Following on from the wise words of my colleague Sean last month, if volunteers are people who make a free choice about being involved in our organisations, should we perhaps take that free choice further and enable volunteers to choose what and how they get involved. In other words... do volunteers need to be managed?

Before you all start rallying and protesting, bear with me a minute or two. Let us start with the presumption that most people who volunteer do so because they support a particular organisation, and because they want to be helpful.

Continue the theme - most people who volunteer have some skills, some experience, some knowledge and some common sense. Let us assume that most people who volunteer could probably come into many organisations and see for themselves what needs to be done, they can make a reasonable assessment of whether they are capable of doing the task, they can ask for help or information when they need it, and competently get on with the task in hand.

How true are these presumptions? Do the people who support our organisations always support the progressive steps that we take? Do people who have some personal experience of the causes that our organisations support always know enough to be helpful? Can people easily come in and see what needs doing or are our most imperative tasks those that are hidden?

Interesting letter in Third Sector today (Weds 21 Apr 09) from Stephen Moreton, Head of Education and Development at Attend on the debate about a volunteers ombudsman.  He wrote....

...'The call by AVM for more resources for volunteer managers is misguided.  More resources are needed to help charities as a whole manage volunteers.  HR departments, for example, need to ensure paid staff are aware of how volunteers support them.  Delivering effective volunteer services is not the domain of the volunteer manager - it is an organisational responsibility.'

Third Sector reports that the government has announced that the £6.5 million pounds earmarked in ithe Third Sector Action Plan to offer volunteer opportunities to people who are long term unemployed will go to BTCV (British Trust for Conservation Volunteers) as a prime contacter, with CSV, V, and Volunteering England as subcontractors. According to the article

AVM has a regular column in Volunteering England's Volunteering magazine. If you are a member you can access the magazine at http://volunteering.org.uk/members. Here's the article from the latest issue:

If you do any activity that involves doing something
That benefits the environment or someone else.
If you do it unpaid and not just for a close relative.
If you choose to do this activity by choice,
Made freely by you and not because you've been told to.
If you do this through a public, private or voluntary organisation,
Or indeed by informal community participation,
Then - which is more - you'll be a volunteer, my friend.

Apologies to Kipling. In our last article, John Ramsey started by asking, what is volunteering? It is a question that seems to provoke heated debate, anger, passion and amusement across our profession (just have a look at the archived discussions on UKVPMs).

When I first started in volunteer management life was so much simpler. We all knew what a volunteer was and what they weren't.

Now there is a whole new dictionary's worth of differing ways in which people can support organisations: internships, work experience, work placements, employer-supported volunteering (ESV), community engagement, community service and voluntary workers to name but a few.

Then of course we have all the Government initiatives that see volunteering as a way of helping people back into employment, or gain citizenship for example.

Whether or not the many ways of supporting a charity can be considered volunteering, they have at least a couple of things in common: the ‘volunteers' are not generally covered by employment law and they are not paid by the charity or organisation they are supporting.

Volunteering England have issued a briefing sheet, outlining some of the issues around the proposed clause in the new Citizenship and Immigration Bill which would mean people who volunteer can fast-track their citizenship applications.

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

Third Sector have reported that Stephen Bubb from Acevo, the chief executive's body, has put forward a report to James Purnell, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, examining how the third sector could help to alleviate unemployment problems. The report contains nine key ideas, one of which, is apparently that "unemployed people should be able to claim benefits while volunteering with charities". Obviously this suggestion comes as a bit of a surprise, because unemployed people already ARE allowed to claim benefits whilst volunteering. People who are recieving JSA must be actively seeking work whilst volunteering, so occasionally problems arise if people want to volunteer full time, but the vast majority of volunteer roles are part time, so there should be no problem at all.

Because I am a lowly Volunteer Manager, and not a Chief Executive, I'm not an ACEVO member, and can't access any of the reports on their site. So it's possible that Third Sector have got the wrong end of the stick. There is certainly a lot more that JobCentre Plus could be doing to support volunteering. For example, its still comon for their staff to miss-advise people about volunteering and benefits. So it's possible that Mr Bubb may have been suggesting a change in culture, rather than a change in rules. However, it is worrying that this article has appeared, because it's helping to perpetuate the myth that you might lose your benefits if you volunteer, a myth which creates a major barrier to many people offering time.

