however, to note that older people,whose participation rates are low and for whomvolunteering has clear benefits for social inclusionand health, are no longer prioritised). Given that

variations in rates of volunteering are clearly relatedto location and to the kind of community in whichpeople live, it might make better sense to developpriorities based on these considerations for the futuredevelopment of volunteering. An approach of thiskind would sit more comfortably alongside thesustainable communities and rural communitiesagendas of the Department for Communities andLocal Government and DEFRA respectively than thatof the Home Office.

The targeting of young people makes a good dealof strategic sense. If the Russell Commission’svision that volunteering will become commonplaceamong the 16-24 age group is realised, there is areasonable expectation that they will continue tovolunteer at later stages of their life. And, on apractical level, schools, colleges and HEIs providean institutional framework through which youngpeople can be contacted and influenced.

The YV05 and the Volunteering Hub have alsotargeted employer-supported volunteering as agrowth area. This is partly opportunistic:volunteering of this kind appears to be on theincrease both in Britain and in the USA and efforts inthis area are likely to be rewarded. Again, it offers aninstitutional framework through which potentialvolunteers can be approached.

A third challenge is that of marketing volunteering.The weakening of family and community ties(including the declining importance of religion) hasled to the creation of a society which is increasinglydominated by the values and practices of themarket. From this perspective, prospectivevolunteers are seen as potential consumers to beattracted by a communications strategy whichinvolves tailoring the message to the interests ofdifferent groups. One key problem here is the imageor perception of volunteering. The experience ofYV05’s attempt at marketing volunteering identifiedthe need to move from traditional perceptions to animage that can be relevant to different groups insociety. Many volunteers do not describe or wouldnot recognise their activities as volunteering. Amarketing approach, moreover, may be moreappropriate for some forms of volunteering thanothers; it fits more easily into the non-profitparadigm of volunteering as unpaid labour than into


5 Challenges andchoices


the ideas of serious leisure and activism. And it maylead us to the uncritical adoption of new models ofvolunteering.

Evans and Saxton (2005) advocate what they callthe ‘productisation’ of volunteering opportunities.Just as fundraising ‘asks for specific sums of moneyor specifies exactly how the money will be spent’ so‘the gift of time can be standardised and packaged’(pp47 and 48). This can be seen as the ultimateexpression of a marketing-led approach to voluntaryaction.

Another key challenge is the demand for quality.The argument that volunteering activities should bewell organised and that volunteers should receivethe induction, training, support and supervision toenable them to function effectively and obtainmaximum reward from their involvement isunanswerable. And the means of achieving thisseem appropriate: the development of a trained,accredited profession of volunteer managers andthe application of a specific quality standard –Investing in Volunteers – to volunteer-involvingorganisations. For those organisations where therole of volunteer manager is recognised and whichare large and formally organised, this is clearlybeneficial.

The great majority of organisations in whichvolunteering takes place do not, however, meetthese conditions. Mutual aid groups, campaigningorganisations, clubs and voluntary associations of allkinds need to ensure that the volunteeringopportunities they offer are as rewarding andproductive as any other kind but need different waysof addressing them. Rather than management, theymay need to pay attention to leadership, while thequality assurance agenda needs to be addressed inways which are specific to these kinds oforganisation. What may be helpful here are casestudies and models of good practice drawn from thefield. These could be supplemented by educationand training for those who work with and supportgrassroots activities.

The issue of management as such is perhaps lessproblematic. The task has been defined as finding‘the right stuff’ (Zimmeck, 2001) or ‘the right blendfor the organisation, combining choice and control,flexibility and organisation, to be experienced by the

volunteer as a blend of informality and efficiency,personal and professional support. This must takeaccount of the blend of characteristics, motivationsand needs within the volunteering workforce; andthe type of volunteering and context in which it iscarried out’ (Gaskin, 2003).

Another challenge that has been highlighted bythe work of the Russell Commission has been thequestion of ownership. Research for the Commissionfound that young people wanted ‘to have a say inthe planning and decision-making in theirvolunteering’ (Ellis, 2005; p34) and theimplementation body has factored that into itsgovernance. There is other evidence that in otherage groups and other types of volunteering peoplesee volunteering not as a series of time-limited andbounded tasks but as an opportunity to develop arole and exercise a good deal of autonomy.

