What I think about the latest Tory proposal on volunteering

Last Friday (10 April 2015) David Cameron announced that if the Conservatives win the UK General Election on 7th May 2015 they would introduce a new legal right for employees in the public sector and large private firms to have three days a year of paid leave in order to volunteer.

Recognising the benefits of employee volunteering, many groups were quick to endorse the proposals.

CIPD (the professional body for Human Resources) welcomed the idea as did the Confederation of British Industry.

Amusingly, the trade union movement - who are usually so quick to criticise volunteers as the enemy of paid workers - quickly backtracked on their initial cautious welcome when it became apparent volunteering for a union would not be considered under the scheme.

Many in the Voluntary and Community Sector have also warmly welcomed Cameron’s proposal.

NCVO’s Chief Executive Sir Stuart Etherington blogged on why it would be good for business whilst Kristen Stephenson helpfully outlined why employee volunteering can be a good thing more broadly.

The Charities Aid Foundation also gave their endorsement as did the sector Chief Executives body ACEVO, whose Director of Policy, Asheem Singh, was quoted in Civil Society saying:

“This is exciting news – it recognises the crucial role of charities in building a better society. The workplace is a new frontier for social action, and this new legal right will help support a new generation of socially responsible citizens.”

However, at an event on Monday some senior fundraisers (not volunteer managers, fundraisers!) called into question the viability of the Conservative proposal whilst both CSV and Timebank have made the point that it needs properly thinking though and resourcing if it is to work.

The Association of Volunteer Managers have said nothing.

So what do I think?

Let’s start with the positive. To an extent I agree that anything which promotes and encourages volunteering is to be welcomed. However, I have two big caveats to this.

First, the solution is not always more volunteers. As I said when I blogged on the Labour Party’s proposals for volunteering back in 2014:

“We are concerned Labour are falling into the common trap of assuming that more volunteers is a measure of success. Any professional leader and manager of volunteers would be quite clear that if an organisation’s mission can be fulfilled effectively with ten volunteers then to recruit 100 to do the same task is wasteful and inefficient.”

Second, initiatives to increase the supply of volunteers completely fail to recognise that the demand needs to be there for these people. Meaningful opportunities need creating to accommodate all these additional time givers and ensure they have a great experiences as volunteers. A shortcut to disaster would be to engage loads of new people, manage them badly, give them a terrible experience and send them on their way. Do you imaging many (any?) of them would be keen to volunteer again? Moreover, as the Boston Globe highlighted recently, employee volunteering can be more of a burden than a help to many good causes.

So, if that’s the positive (!), what about the negative?

First, the Conservative proposals are yet another example of a political party policy initiative on volunteering that looks good but fails to acknowledge that investment is needed to make it happen. Volunteering is freely given but not cost free. As I just noted, if all these additional volunteers are going to come forward opportunities need creating, organisational cultures need to be changed to be more open towards volunteers and resource (time, money, will to act etc.) needs finding to organise it all and maximise the potential impact.

One of the most worrying aspects of the Tory announcement is the failure of most of the main sector bodies to even acknowledge that for the idea to work something needs to change. Whether that something is the attitude of leaders in the sector to properly understand and support volunteering, or it is funding for more volunteer management resource, or both, nobody except Timebank or CSV appears to have even raised this issue. Worse, the professional association for volunteer managers has been totally silent.

Second, and related, is the issue of infrastructure. It has long been accepted that good employee volunteering happens when a competent broker gets involved. This broker negotiates the needs of the good cause with the aims of the employer and matches the two up to best mutual benefit. 

Sadly, the last government’s austerity agenda slashed funding for national and local volunteering infrastructure to the point where the capacity to deliver something like Cameron’s new proposals barely exists compared to five years ago. Not only have the organisations closed or significantly downsized but much of the knowledge and expertise built up over many years has left the roles that were made redundant. 

Perhaps there is no better illustration of the short-sightedness of dismantling the sector's support infrastructure whilst expecting volunteering to flourish.

Third, and finally, what is acceptable volunteering? Set aside the old debate about whether paid time off for volunteering is actually volunteering (and I think it is - is paid time off for holiday not holiday?) but the position on union volunteering makes it clear that the Conservatives view some volunteering as more valid than other ways of giving time. This is not a new issue but one that rarely gets thought through. 

Consider these two previous examples:

1. The Local Government Association (LGA) proposing that people get a discount on their Council Tax if they volunteer, an idea that seems to have stalled when it became apparent how much record keeping and administration is required to assess and approve what it valid volunteering and how much time people give to those causes.
2. The last Labour government’s wizard wheeze to speed up citizenship applications for those immigrants who volunteer, an idea which collapsed for the exact same reason as the LGA’s idea.

So what will constitute valid volunteering under Cameron’s grand new volunteering plan? Who will assess and approve this? Who will record how much of those three days gets used? What will happen to people’s legal right to time off to volunteer for other causes? These questions are all unanswered and until they are addressed I cannot endorse the idea at all.

Of course these proposals may only see the light of day if we get a Conservative government on May 8th. Given the closeness of this election that seems an unlikely outcome. I can see the idea being dropped as quickly as possible in any coalition negotiations. 

So maybe we shouldn’t worry too much about the Tories and their new idea, but we definitely should worry at the response - or lack thereof - of the majority of sector bodies. This is the first chance in a post-Volunteering England age to see how our national infrastructure representatives speak up for the realities of volunteer management. I think it's pretty clear that with a couple of notable exceptions (CSV and Timebank) they failed the test. 

Let’s hope they do better with whatever government we do get.

They couldn’t do much worse could they?

To Pay Or Not To Pay? That is the question

We're very pleased to welcome back guest blogger Mel White. Mel wrote a two country perspective on volunteering and welfare to work schemes for us late in 2014 and now brings that same dual nation perspective to the issue of reimbursing volunteer expenses.

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A little background – I am originally from the UK having managed a Volunteer Centre service there for 15 years. I immigrated to Australia in April 2013 and within two weeks of arriving found employment within a Volunteer Resource Centre.

I have enjoyed seeing the differences in practice between the two countries but would like to share my thoughts on the practice of paying volunteer expenses.

