Volunteering action plan

Ideas into action

Volunteering happens through the relationships between people, organisations and places & spaces. The Working Groups have created a single high-level system map (Appendix 1 - System Map) to inform 'ideas for change' and provide the basis for more detailed actions.

A Volunteering System, comprises People, Places & Spaces and Organisations. Our actions over 10 years will look to create greater impact in areas such as inclusive volunteering, recognition and celebration and lifelong engagement.

Themes and Ideas

'Ideas for change' have been collated thematically, as follows:

• Awareness and perception of volunteering
• Community engagement
• Volunteering opportunities
• Relationship building
• Research evidence
• Valuing volunteering
• Volunteering experience and training

Volunteering outcomes around ‘inclusive volunteering’ and ensuring ‘places and spaces’ for volunteering are developed, supported and sustained are particularly complex and ‘ideas for change’ cut across a number of themes. Each ‘idea’ is the starting point for a more detailed, priority action (see Volunteering Action Canvases).^[21] See also a more detailed Longlist: Actions and Ideas.^[22]

Themes / Ideas

Awareness and perception of volunteering - to increase general public awareness of volunteering, and to tackle stereotypes around what it is and who volunteers, etc. This involves actions focused on promotional activity and national and local events.

20. Co-ordinating national recognition and celebration initiatives and expanding the Volunteers' Week programme by including other national events relevant to volunteering.

21. Delivery of local and regional community events which build on existing national celebrations and focus on locally driven community events.

22. Establish a common understanding of inclusive volunteering and inclusive volunteering practice through awareness raising campaigns.

23. 'Tell your story' platform that allows volunteers to tell their story in their own words.

24. Evaluate volunteering awards and their importance for lifelong engagement, including the potential for adult awards.

25. Encourage people to consider volunteering through tailored, comprehensive and accessible information and guidance that addresses key questions for non-volunteers.

Community engagement - These actions focus on how to leverage community assets, 'anchor' organisations and local leadership to maximise the contribution of volunteering at the community level. This includes capitalising on national programmes and good practice locally.

26. Leverage community 'assets' through engaging 'anchor' organisations and individuals and supporting volunteers' use of greenspace and bluespace.

27. Scaling up models of successful community-volunteer engagement through understanding the success factors and supporting wider application, thematically and geographically.

28. Stimulate volunteer pathways through initiatives aimed at participants and recipients within community services and interest groups.

29. Help communities to help themselves through supporting a volunteering response to important issues, such as national emergencies, protecting assets under threat, rescuing land for a community garden - this includes sharing good practice examples.

30. Support Voluntrepreneurs i.e. support entrepreneurial action that's focused on creating community-volunteer engagement models or approaches.

Volunteering Opportunities - actions which focus on increasing the opportunities available to volunteer: widening the breadth of opportunities and also increasing access for under-represented groups.

31. Volunteering Opportunities + through a plan to increase current opportunity volumes and matches which involves identifying and removing barriers for both opportunity publishers and searchers.

32. Volunteering Opportunities by lifestage through collating, reviewing and recommending changes based on motivations and needs at each life stage, including employer supported volunteering and intergenerational activity.

33. Inclusive nature-based volunteering through collating case studies via volunteers and practitioners, and providing guides to help others create roles in this area.

Relationship building - actions have identified where relationships must be strong or strengthened; between 'volunteering' and 'community engagement' partners; and between national and local stakeholders.

34. Bridge expertise through building relationships between volunteering and community engagement partners.

35. Engage national partners around successful community-volunteer engagement initiatives in order to understand and support.

36. Tackle transitions for volunteers into adulthood by engaging education-focused stakeholders and employers; and into retirement by engaging employers and others.

Research evidence - each Working Group drew on available 'Evidence' to base their understanding of the system and the action needed, motivating the call for specific research.

37. Understand older 'potential' volunteers through research that examines their needs and motivations to volunteer.

38. Understand community engagement and volunteering through research and monitoring and evaluation data.

Valuing volunteering - actions look at promoting the 'value' of volunteering more widely, assessing volunteering in the context of a wellbeing index and making clearer the line between volunteering and paid work.

39. Volunteering and Wellbeing. Gain a better understanding of the contribution of volunteering to the Wellbeing Economy by aligning existing research with the National Outcome indicators related to health and social capital.

40. Create a positive culture for volunteers through wider promotion of the impact of volunteering in policy and the media.

41. Fair Volunteering. Reinforce the distinction between volunteering and paid employment by reviewing and relaunching the Volunteer Charter, introducing fair volunteering principles, and reinforcing the importance of paying expenses amongst others.

Volunteering Experience and Training - actions cover areas of Employer Supported Volunteering, building knowledge and skills within Inclusive Volunteering, reducing bureaucracy and widening standards of practice, amongst others.

42. National approach to Employer Supported Volunteering which includes an agreed value statement, guidance and accreditation routes and signposting to existing services.

43. Build knowledge, skills and capacity in inclusive volunteering through practical resources, training and peer support.

44. Knowledge hub to recognise and celebrate volunteering and ensure that minimum standards are in place for recognising volunteers.

45. The right level of bureaucracy through understanding where bureaucracy can be streamlined (with relevance to VIOs, infrastructure bodies, funders, and others) and the application and impact for different types of volunteers / volunteering.

46. Create a wellbeing training resource which supports volunteers to maintain positive physical and emotional wellbeing and sets a national baseline to support volunteer practice.

47. Improve and widen the uptake of standards of practice through the increased promotion of 'a quality pipeline' which includes the Volunteer Charter, Volunteer Friendly (VF) and Investing in Volunteers (IiV). Assess potential for 'QA marked' opportunities.

Ideas into Action

Some ideas have been further developed through use of a 'Volunteering Action Canvas'. A template is shown below.

Volunteering Action Canvas

What is this action? In a few sentences…

Our target audiences

Our key delivery partners

What is unique here, what will change as a result? Anticipated impact?

How we'll communicate this action

What we'll do to deliver this action (key activities)

We must build relationships with these key stakeholders

How we'll know if this action works (test and learn)

What we estimate as minimum costs (for a basic version)

What resources are needed, financial, non-financial, in-kind.

The 'canvas' provides the key components of any action and the basis for 'experimentation'; with the aim being to refine, adapt, improve or stop any action.

In this way, actions and their outcomes become more certain over time.

A key aspect of the Living Plan is to encourage anyone with an interest in 'improving volunteering' to get involved; to add their Ideas, to turn their Idea into Action (create a Volunteering Action Canvas) and then to implement, test and learn, for the benefit of all.

The Working Groups generated Volunteering Action Canvases^[23] for the following actions:

Volunteering Action Canvasses

22. Establish a common understanding of inclusive volunteering and inclusive volunteering practice through awareness raising campaigns.

24. Evaluate volunteering awards and their importance for lifelong engagement including the potential for adult awards.

26. Leverage community 'assets' through engaging 'anchor' organisations and individuals and supporting volunteers' use of greenspace and bluespace.

27. Scaling up models of successful community-volunteer engagement through understanding success factors and supporting wider application, thematically and geographically.

29. Help communities to help themselves through supporting the volunteering contribution to important community issues, including sharing 'what works'.

32. Volunteering Opportunities by lifestage through collating, reviewing and recommending changes based on motivations and needs at each life stage.

34. Bridge expertise through building relationships between volunteering and community engagement partners.

37. Understand older potential volunteers through research that examines their needs and motivations to volunteer.

40. Create a positive culture for volunteers through promotion of key messages and impacts.

43. Build knowledge, skills and capacity in inclusive volunteering through practical resources, training and peer support

44. Knowledge hub to recognise and celebrate volunteering and ensure that minimum standards are in place for recognising volunteers.

46. Create a wellbeing training resource which supports volunteers to maintain positive physical and emotional wellbeing and sets a national baseline to support volunteer practice.

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See Volunteering Action Canvases^[24]