A final theme is the question of access tovolunteering. A number of studies have identifiedbarriers to participation by various groups orcategories. Young people identified lack of time,negative peer pressure based on the idea thatvolunteering was not cool, lack of confidence, andlack of access to information about opportunities(Ellis, 2005).

People from socially excluded groups taking partin the IVR study identified two kinds of barriers. Thefirst kind were psychological; like young people theycited the image of volunteering, concerns about theamount of time needed, and lack of confidence.Some of them – especially ex-offenders - were alsoconcerned about the reception they would get fromany organisation they approached. The second kindof barriers – the practical – included the difficulty offinding out about volunteering opportunities butwere also about over-formal recruitment proceduresand poor follow-up for new recruits, and also thephysically inaccessible locations and the financialcosts involved (IVR, undated).

A very similar set of findings were reported inRochester and Hutchison’s (2002) review of theHome Office Older Volunteers’ Initiative. Here thebarriers associated with the attitudes of older peopleand practical barriers like health and mobility issueswere also accompanied by the attitudes andpractices of volunteer-involving organisations.

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Across the three studies we can see that accesscould be improved by addressing the image ofvolunteering, by more and better sources ofinformation about the range of possible activities, bymore specific activities aimed at boosting people’sconfidence, and by applying the principles of goodvolunteer management.

But there are other barriers to participation involunteering that are less susceptible to correctiveaction by volunteer-involving and volunteer-promoting organisations. The complex web ofregulation that has become such a feature of ourrisk-averse society and its over-zealousimplementation has caused great difficulties for localvoluntary action (Rochester, 2001). If grassrootsactivity is to flourish, we need a better-tailoredapproach to the management of risk in clubs,societies and associations.

Secondly, the formalisation andprofessionalisation of the voluntary sectororganisations which have historically provided arange of volunteering opportunities has bothreduced the scope of these activities and raisedbarriers against involvement in them. The delivery ofpublic services calls for a smaller number of trainedand closely supervised volunteers and, for many ofthose who are involved, this has been a very positiveexperience - they feel both valued and wellmanaged. This has been achieved, however, at theconsiderable cost of excluding from the opportunityto volunteer with these organisations people who arenot able to assume the responsible roles that havebeen created without the period of personaldevelopment that they would have experienced inearlier days (Russell and Scott, 1997). The volunteeras unpaid and skilled labour has supplanted thelong-term volunteer involved in serious use of her orhis leisure.



One theme running through this review of theliterature is a kind of tension between analyses andprescriptions rooted in the predominant perspectiveon volunteering shared by government and the‘volunteering industry’ and an attempt to grapplewith a wider, more inclusive conception of voluntaryaction. In the final section of this report I try to drawout the differences between the two approaches andthe implications of these for the future ofvolunteering.

The predominant perspective:volunteering as unpaid work orserviceWhile paying attention to the heterogeneity ofvoluntary action, much of the discussion aboutfuture directions and good practice in volunteeringtends to revert to the default setting of volunteeringas unpaid work or service. Volunteers are seen asjunior members of a workforce recruited andmanaged by large, formally constitutedorganisations which deliver services to other people,predominantly in the broad area of social welfare.

A key concern – explicit or implicit – is to increasethe size of the volunteering workforce by thedevelopment of a more adequate marketing andcommunications strategy which involves targetinggroups which are currently under-represented andaddressing the barriers to their participation.

The second major concern is to enhance thequality of the volunteering experience by thedevelopment of a more professional approach tovolunteer management, by the dissemination ofgood practice, and by the use of quality standards.

From this point of view, volunteer-involvingorganisations need to adjust to the changes inattitudes to volunteering and wider culturaldevelopments rather than challenge them. On onelevel this involves an acceptance that the loyal andcommitted long-term volunteer of the past is beingreplaced by the episodic and ‘selfish’ contribution ofthe ‘new volunteerism’ whose needs they mustaddress. More generally, volunteer-involvingorganisations are adopting the values and practicesof the for-profit sector model of management.

Much of the ‘new’ volunteer workforce will besupplied by growing numbers of employer-supported volunteers. Increasingly, institutions likethe workplace and schools and colleges will providea locus for volunteer recruitment while churches andassociations are seen as diminishing assets.

Alternative perspectives From the other perspectives discussed in this report– volunteering as collective action, as mutual aid,and as serious leisure – the key concerns take on arather different form. Rather than accept theatomisation and commercialisation of society, theexistence of these other approaches challengesthem and offers alternative sets of values.

The influential work of Putnam (1995) in the UShas led to widespread concern that participation inorganisations which bring people together to meetshared needs and pursue common interests hasfallen into precipitate decline. There is someevidence in this country that it has become moredifficult to interest people in some forms ofvolunteering of this kind (see, for example, Jackson,1999) but there are also indications that volunteeringas collective action is far from moribund (see, forexample, Nichols, 2006 forthcoming). There mayalso be other explanations for the apparent decline.A recent study of participation in the local volunteer-run groups or branches of national federal bodiesfound that some were in decline while others weregrowing. The explanation was the age of the groups;they seemed to have a natural life span which wasthe period of time their founding members continuedto be involved in them (Wyper, 2001). We need morerobust evidence about the extent to which theincreased emphasis on the individual and theconsumer has affected participation in collectiveaction. This would also enable us to identify thekinds of action most or least affected by thechanging culture. We might then be in a position tojudge whether Margaret Mead’s often-quoted maximstill holds good:

‘Never doubt that a small group of thoughtfulcommitted citizens can change the world: indeed it’sthe only thing that ever does.’

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6 Tentative conclusions


Another key area for more research is the extentto which the internet and the mobile phone havemade it possible for collective action to be organisedon a virtual basis. The pace of change has been sorapid that we remain largely unaware of the actualand potential contribution the use of ICT could maketo volunteering as collective action. One potentexample of the potential is the use made of theinternet in the campaign for the Democraticnomination for the US presidential campaign in2003-04 by supporters of Howard Dean, which hasbecome a model for mobilising activists as well asraising money (Borger, 2006). Support for UKcampaigns like Make Poverty History have beendeveloped through similar methods (Guardian,2006). There is an urgent need for a substantialstudy of the extent to which virtual collective actioncan replace or supplement the more traditionalmethods of face-to-face organising.

Mutual aid is closely related to collective actionand involves values that challenge the dominantparadigm. As well as seeking a collective rather thanan individual response to a social need, mutualitychallenges the authority of the professional expertwho has become a dominant figure in contemporarysociety by stressing the importance of experientialknowledge (Borkman, 1999). The principle ofmutuality has somehow survived the growingemphasis on the individual as consumer and thedevelopment of a professional and managerialsociety and, while it has not received the sameattention as the notion of the social entrepreneur,there have been new stirrings in the co-operativesector (Yeo, 2002). The TimeBank movement is alsorooted in the mutual principle (Boyle, 1999).

The volunteering as serious leisure perspectivealso represents a critique of the prevailing culture.The idea of the amateur as someone who practicesan art or takes part in sport out of the love of theactivity and to gain pleasure from it has been lostbehind its contemporary usage of a haplessincompetent (even the LVSC’s manual for managersof voluntary sector organisation is entitled ‘voluntarybut not amateur’!). Similarly, the term ‘professional’is associated with high levels of competence whenonce it referred to a mercenary who took part in anactivity for money rather than from higher motives(Taylor, 2006).

As well as these fundamental differences invalues, the alternative perspectives provide us withdifferent organisational challenges and concerns. Onthe whole we are discussing smaller, less formallystructured organisations in which the leading (and allother) roles are played by volunteers. Like thevolunteer-involving organisations associated withthe predominant perspective, they need to attractand retain volunteers and organise their workeffectively but the ways in which these functions arecarried out are very different and raise distinctiveproblems. They do not, as a rule, recruit people toundertake predetermined roles, apply selectioncriteria and offer formal training. The culture tends tobe more about seeking and accepting offers of helpfrom among those who may have an interest in theissue or the activities of the organisation. It is alsoabout allowing the volunteers to develop the rolesthey will play in the organisation in response to whatis needed and what they feel able to take on(Rochester, 1992).

A key distinction is between the core of highlycommitted serious leisure volunteers who form the‘inner group of willing people’ (Harris, 1998) or the‘stalwarts’ (Nichols, 2006 forthcoming) on the onehand and those who play a more episodic role.(There is nothing new about the idea of episodicvolunteering in this kind of organisational context.)One distinctive organisational challenge is to ensurethat the inner core does not become overloaded andthat due attention is paid to the issue of succession.

Another distinctive feature is that, unlike for-profitcorporations and agencies designed in their image,the organisations in which this kind of volunteeringtakes place are not purely instrumental; they exist tomeet the social needs of their members as much asto achieve other - extrinsic - objectives.

Many of these kinds of volunteer-involvingorganisations are networked into larger structureswhich may offer valuable advice, information andsupport. They may also, however, provide a conduitfor ideas about the nature of the group’s work andthe way in which it should go about its businesswhich are rooted in ideas of professionalism andmanagerialism which are an imperfect fit with thelocal organisation’s own aspirations. In the world ofsport, for example, the aims of national governingbodies to improve performance levels and widen



participation in their sport may import a new agendato the local club. Across the leisure areas of arts andculture as well as sport and recreation, there may bea tension between pressure for elite performance atthe national level and grassroots participation atlocal level. The ethos that ‘if a thing is worth doing,it’s worth doing badly’ may be under threat.

Finally, the issues of regulation and riskmanagement can weigh especially heavily on localorganisations based on collective action, mutual aidor the pursuit of volunteering as serious leisure.There is a bewildering range of legal requirementsdeveloped to regulate large scale commercialactivity and administered with little regard to theneeds of small voluntary organisations (Rochester,2001) which act as a cost and a constraint on localvoluntary action. There is a clear need for a ‘lightertouch’ (Kumar and Nunan, 2002).

Finally The agenda for the future of voluntary action viewedfrom the perspective of volunteering as unpaidlabour or service is, as we have seen, comparativelystraightforward. There is a level of consensus aboutwhat is needed and about the technocratic ormanagerial tools which can take it forward.

An agenda which takes full account of the otherperspectives of volunteering as collective action,mutual aid and serious leisure is less clear-cut,broader and more contentious. It involves:• making the case for alternative values (collective

action and mutual aid vs focus on the individual;the value of experiential knowledge vsprofessional and managerial expertise; expressiveas well as instrumental goals);

• research into the nature of participation incollective action, clubs, societies andassociations both face to face and via the internet(and the possible links between them);

• a greater emphasis on making organisations ofthis kind effective (on their own terms) rather thanon the management of individual volunteers;

• an attack on unnecessary, inappropriate anddisproportionate regulation which constrains andrestrains voluntary action.

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www.wearev.org.uk

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Volunteering EnglandRegent’s Wharf8 All Saints StreetLondon N1 9RLFax: 020 7520 8910Tel: 0845 305 6979

E-mail: [email protected] site: www.volunteering.org.uk

Published by Volunteering England on behalf of The Commission on the Future of Volunteering

Volunteering England is a Registered Charity No. 1102770.A company limited by guarantee Registered in England and Wales No 4934814

The Commission on the Future of Volunteering hasbeen established by the England VolunteeringDevelopment Council in order to develop a long-termvision for volunteering in England.This research has been undertaken to inform the workof the Commission.To find out more about the Commission visitwww.volcomm.org.uk

The England Volunteering Development Council is ahigh-level representative mechanism for volunteering,engaging with both government and oppositionparties in order to capture the collective intelligence ofvolunteer-involving organisations, of volunteeringinfrastructure providers and of volunteers to provide apowerful, co-ordinated lobby to steer governmentpolicy and community action.To find out more about the Council visitwww.volunteering.org.uk/evdc

The Volunteering Hub is one of the ChangeUpnational hubs of expertise. The Volunteering Hub hasbeen set up to develop the volunteering infrastructure.The Hub’s objective is to enable far more people to

volunteer. The Hub wants these volunteers to bemore diverse and to include many more under-represented groups such as rural communities,refugees and asylum seekers. The Hub wants morevolunteers to be more active where they are neededmost, with organisations working in the most deprivedcommunities. The Hub wants all volunteers to bewell managed and supported, so that they remaincommitted and motivated and continue to volunteer.The Volunteering Hub is the Commission on theFuture of Volunteering’s principle sponsor.To find out more about the Hub visitwww.volunteering.org.uk/hub

Volunteering England is the national volunteerdevelopment organisation for England. VolunteeringEngland’s vision is of a society where people’spotential and passion to transform lives andcommunities through volunteering is fully realised.Volunteering England provides the secretariat andaccountable body functions for the Commission onthe Future of Volunteering.To find out more about Volunteering England visitwww.volunteering.org.uk

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