You can read the Third Sector article here:

http://tinyurl.com/dcg9mz

And read the actual rules around benefits and volunteering here:

Job Centre Plus (PDF)

"Charities should consider drawing up a coordinated strategy to attract more volunteers, key volunteering figures have been told. Caroline Diehl, chief executive of the Media Trust, which works to improve the relationship between the not-for-profit sector and the media, told a meeting of volunteering leaders in London this week that a more streamlined approach to communication could help groups to promote their work and recruit higher numbers of volunteers.

"Volunteering organisations are trying to do different things and give out different messages," said Diehl. "But perhaps they need to work out a unanimous strategy for communicating their work to the public and attracting more volunteers, instead of this potentially confusing, piecemeal approach."

We are pleased to note the commitment to excluding any notion of compulsory volunteering and keeping the distinction between volunteering and other forms of community service.

We are also pleased to note the commitment towards moving to a culture of three-year rather than one-year grants, although we believe this should be a first step towards five-year grants in recognition that the practical implications of recruiting staff, setting projects up etc means even three year funding rarely provides an effective three year project.

1. Direct funding for volunteer management

Effective investment and support in volunteer management is of paramount importance in developing volunteering. The majority of volunteer managers say that on current resources they could not support more than another 10 volunteers in their work (Management matters: a national survey of volunteer management capacity, 2008).

AVM does not believe that Government should permanently fund volunteer management, rather that it is for organisations to recognise that volunteer management is an essential part of their core business and to prioritise accordingly.

However, many organisations do not have a culture of volunteer management and therefore the ability to recognise the importance of volunteer management.

We recommend that a future Conservative government establishes a volunteer management ‘pump-priming' fund, whose aim is not just to develop volunteering in a particular geographical area, with a particular client group or an under-represented volunteer demographic but also to assess the impact of having a volunteer manager so that the organisation has the evidence to prioritise its funding in the future.

This fund would partly replace current funding programmes that target specific under-represented groups to volunteer.

A properly skilled and supported volunteer manager has the skill and knowledge to involve volunteers from under-represented groups. Simply targeting under-represented groups does not always meet the needs of clients and fragments the volunteering population rather than developing volunteering as a continuum through a person's life.

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

There was an interesting (and fairly lengthy!) discussion about volunteering as part of the House of Lords debate on passing the new Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill. Clause 39 of the Bill would mean that anyone who volunteered could fast track their citizenship application.

AVM now has a regular column in Volunteering England's Volunteering magazine. If you are a member you can access the magazine at http://volunteering.org.uk/members

February 2009 article: The evolutionary crossroads volunteer managers face

What is volunteering? Many things to many people, of course. To me, it conjures up images of enthusiasm and satisfaction, of happiness and sometimes sadness. But always of people giving, to make a difference.

And yet sometimes volunteer managers are the vampires of the volunteering world, draining the excitement and passion out of every volunteer we chance upon, by demanding references, CRB checks, interviews and risk assessments.

This is from an article from Third Sector online by Sarah Townsend, Third Sector Online, 23 January 2009:

Survey finds 57 per cent of British public believe volunteers do not get enough appreciation. More than half of the British public believe that local groups of volunteers do not get the recognition they deserve, a new survey suggests.

The poll, commissioned by the Queen's Award for Voluntary Service, which gives awards to local groups for voluntary work, says that 57 per cent of the 2,041 people surveyed thought the groups were not shown enough appreciation for their work, and 8 per cent thought they were.

The 749 respondents who said they had volunteered in the past year were also asked why they did so. The most popular reason - true for 47 per cent of respondents - was that they gained a "sense of personal achievement and satisfaction". Thirty seven per cent said they did it because they wanted to improve the local community and help people.

The region with the highest proportion of volunteers was Northern Ireland, where 44 per cent of respondents had volunteered in the past 12 months. The area with the highest proportion of people volunteering at least once a week was Scotland, with 23 per cent.

Martyn Lewis, former broadcast journalist and committee chair for the Queen's Award for Voluntary Service main award, said: "There are great rewards to be had from volunteering, whether personal achievement and the development of new skills or a deeper connection with your local community - but it's clear that many believe those who make an effort to benefit others should be recognised publicly."

Volunteering will have an invaluable role to play during the financial downturn:

• Volunteers will provide services to the rising number of people who will be in need of help, advice and support.
• Volunteering will give people a way of developing new skills and improving existing ones.
• Volunteering will enable people to re-gain their confidence and give them a renewed sense of purpose.

Volunteering will give people the opportunity to be active in their communities at a time when communities are likely to become more fractured.

The role of Government in developing volunteering is threefold: