johnramsey's blog

Greater London Volunteering has started a campaign to show the Coalition that Volunteer-involving Organisations, Volunteer Centres and Volunteer Development Agencies have the local expertise needed to build the Big Society and want to engage with them from the beginning to make it easier for them to deliver their vision, while ensuring that the most vulnerable are still protected and engaged.

We (Age UK and the Age Concern Federation Volunteering Partnership) have produced guidance on how to obtain funding for volunteer management. It's primarily aimed at Age Concerns however I hope it's useful more generically across the volunteering sector.

I don't pretend it's the magic answer but more a starting point. Over time I'd like to improve it so if you have any suggestions or case studies please do let me know and I'll produce a revised edition later in the year.

This event brings together key voices in the volunteering sector to highlight the work of NNVIA (the National Network of Volunteer Involving Agencies) who, in partnership with Volunteering England, has been working at local, regional and national levels on ways of overcoming barriers to volunteering, and finding out why it is good business for all organisations to do so.

On Volunteering England's website the current poll question is 'Should volunteers be managed in the same way as paid employees'. The answer was so obvious I almost didn't bother answering - they might as well have asked whether the Pope is Catholic or if bears pop behind a tree to relieve themselves.  It was a slow day, though, so I hit 'no' anyway.

To celebrate Student Volunteering Week 2010 (22-28 February), Volunteering England commissioned a piece of research to increase knowledge and information about students volunteering in the UK. This analysis of student volunteering was carried out with respondents to wave two of the Futuretrack survey. Respondents were full-time students at UK Higher Education Institutions enrolled on an undergraduate degree programme. Respondents were surveyed during summer and autumn 2007 to record their experiences of their first year at university or college. Key findings include:

The Queen's Award for Voluntary Service, the MBE for volunteer groups, was created in 2002 to recognise the outstanding contributions made by voluntary organisations in local communities across the UK.

To date, 750 groups have received the Award from Her Majesty; however, we are continually striving to recognise more of those who are operating to the highest standard. Previously, groups may not have been nominated because they, or those in a position to nominate them, are unaware of their eligibility for this prestigious Honour.

One of the emerging themes over the last year has been the growing demand for volunteering opportunities but the declining demand for volunteers from organisations. Within this debate, though, there seems to be an implicit criticism of organisations that we are not doing enough to accommodate volunteers.

Volunteering is a good thing. We all know this. And the Government has spent plenty of money on encouraging more people to volunteer. However policy has always focussed on getting more people to volunteer and not stopped to think about what the need for volunteers is.

My name is Eddy Hogg and I am a PhD Researcher at Nottingham Trent University, working in conjunction with Age Concern and Help the Aged.  I am conducting a national survey explore the extent organisations engage with older volunteers

Capacitybuilders has launched the £3m Volunteer Management Programme - as promised by the Office of the Third Sector last year -  to provide support to people who manage volunteers

The resulting programme will be delivered via three inter-connected strands: 

The former parliamentary private secretary to Gordon Brown, Angela Evans Smith, has become the new minister for the third sector.

She replaces Kevin Brennan, who has moved on to Peter Mandelson's new Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Smith will become a minister of state rather than a parliamentary under secretary, as Brennan was. She has also been appointed to the Privy Council, though she will not be a full cabinet minister.

Andrea Rannard, Senior Student Volunteering Manager at Volunteering England, is working with the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Service to ensure the profession is considered as a legitimate career option for graduates and is reflected accurately.

As part of that work, your help is needed:

1. Please fill out the Job Analysis Questionnaire, and

2. If you have graduated within the last five years, the case study form

So what are you? A charity worker, a development manager or a community worker? Perhaps you're a tunneller, a toy-maker or a tea-taster?

You could be any of these. But, according to a list of over 1,500 occupations used by insurance brokers, the one thing you're not is a volunteer manager.

Volunteer managers do not exist.

That's a damning indictment when you think about how many people volunteer each year. Possibly half the people you'll come into contact with today. And half the people tomorrow. And next week. And next month. And next year.

An enormous number of people who carry out a bewildering array of activities in every corner of our society. And yet the occupation that manages all that goes unrecognised. Ask the average person in the street what a finance manager does and they'll have a pretty good idea. Or a chief officer, or a fundraiser. But a volunteer manager? In fact, we speak to many volunteer managers whose line managers don't even understand.

Of course, maybe that's not so surprising when most of you reading this aren't called volunteer managers. 85% of people who manage volunteers aren't actually called volunteer manager or something similar. Even worse, nearly 40% of you won't even have a role description mentioning it.

That legitimacy of what we do remains one of the biggest stumbling blocks we face. If people don't understand or recognise the role we play then effective investment and accountability will remain a pipe-dream, as will developing our own career paths or having salaries commensurate with our role (the majority of volunteer managers are paid below the national average).

And ultimately it means we are failing the volunteers themselves, by not having the capacity to ensure they have a fulfilling, rewarding and satisfying volunteering experience.

nfpSynergy have published a briefing (PDF) on over-estimating levels of volunteering which does make for interesting reading.

Baroness Neuberger has published her report 'Volunteering Across the Criminal Justice System'. In it she says that 'volunteer management needs to be invested in if it is really to reap dividends, and the CJS, without doubt, needs more of this kind of investment' and 'a lack of investment in volunteer management inevitably results in volunteers having a bad experience. During the course of my research I have come across many cases of volunteers who have had a negative experience, as a direct result of poor investment in their management.'

Her recommendations:

• A ministerial champion should be established for volunteering across the CJS
• The agencies of the CJS on the ground should invest in volunteering and good volunteer management
• All agencies of the CJS should have a strategy to engage the skills and time of ex-offenders, to deliver those services alongside professionals.
• Employee volunteering should be rolled out throughout the CJS
• The Office for Criminal Justice Reform should produce guidance and a toolkit for local criminal justice boards on how volunteering can help them meet their objectives.
• Guidance should be produced for commissioners in the CJS on how to consider the involvement of volunteers when commissioning services.
• Examine how more specific schemes for offenders (and ex-offenders) who want to volunteer could be extended across the country.
• Unemployed people in contact with the Criminal Justice system should be signposted to volunteering opportunities as a stepping stone to entering the labour market.
• Government departments and their partners should work to develop a sustainable funding model for victims' organisations, where volunteers are clearly providing a vita service that is not being provided by statutory services.
• A coordinated cross-Government initiative to encourage employer support for voluntary roles.
• Joint guidance, by the trade union movement and Volunteering England, on the use of volunteers within public services should be published.

The full report can be found at: http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/124076/volunteers%20in%20cjs.pdf