In the UK payment of volunteer travel expenses to and from a voluntary place of work was viewed as one of the cornerstones of good practice. Certainly within the Volunteer Centre I worked at, out of over 200 volunteering opportunities fewer than ten would not cover this out of pocket expense. When an organisation first submitted their application to receive volunteer referrals from us, and indicated on the application form that they did not pay travel expenses, we would approach them to try and instil the importance of this. If their response was that their budgets did not stretch that far (usually small volunteer led organisations) then we would put them in touch with our funding advisor to look at putting together a funding bid to cover the cost. We would then advise them that whenever they put in future funding bids that they include this cost. If funding was not an option we would look at ways they might assist volunteers with travel e.g. car sharing with other volunteers or a couple of services had a bus to pick up clients to take them to social activities and they also picked up the volunteers. In some cases (particularly two large charities with huge turnovers) we held protracted meetings with senior management to explore their reasons for not paying these expenses, especially as both organisations were fairly inaccessible by public transport. Where all else failed we made all non-paying organisations aware that we would tell prospective volunteers that they would not get their travel expenses reimbursed and that this was practice we didn’t agree with. It was then the volunteer’s personal decision whether to follow that application through.

Given this background imagine my complete surprise to arrive in Australia and find this was not the model here. In fact it is quite the opposite; there is a minority of organisations that do cover volunteers travel expenses to and from their place of work. Thankfully the volunteer project I am managing is one of the few, so day to day my morals and everything I believe in are not compromised.

In my 18 months here I have had the conversation regarding travel expenses with so many professionals and felt I needed to record my thoughts in a blog post.

To me the payment of travel expenses to and from a volunteering role is  fundamental to an inclusive volunteering program. When looking at the diversity of our volunteer base we talk about engaging people from all walks of life and where possible, not holding any bias with regard to age, gender, mental health, physical ability, race, sexual orientation etc.. However my concern is that by not reimbursing the cost of travel to and from a place of voluntary work we are in fact financially discriminating against a huge group of individuals who are on low incomes. Running a car is not without expense and don’t get me started on public transport costs!

For those who are living on state benefits or a pension, the reluctance by many organisations to cover this cost is a huge barrier to them becoming involved. It could quite simply be the choice between food for the week for the family or volunteering and it’s obvious what the majority would choose.

There is also the rurality argument. I hear so much about engaging people from rural communities and country towns. Many argue that small towns have greater community cohesiveness and there are lots of opportunities to volunteer on your own doorstep. But what if people want a different volunteering experience at, for example, a zoo or a large hospital? Those opportunities are not available where they live, but travel outside of their town may be a financial impossibility without a contribution to travel expenses.

There is also the issue of car parking. Some larger organisations like zoos and hospitals or organisations located in busy cities may not have dedicated spaces for volunteer parking and this can be another hefty cost burden to the volunteer.

Introducing the payment of expenses seems to be a terrifying prospect when they have not been paid before. There is the fear that flood gates will open and volunteer projects will not have the disposable income to cover the costs. Yes budgets need to be considered before this is done and it may, for a while, be a long term goal but an important one to work towards.

What many fail to realise is that not all volunteers want to claim travel expenses.

My advice to volunteer involving organisations in the UK used to be to encourage all volunteers to claim their travel expenses. However on the claim form they could choose to donate their expenses back to the organisation if they did not want them. The really clever organisations then gift aided this donation!

By getting all volunteers to submit a claim you can clearly demonstrate the cost of running a volunteer program whether that be to higher management, funders, government or other stakeholders. Within the project I manage here only 30% of volunteers claim their expenses. The important thing is they have the choice and the control. Every quarter, regardless, they all get sent an expenses claim sheet. People’s circumstances change quickly; people become bereaved, they or their partners lose jobs, they have families - there is a myriad of reasons why someone who once did not want to claim expenses may now need to.

One of the answers I get that really grinds my gears when I ask about payment of expenses, is the following; ‘if people are suffering hardship they can ask us and we will make special arrangements to cover their travel expenses.’

Really??? From the point of view of someone who has experienced financial difficulties, my sense of dignity would not have allowed me to make such an approach. I would have quite simply walked away from my voluntary role. Where circumstances have changed e.g. a marriage breakdown, that could be an incredibly personal and emotional situation for someone to discuss. A person’s financial status to my mind is a private matter. We don’t ask volunteers to declare their financial situation on an application form so why should we expect them to then disclose it further down the line?

In the same vein, how many projects make it clear that there will be an out of pocket cost to volunteer with their organisation? Often this is not just travel but volunteers find they have to pay for a police check, buy specific clothing or use their own telephone. Too often this is not made clear from the out set. By covering certain volunteers expenses we as volunteer managers are making a lot of assumptions about all our volunteers and we risk singling out certain volunteers for special treatment which may create team conflict if others find out about it. I know the intention is well meaning but for me personally it is really bad practice.

In the UK, one large organisation we dealt with had a volunteer manager who could not see the inequality of his practice. The opportunity they offered was completely unique but their location was semi-rural and certainly within walking distance of only two small villages. The cost of a bus fare from the nearest town was costly and the organisation was a large tourist attraction. Despite many protracted conversations with this organisation the manager always stated that none of their hundreds of volunteers had ever asked about expenses. Enquiring as to the diversity of their volunteer workforce it seemed a typical volunteer would be white, financially independent, middle aged with their own transport. It was such a shame that effectively volunteering with this organisation did have hidden barriers that no one was prepared to change.

Possibly one of the biggest volunteer projects the UK has ever seen that did not pay expenses was the 2012 London Olympics. It’s fair to say I was disappointed by the whole way volunteering opportunities were managed. Yes, people could volunteer but they had to fund their own transport and accommodation in London for the length of time the Games were on. Maybe not so bad if you lived in the capital. They rolled a program out in the lead up to the Games aimed at disengaged young people who needed literacy and numeracy tuition. The ‘reward’ upon completion of the course was a guaranteed volunteer role at the Games. Thousands and thousands of pounds was thrown into this program and many young people were able to gain a much sought after volunteer role. Was any money set aside to actually assist them in funding the cost of living in London for two weeks not to mention the plane/train/automobile cost to get there? You’ve guessed it – no!

I also took a heartbreaking call from a mature student who had worked so hard to realise her dream of getting valuable experience in stage production. She had put herself through university and had secured a volunteer role to help with set design and production of the opening ceremony at the Games. She was then devastated to discover she had to fully fund her accommodation and transport to take up the coveted place. She quite simply could not afford to. I believe the London 2012 committee missed a real opportunity to lead the way in recognising all volunteers and raising the profile of volunteering by setting a fantastic example of a full cost recovery volunteering program.
The landscape of volunteering is changing and increasingly government programs see the value of voluntary work experience in progressing people towards the (paid) labour market. In Australia a new program ‘Work for the Dole’ is about to roll out. An optional activity people can engage in, is voluntary work. I hope advisors ensure the budgets they have for individuals, go towards their travel expenses to and from their voluntary placement.

Volunteers are not free labour and should never be viewed as such, it costs real money to recruit, train, support and manage them. Full cost recovery is a term bandied about in the UK. Full cost recovery is recovering the total costs of your project or activity, including the relevant proportion of all overhead costs. Understanding the full costs of projects, or services, may not result in full cost recovery every time. However, calculating the full costs enables you to understand the exact level of funding you require. It also provides a clear picture of how a particular project draws on the shared resources of your organisation. When putting together a volunteer program the full costs are rarely fully funded / recovered but to my mind, top of the priority list should be volunteer travel expenses.
I hate using the financial argument to justify the importance of volunteers but I will indulge in this for a moment. If their work was paid for by the hour using whatever salary amount you wish (minimum wage, average wage) it is never ever going to be anywhere near the cost of a bus fare or vehicle mileage.

Most definitions of volunteering state it is a contribution of time and volunteers should not be expected to inadvertently volunteer their own money as well, without choice to do so.
By saying ‘but they are volunteers’ does not justify the argument to not cover their out of pocket expenses. In doing so we run the risk of making voluntary work a pursuit of the financially elite, an activity you can engage in if you can afford it and we restrict ourselves from the wealth of untapped potential and skills and the opportunity to grow our volunteer workforce.

Mandated volunteering - a two country perspective

I have recently returned from a five week business trip to Australia, running training on leading and managing volunteers for clients across the country.

During my time in Adelaide I met Mel White, a Brit who had moved to Australia and was continuing a career there that had finished in the UK with her managing a Volunteer Centre. Mel and I shared a number of observations about the differences and similarities between the UK and Australia and I asked Mel to write a guest blog looking at how volunteering varies yet stays the same.

What Mel has come up with is a fascinating and challenging insight into the growth in both countries of mandated volunteering, especially in regard to unemployment and welfare benefits. So, read on, reflect and please sure your thoughts and ideas in response by posting a comment.

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In April 2013 my family and I embarked on the biggest adventure of our lives when we waved goodbye to the cold north east region of the UK to immigrate to a much sunnier Adelaide in South Australia. I was leaving behind a role I had been in since January 2000 as a Volunteer Centre Manager based in a larger infrastructure organisation. Twelve months before leaving I had utilised the wondrous internet to make contacts with the sector in Australia. I was going to type ‘voluntary sector’, but there starts the first of many learning curves for me, with it being more commonly known as the ‘not-for-profit’ sector in this particular part of the Southern hemisphere.

Within two weeks of arriving and having sorted out children’s schooling, medical cover and all the seemingly more urgent items I decided I would follow the advice I had given to many people in my years of delivering talks on the benefits of volunteering. In this case its usefulness in helping individuals to settle into a community and build up work experience on my CV (next language difference; known as a resume, down under). My husband dropped me off at the local Volunteer Centre for an appointment I had made and a rather bizarre encounter ensued. They had received my CV 6 months previously when I was flogging it round to anybody and everybody, they had been emailing me for 2 months about a job they had advertised, I hadn’t got the emails but to cut a long story short I went in for a volunteering brokerage service and within a fortnight I was employed with them in a paid position. Delighted doesn’t come close and I was so glad I was where I felt I belonged – back in a Volunteer Centre.

In my 16 months of employment at Southern Volunteering I have learnt so much about the sector and volunteering in Australia. There are lots of observations and interesting similarities and differences I could share but for now at least, I want to talk about one in particular. Imagine my horror coming from the UK to discover that people volunteer in order to maintain benefits from Centrelink (the Australian equivalent of JobCentre Plus). Not only that but the system is audited and volunteers have to commit to work/volunteer up to 15 hours per week. Now I know similar schemes have been trialled in the UK but this is different, it is not hidden or disguised in any way, it is discussed openly and frankly and volunteers happily come in to say they want an opportunity that fits the requirements of their 15 hour ‘obligation’. Furthermore until recently the scheme was mainly offered to the over 55 age group as the government somewhat acknowledges they will struggle to find paid employment. Not sure if that is a good thing or not and I’m pretty sure politicians wouldn’t be so open about it in the UK! However the approach fits with what I love most about Australia and the people who live here; without stereotyping too much, I generally find you know where you stand with Australians, they are direct and polite but without the awkwardness and concern for self image that I sometimes find is a British curse!

At our Centre a large percentage of the volunteers we see are coming in to find something to meet their volunteering hours ‘contract’. Receiving organisations have to be approved by Centrelink and there is follow up from Centrelink to check people are attending and volunteering for their allotted hours each week.

I was initially shocked and so many thoughts went tumbling through my mind; is this really volunteering? Do the participants have choice in whether they want to partake? How do organisations react and involve this unique group of individuals? etc etc.

I remember in my network of Volunteer Centres in the UK one of my colleagues brought in a letter a volunteer had produced when they attended for an appointment. Basically the letter said the individual had to attend the Volunteer Centre for an appointment or their Job Seekers Allowance would be temporarily withheld. There was utter outrage within our network. The JobCentre had not informed or consulted the Volunteer Centre about this, the volunteer was very distressed and quite simply we felt ‘mandating’ volunteering in this way went against the ethos and definition of volunteering. Also as independent voluntary organisations we did not want to be viewed as an arm of the JobCentre. The Volunteer Centre involved quite simply informed the individual that if they did not want to volunteer and were being pressured into it they did not have to see the appointment through. As a network we spoke to higher management within JobCentre Plus about how inappropriate this was.

Some three years later I find myself in Australia with strong feelings opposing voluntary work being aligned with benefit payments and I am faced with a system that embraces it! I had long discussions with my Australian colleagues who assured me they and the sector had felt the same way when the system was introduced some years ago but their feelings had changed. Over time I have observed the practice in place and now I sit firmly on the fence when it comes to my views on this market of volunteers.

Here’s why;


1. The volunteers

Fifteen hours of volunteering (8 hours for those on some disability benefits) is one in a range of options the individual can engage with to satisfy the requirements of their Centrelink agreement. So, despite having no choice to do nothing, they do have a choice in what they would like to follow through; training, job seeking (but this has to be done through an approved job service provider) or volunteering. For many people, being given the option to volunteer long term takes the pressure off finding employment in a tough economic environment and gives structure and purpose to their week. Indeed once they commence I am sure it offers all the perks we regularly use to ‘sell’ volunteering; builds their self confidence, offers a routine and gives them a whole new skill set that they may not acquire otherwise, amongst many more. Some of course go onto to find paid employment within the not-for-profit organisation or a related field.

On occasion individuals have come into our Centre looking for a number of hours and when the interviewer meets them it may become apparent that they have too many restricting health issues for an organisation to safely engage them as a volunteer. Recently our worker was able to report back to the Job Service Provider that a gentleman could not meaningfully volunteer with the number of health issues he had and this was endorsed by his doctor’s letters. It seemed the Job Service Agency actually listened to us (where they had not listened to the individual previously) and the gentleman was incredibly grateful for our intervention.


2. The volunteer involving organisations. 

Organisations complete a Centrelink form if they want to be registered as an “Approved Organisation”.

Having spoken to a number of organisations I found that many were hesitant of involving this group of volunteers when the program was first rolled out.

However those that have gone on to engage with the system have found the 15 hour volunteers tend to be very reliable and commit long term. This is probably because the volunteers know there will be follow-up and consequences will ensue. They also know that they can still continue to look for work but at their own pace rather than being pressured by a case worker.

Organisations also report that the older volunteer has better work ethics and is more conscious of fulfilling their Centrelink or JSA obligations than the younger jobseeker. Generally individuals complete a Centrelink form which the organisation signs to confirm they have agreed to take the individual on as a volunteer and what the commencement date is.

If the individuals are with a Job Services Australia provider, that provider should check occasionally with the organisation on how things are going or they give the individual an attendance form which the organisation is expected to sign each week for the individual for them to take back to the JSA. There is no obligation for the organisation to report back to Centrelink or the JSA if an individual is no longer attending.  Southern Volunteering encourages the organisation to treat the individuals exactly the same as they would for any of their volunteers.

Some programs have 75% of their volunteer base made up of ‘Centrelink’ volunteers so I would imagine if those individuals were not available their programs would struggle to continue and ultimately the beneficiaries of the service would lose.

The final benefit I see is that the profile of the volunteer involving organisations and their opportunities is raised and a new community of potential volunteers is reached. Despite many individuals reluctance to engage they go on to report that they enjoy their time with the organisation.

More significantly like many other ‘incentivised’ volunteer schemes, the individual actually continues to volunteer after their obligation is finished. They continue to do it because they love it. As anyone who works with volunteers knows, the key to getting people involved long term is getting them to join up in the first place. If the gateway to doing this is a little unconventional but the outcome is the same should we put our morals to one side? Over to you.....

Mel White
Community Visitor Scheme Coordinator
Southern Volunteering (SA) Inc.


Notes
From July 2014 the idea has been extended into the ‘Work for the Dole’ pilot program, being rolled out in areas of all states of Australia. All jobseekers aged 18-30 in selected areas will have to ‘work for the dole’ for 6 months and placements will be sourced in not-for-profit organisations, local councils and federal and state government agencies.  Work for the Dole places will not be offered in private sector businesses. It will be interesting to watch how the program works with a different age demographic.

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Southern Volunteering SA (Inc) provides information on volunteering opportunities and roles available in the southern suburbs of Adelaide including the Fleurieu Peninsula. We also offer training, information and support for not-for-profit organisations. Our Community Visitors Program provides volunteer visitors to resident in Aged Care Facilities, who are socially isolated. For more information please visit our website www.svsa.org.au

Volunteering and the floods: questions and lessons

As is typical when disaster strikes, volunteers are right there in the front line of relief efforts. The current flooding in the UK is no different. Whilst official agencies are criticised for being slow to act, volunteers are getting on with the job of practical help and support to those affected. 

Note: Nobody is complaining about job substitution now!

This volunteer led support is being woefully under-reported by the bad-news-fixated media. The best example of reporting I could find was from Tuesday when Sky News reported on their website how flood victims were being helped by the ’best of British’. 

Interestingly, from my searching online this morning I could find little information from the existing volunteering infrastructure - NCVO, volunteer centres etc. - on how people can get involved in flood relief efforts. 

What reference I did find was largely related to pre-existing, formal volunteer roles that require training and official deployment. For example, Do-It make mention of flood volunteering on their site, directing people to the British Red Cross and Community Resilience. Both links send people to information on opportunities that look like ones which don’t really seem geared to people who spontaneously want to help. The Red Cross itself has a news story online about how its volunteers are supporting flood affected communities. This links to information on becoming one of their emergency response volunteers - also a role that requires training.

What about spontaneous volunteering, people just wanting to help because they see a need and want to get involved without going through weeks of training and induction?

Interestingly this is where there was more information, but none of it linked to the existing volunteering infrastructure. Instead the main focus was on a new initiative called Flood Volunteers. 

Flood Volunteers has been set up by the private sector entrepreneurs behind TaskHub, a site for finding professional services such as plumbing etc.. According to the Metro newspaper and ComputerWeekly.com, the Prime Minister asked the founders of TaskHub to set up Flood Volunteers to aid the support efforts. People simply say how they are willing to help and affected people can link up with them for help.

For me all this raises some important questions:

• Why is the government not turning to the existing volunteering infrastructure for help in deploying spontaneous volunteers? 
• If it did, does the volunteering infrastructure have the resources to be of help at times like this?
• What should be the role of national volunteering infrastructure bodies like NCVO and NAVCA (to name just two) in co-ordinating with government and the relevant agencies to ensure the great British public’s spontaneous help is directed most effectively?
• What plans do the existing volunteering infrastructure have in place so that they are prepared to be of real help in times like this by channeling spontaneous volunteer support to the right places?
• Who is ensuring that the spontaneous volunteering that is happening is being done safely and actually helping, not hindering, relief efforts? We might not realise it but people wanting to help can actually cause more problems than they alleviate, a situation explored in detail by Jayne Cravens on her webpage, Volunteering To Help After Major Disasters.
• Who is monitoring whether people actually follow through on the pledges of support? Take a look at this story (again reported by Jayne Cravens) following the floods in Queensland, Australia three years ago where this was an issue.
• What is being / will be done to see if these spontaneous volunteers who are making a real difference in flood affected communities might want to put their time into volunteering when the flood waters subside?

Quite rightly the focus now is on on helping those affected by the floods. As the efforts move in the coming weeks into cleaning up and moving on, the media will inevitably focus on the lessons learnt from the floods. There will be calls for better flood defences, more funding for flood hit communities, an examination of the political point scoring that seems to be more important to some politicians than helping the people in need.

But will we in the volunteering movement learn any lessons?

Will we be more prepared next time? 

A new beginning for Do-It

Last week saw the announcement of the new home for Do-It, the English national volunteering database.

For over a decade Do-It has been the go to online resource for people to find out about volunteering opportunities in England. Every 45 seconds someone finds a volunteering opportunity through Do-It and 30% of them have never volunteered before. All this has been possible through the hard work of a dedicated team at YouthNet, the owners of Do-It, and their partners (mainly local Volunteer Centres).

However, in March 2013 YouthNet announced plans to find a new owner for Do-It and last week this was announced as a partnership led by the team behind ivo.org, the network for social change connecting people, companies and organisations that want to change their world.

You can read the full press release about last week's announcement on the ivo website.

I think this is an excellent piece of news for the sector.

For starters, ivo.org's CEO, Jamie Ward-Smith, has a strong track record in this arena. Not only was Jamie instrumental in the establishment of Do-It back in 2001 but he has a strong track record in working with the local volunteering infrastructure, initially as CEO at Volunteer Centre Kensington ad Chelsea but also as a senior civil servant in the Blair Labour government when the Russell Commission was conducting it's work.

These strong links should not be underestimated in their importance. Put simply, without the information supplied by local Volunteer Centre's Do-It would not have the volume or quality of  volunteering opportunities that it does. Key to Do-It's continued survival and essential to it's future development is the relationship it has with Volunteer Centres and Jamie is well placed to drive this forward.

The there is the track record Jamie and the ivo.org team have in driving social innovation in our sector. In just a few short years ivo.org has become a key resources for volunteers and leaders & managers of volunteer programmes. That has built on the work of the Red Foundation, an initiative Jamie ran prior to ivo.org and that I had the pleasure of working with on the Modernising Volunteering National Support Service whilst I was at Volunteering England.

Just as the link between Volunteer Centres and Do-It is important for the future, so it the creativity of the new partnership to innovate, especially around the development and integration of social media and microvolunteering. This is something I think ivo.org and their partners are uniquely placed to deliver.

So this is good news for all of us, whether volunteer or manager of volunteers. Good news doesn't come along very often these days. Let's take the opportunity to celebrate with the new team behind Do-It as we wish them all success for the future.

The missed opportunity of London 2012?

Over on my Third Sector online blog this month I’ve written an article about the lost opportunities of the post London 2012 volunteering legacy. This draws on recent research from Join In which showed that:

• 29% of people would like to volunteer but haven’t done so
• 51% have been unable to find out about local volunteering opportunities
• 2% had done more volunteering as a result of the Games
• 71% agreed that more volunteering by the general public in their local area was important to ensure the Games Makers’ legacy lives on

Beyond the issues I talk about in my Third Sector online blog there is also the interesting matter regarding the public’s apparent (in)ability to find out about volunteering.

First up, almost a third of people surveyed would like to volunteer but haven’t. Sorry but my skepticism kicks in here. When faced with a researcher asking questions like this surely some people don’t want to come across as uncaring so they say, “Sure, we’d love to volunteer, we just haven’t done it yet”. It’s like the classic question, “Why don’t you volunteer?” to which people say, “Well I don’t have time”. That’s not a reason not to volunteer, its an excuse, a simple way to deflect a question that makes them uncomfortable.

Let’s face it, if 71% of people think its important that people volunteer in their local community why aren’t they doing it? Either because they don’t know how to, or they think its someone else’s responsibility, or perhaps the idea of personally volunteering is so unattractive that they would never see it as something for them. 

Second, half of the population have been unable to find out about local volunteering opportunities. This isn’t surprising given the cuts experienced by local volunteering infrastructure in the last few years. Despite significant evidence of their importance, Volunteer Centres have seen substantial cuts in income and many have had to close their doors, like in Milton Keynes, where the VC announced its closure last week after 37 years.

Instead, government has invested financially and politically in new initiatives such as Join In. I did a quick search on their website for volunteering opportunities near where I live and discovered just eight opportunities, all taking place between the end of July and the middle of September and all oriented around netball. 

If that’s the public’s experience of trying to find opportunities, the only surprise is that its only 51% who struggle to find something locally.

By comparison, Do-It (who source the majority of their opportunities from VCs but seem to feature less and less in publicity around volunteering as initiatives like Join In steal the spotlight) has 152 diverse opportunities within five miles of where I live.

All of that is just considering local infrastructure’s role in online brokerage. We know VCs have a high success rate at working with those who might struggle most to engage in mainstream volunteering - people with disabilities, BME communities etc. - and all VCs are accredited on their wok in supporting organisations to develop volunteer opportunities, raise standards of good practice, campaign on behalf of volunteering locally and market & promote volunteering to the public.

Perhaps the best way to have capitalised on the volunteering legacy of London 2012 would have been to invest in and support the existing infrastructure rather than vanity projects of the kind that government were so quick to criticise when in opposition. If only someone had been telling LOCOG and government that - oh wait, that’s exactly what Volunteering England (and others) did since before the bid to host the 2012 games was won by the UK in Singapore.

One final word. The Join In research, like most studies done on volunteering, only talked to adults. So once again the millions of people under the age of eighteen get missed out of the picture despite the fact that we know many such young people volunteer.

What are your thoughts on the post-London 2012 legacy?

What lessons do you think we can all learn?

What would you have done differently and why?

Are legal rights the best way to improve the treatment of volunteers?

A month ago friend and colleague John Ramsey shared his thoughts on the pre-Christmas 2012 decision by the Supreme Court that volunteers were not entitled to the same legal rights under employment law as paid staff. You can read John’s excellent article on the IVO social network.

Volunteer rights is an emotive issue and one I last visited on this blog a year ago after writing a piece on the issue for Third Sector online in June 2011. Sadly it is an issue that won’t go away. I say sadly not because I wish this would all get brushed under the carpet but because clearly things are not getting better across the volunteering movement. 

Disappointingly the work around the 3R Promise that resulted from the hard work of the Volunteer Rights Inquiry seems to have been lost in the last couple of years. Sure plenty of organisations have signed up to the promise but the momentum of the Inquiry has been lost - not least because of the cuts at Volunteering England and their resulting merger with NCVO - and the issue seems to now be left to just a few vocal campaigners to keep on the sector’s radar.

The 3R Promise was an opportunity for volunteer involving organisations (VIOs) to get their houses in order. Note that I say VIOs not volunteer managers (VMs). The Inquiry was clear that it often was not VMs who were to blame for poor treatment of volunteers but paid staff (often in management positions) and sometimes trustees (volunteers themselves) who were at fault. This wasn’t an issue to simply be fixed by better volunteer management or increased take up of Investing In Volunteers (which at the end of the day just says an organisation has good processes, not that it treats volunteers well).

There were plenty of voices around the VRI table calling for an independent complaints body or ombudsman to take responsibility for the issue. That could have been a statutory body or a self-regulatory one like the FRSB in the fundraising world. In the end the Inquiry opted not to go down such a route, preferring an approach that gave VIOs (at least those whose practice wasn’t up to scratch) a chance to improve. Not only did this seem like the wise way to proceed but it was also clear that in an environment of voluntary and public sector belt tightening the Inquiry would have faced a high uphill struggle to secure the funding necessary to establish any new body for volunteer rights.

Perhaps the time to re-evaluate that decision is now upon us? But does that mean we go straight to legislation, establishing protection explicitly for volunteers within primary legislation? In John’s article he seems to suggest that this would be a sensible way forward. I’m not so sure.

First of all, legislation doesn't solve the problem. Legislation means that when problems occur there is a route to resolution that is available to volunteers. We’ve had anti-discrimination for employees in the UK for many years but that hasn’t stopped employers discriminating. Why then do we believe that legislation will solve this issue?

Second, legislation would require parliamentary time to introduce. There seems to be little interest within Westminster or any of the other UK parliaments to address this issue. In fact, the current direction is towards the Westminster government repealing aspects of employment legislation as it applies to paid staff and seeking to weaken the position of EU discrimination legislation (which often provides better protection for employees than UK law). Against such a prevailing wind, why would MPs decide to introduce changes to the law that would add protections to tens of millions of people?

Thirdly, I continue to maintain that legislation would be counter-productive. We’ve already seen many organisations cut resources for volunteer engagement as money has become more scare post global financial crisis. We also know that many organisations - at least in the middle to large organisation end of the sector - don’t see volunteers as a resource worth investing in, preferring instead to try and raise more and more money from an increasingly cash strapped and donor fatigued British public. If we suddenly make engaging volunteers much more bureaucratic than it is at the moment I fear we’ll see more organisations choosing not to engage volunteers at all as the costs and risks increase at a time of scare resources. And all that’s before I consider the impact on volunteer managers who would become even more process obsessed than they already are when what we need is for them to become for focused on individuals, on people, on volunteers.

So what then is the way forward?

Well there is no simple answer. The resource isn’t there for a new statutory body to stand up for volunteers when they are treated badly. The resource is also lacking for a self-regulatory body and considerable support would be needed from across the sector if this were to happen. Fundraising self-regulation only came about because statutory regulation was threatened and even now it is only those organisations that choose to submit to self-regulation that are subject to it.

The Charity Commission might seem a natural place to turn except they have seen considerable cuts to their budget in the last few years and anyway a significant number of volunteers don’t ‘work’ in organisations that come under the Commission’s regulatory remit.

How about Volunteering England? Now a part of NCVO there is an opportunity for the issue of volunteer rights to be brought to the table of a wider audience than just volunteer managers and volunteer centres. Yet NCVO stands up for bodies (again, only in the voluntary sector / civil society) so would it really have an appetite to side with volunteers, effectively ending up policing and potentially ‘punishing’ its own members for poor practice?

In reality the closest we have to any form of regulation explicitly around volunteering is the Institute of Fundraising who have a code of practice on  volunteer fundraising that is binding upon its individual and organisational members. Any complain against this code brings us back to the FRSB who would investigate any alleged breaches.

We also don’t need another Volunteer Rights Inquiry. The original Inquiry’s work still stands as valid, the issue is what we do about it given that the 3R Promise hasn’t worked. 

What we need is someone to step up and start a debate about how we can proceed. Someone who can ensure the discussions don’t become a talking shop but a forum for change and action, a platform from which we can try to eradicate poor treatment of volunteers rather than simply provide a legislative sticking plaster when things go wrong.

Ideally this ‘somebody’ would be a partnership between the key sector umbrella bodies. In England these seem to be more concerned with paid staff and fundraising than volunteers so perhaps we have to look elsewhere in the UK, to bodies like Volunteer Development Scotland or Volunteer Now (in Northern Ireland) or to organisations like The Association of Volunteer Managers (should they ever arise from what appears to be hibernation).

Whatever gets done and whoever does it something must happen. Allowing poor treatment of volunteers, however isolated, is something we must never be comfortable with. 

What do you think is the way forward?

Please share your thoughts on what should happen next and who should take the lead on this issue.

The Giving White Paper: One Year On - an analysis

The government recently published its “Giving White Paper: One Year On” report, outlining progress since the white paper was released and plans for the next couple of years. 

As I wrote an analysis of the original paper I felt a similar look at this progress report was a good idea.  What follows are my initial thoughts and I’d love for you to add your own via comments at the end.

Giving isn’t just about money

One of the most striking aspects of the new paper is the relative paucity of reference to volunteering compared to a year ago.  It seems government, like many in the sector, seem to be (increasingly?) blind to the fact that people give time as well as money.  In fact many give both – and volunteers give more money than non-volunteers – but this is ignored with an almost sole focus on giving money apparently at the heart of government thinking.

Thanks in part to the Give It Back George (GIBG) campaign, the much vaunted – and often delayed - Giving Summit appears to have focused exclusively on giving money, and within that been dominated by the GIBG which, according to the treasury, only concerned approximately 340 donors.

In the new One Year On paper volunteering gets little attention.  There is mention of it in respect to criminal record checks and proposals for these to be portable (although it is still unclear if these would remain free to volunteers).  There is also, and quite interestingly, mention of volunteering in regard to Waitrose who are apparently extending their ‘green token’ scheme so customers can vote for which organisations they want Waitrose staff to volunteer for.  Quite what Waitrose staff seem to think about being voluntold by shoppers is conveniently glossed over. And of course we have National Citizen’s Service which, it should be noted, is only partly about volunteering and largely about conditioning young people into how government thinks they should be.

There is, at first sight, some glimmer of hope as government refer to a priority for the coming year to be supporting providers of opportunities to make giving easier, but further reading reveals this to only be focused on providers of opportunities to give money.

Government’s complicity with many in the sector to make giving synonymous only with giving money is a worrying development, not least because it supports the sidelining and subordination of the giving of time at a time when we perhaps need volunteers more than ever and where donors (of money) are in ever shorter supply.

Baby Boomers

Last year I welcomed the White Paper’s inclusion of baby boomers in addition to the ever present focus in the UK on young people volunteering.  As I noted at the time, demographic shifts in the population are resulting in many more older people than younger people, now and in future.  Couple that with the interests, motivations and expectations of the boomers being very different from their parents (who have been the mainstay of many organisations core volunteers for years) and we have a growing market of potential volunteers who need much more consideration. 

Whilst everyone’s favourite (former) Big Society Czar Lord Wei has recently proposed a National Citizens Service for retirees, the One Year On paper fails to mention boomers at all.  Instead we get a sole focus on youth engagement, including volunteering – socially engineering a generation of givers through expensive national programmes that, in Opposition, the Tories promised would not happen on their watch.  I’ve already highlighted my anxiety with constantly talking about volunteering to a generation facing unprecedented levels of youth unemployment and the government doesn’t say anything here to alleviate those concerns.

Quality and ease of giving

Last year I acknowledged the original Giving White Paper for giving attention to the importance of the giving experience.  If people give – time or money – and have a great time doing so, they are surely more likely to do so again.  Conversely, if they don’t have a great experience not only may they not give to that cause or organisation again, they may in fact be turned off giving altogether.

A year on and this focus on the giving experience is gone, replaced by the increasingly dominant view that the priority is to make it easier to give, with apparently little focus on the quality of the experience.

From my perspective, this approach over the last year has resulted in an almost bewildering array of new (mainly) websites through which people can find opportunities to donate time or money.  Does this ever expanding number of websites make it easier or more confusing?  Does it result in more giving, or do we simply see people pledging to give (as with the recent Jubilee Hour) but not always following through on that pledge?

In her July 2012 Hot Topic, Susan Ellis look at whether such a focus on pledge programmes and calls to action really make a difference to volunteering or whether they are, in fact, just the Emperor’s New Clothes?

It is all well and good for government to highlight the work of Future First who are helping schools develop alumni programmes which, One Year On suggests, will create a pool of 75,000 volunteers.  The key questions, however, are; what will 75,000 volunteers do in our schools?; how are schools being supported to develops opportunities for these volunteers?; what resources will schools have to manage these volunteers?; etc. etc.

What we need is not more schemes to dress up volunteering as something sexy and new. 

What we need is not new campaigns to try and encourage more people to give. 

What we need is organisations to be encouraged not to cut their volunteer management posts at the first sight of tightening budgets.

What we need is investment (by organisations primarily but government showing willing and leadership wouldn’t hurt) to increasing the capacity to involve volunteers in ways the meet the goals of volunteer involving organisations and fit with the interests and availabilities of people in our 21^st century society.

We should be transforming the country’s attitude to giving time by giving people great opportunities which they enjoy engaging with and want to do again and again, not by developing more and more websites or running campaigns to show willing but little action.

Sadly however, there is nothing in One Year On about volunteer leadership and management.  Nothing.  The support of the last government for volunteer management now seems a distant memory.  We appear to have it all to do again.

Impact measurement

In keeping with the zeitgeist, the One Year On paper makes reference to the importance of impact measurement in stimulating giving.  To an extent, this is a good thing.  Organisations that can demonstrate the difference the contribution of time and/or money can make to their mission are in a strong position to secure support, especially if they can demonstrate how people can make such an impact through giving in ways the fit with their complex and busy lives.

However, there seems to be little acknowledgement of the need for any kind of assessment of the impact of the work the government has supported over the last year.  We’re not saying there hasn’t been any, but with £millions spent and £40million more promised to "mobilise large numbers of people to get involved with good causes", it would be good to see some evidence that what government has supported and wants to support in future has/will actually make a difference to all forms of giving in the UK.

Which leads on to…

…Civil service volunteering

The One Year On paper makes passing reference to the government’s pledge last year to get thousands more civil servants volunteering.  But that’s all we get – a mention of the proposal.  No report on progress.  Has anything happened?  What impact has it had so far?  Or is it a case of the sector must do impact reporting but government doesn’t have to?

Infrastructure

It hasn’t been a great year for volunteering infrastructure since the launch of the original Giving White Paper.  We’ve seen some Volunteer Centres close or scale back their services and most recently there has been the announcement of the “loss” of Volunteering England as they merge into NCVO.  This could be a good thing for volunteering as I suggest in my blog on the proposed merger, but even if it is we will still see the loss of a distinct national infrastructure body for volunteering (in England at least) as opposed to the voluntary sector, the first time we will have no such body in over forty years.

The One Year On paper is relatively silent about infrastructure, at least in terms of its importance in enabling volunteering to happen.  As I’ve highlighted already there seems to be a focus on technology and website as a short-cut solution to good brokerage.  Whilst investment in long standing sites like Do-It is welcome, not everyone is online, not everyone wants to find out about volunteering online and sometimes we know face-to-face support for those who want to volunteer is far more important and necessary.

Local volunteering infrastructure gets two main mentions in the One Year On paper.  First is in regard to the government’s Transforming Local Infrastructure Fund.  Yes, this fund should have some positive impacts on volunteering locally but it is primarily focused on infrastructure support for the voluntary and community sector and that is not the same as support for the volunteering sector.

Second, is the reference to an opportunity for "pioneering Volunteer Centres to test ideas for modernising their offer" via funding from the NESTA innovation in giving fund.  On the face of it this is much more positive but the key question is what does this mean?  What is a pioneering Volunteer Centre?  What does modernising their offer mean - more brokerage done online?  So a cautious welcome until we see the detail.

Finally, towards the start, the One Year On Paper states that:

“We have also got to recognise that this a time when many people feel they have less time and money and may be reluctant to do more”. 

Interesting considering recent research seems to indicates that the act of volunteering makes people feel like they have more time.  As the researchers put it:

“Ultimately, giving time makes people more willing to commit to future engagements despite their busy schedules.”

Perhaps the thinking that inspired at least some of the Giving White Paper is already out of date?  Or is this an area where evidence based policy making isn’t really done?

So, what do you think of the One Year On paper and the issues it raises?

Do you agree or disagree with anything I’ve said?  Why?

What are your observations on the government’s attempts to get people to give more, whether time, or money or both?

Let’s hear what you have to say.

NCVO and VE in formal talks about merger

So, the news I have been expecting for so long has finally been announced: Volunteering England and NCVO are in formal talks about a merger which could happen as early as 2013.

Ever since the coalition decided to phase out funding for its strategic partners, the writing was pretty much on the wall for those organisations who were heavily reliant on state funding, such as VE.  The cuts in spring 2011 were necessary but it was inevitable that further cuts would come and, from my view as a former director of the organisation, the time would come when merger would become inevitable.

NCVO is the natural choice and not just because VE currently shares their building.  They are perhaps the best capitalised of all the national sector infrastructure bodies and so their sustainability, even through tough times like these, is pretty much secure.  Similarly they cover a range of areas in their work - infrastructure, leadership, funding, training and development etc. - and so the fit with volunteering, which crosses all fields and sectors, is a good one.

What is sad to see in the coverage of the story by the media is, yet again, the complete absence of an reference to VE's formation back in 2004.  Way before anyone else thought it was a wise thing to do, well ahead of merger becoming a topic of open conversation in the sector, before ChangeUp even, VE was born from the merger of the other organisations.  Not because funding was tight or diminishing, but because those organisations felt it was the best thing to do to move volunteering forwards in England.  In fact the Charity Commission still use VE's creation as a case study of good practice on their website.

Of course in 2007 VE undertook another merger, this time with Student Volunteering England, a piece of work I had the privilege of leading.

So merger is not new territory for VE or indeed for NCVO.

What might the implications be?

Well one potential downside is the loss of a unique voice for volunteering.  Volunteering is not confined to the voluntary sector, it happens in the public and private sectors too. That's why the term volunteerism is sometimes used as an alternative to voluntarism - the former denotes any area where volunteering happens, the latter speaks to anything concerned with the voluntary sector.  There is a great article by Susan Ellis that explains the difference better than I can.

VE becoming a part of NCVO does risk, if not carefully managed and monitored, the voice of volunteering being lost within wider sector debates.

Another way of looking at this though is that the potential merger might well put volunteering at the heart of some key voluntary sector debates.

I am on record as being frustrated that the sector's response to the current and future challenges it faces, especially in terms of funding, has been to try strategies from the past to solve problems of the future.  So we see organisations desperately trying to raise more money from a society that has less to give.  We see frantic campaigns to protect income for the few rather than efforts to help organisations adapt to the new reality.

Volunteering needs to be a part of the solution for the sector.  Volunteering is changing as the people who volunteer change and the society in which they live - and so the context in which they give their time - changes.  In my view, organisations ignore this at their peril.  Perhaps VE becoming a part of NCVO will enable volunteering to take a central, indeed its rightful, place at the heart of the sector's thinking about how it survives and thrives in future.  This would be especially useful if  volunteering retains a clear policy voice that becomes properly integrated within NCVO's policy and campaigning work.

Where might the proposed merger leave volunteer management?

To be honest, this has been one of the less developed areas of VE's work.  Since it was created, the section of VE's membership with the loudest voice has been the Volunteer Centres and so volunteer management didn't get much of a look in.  Of course some good work got done, not least the work Capacitybuilders funded in 2010/11 as part of the last governments dedicated volunteer management funding.

In reality though it is AVM and, more recently, the superb work of Voluntary Action Warrington that has been pushing forward the volunteer management agenda in England.

So I'm sure there are opportunities for NCVO to get more involved in the volunteer management arena but it has to be in a way that complements the good work already happening, not seeking to duplicate or replace it.  Knowing NCVO as I do I don't think that would happen, but the point needs making in case others are looking at that territory with hungry eyes.

Where does the proposed merger leave Volunteer Centres, especially as most are now a part of local Councils for Voluntary Service (or similar) and so are run by members of NAVCA?

Well, I did note that one of the VE trustees who has been involved in the discussions with NCVO is Tessa Willow of VC Liverpool.  I have a lot of time and respect for Tessa and in my view she is one of the best possible people to be representing the VC network in these discussions.  So VCs should, as much as possible, be reassured by that.

However, there are inevitable questions about the future of VCs within VE.  Is now the time for NAVCA to make a play for VCs, bringing them formally into the fold, linking them with NAVCA's developing quality standards and advocating for VCs as a distinct voice of the sector?

As with the rest of this news, I guess only time will give us the answers.

Finally, and most importantly, I want to go on public record as saying that my thoughts are first and foremost with colleagues at friends at VE as they face another period of uncertainty and change.  Good luck guys.

So, over to you.

What are your thoughts on the proposed merger?

Good news?

Bad news?

Why?

Let's hear what you think