LATEST NEWS
Celebrating Success
Value Volunteer Management Campaign – Time to Celebrate Success! is an article we’ve put together, summarising key achievements and successes over the last year.
Accompanying the article is a set of Value Volunteer Management Case Studies from volunteer-involving organisations that have benefitted from our work and have committed to increasing investment in volunteer management.
They have also gathered a fantastic set of Volunteer Manager Case Studies, highlighting the wide range of skills and competencies involved in the role, with the aim of increasing recognition of volunteer management as a profession.
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Funds for volunteering announced in green paper on giving
By Stephen Cook, Third Sector Online, 29 December 2010
Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude launched the green paper
Minister for the Cabinet Office Francis Maude launched the paper, which also says £80m will be available for the Community First programme
The government has unveiled two new volunteering initiatives and said that a total of £80m will be allocated to the Community First programme that was first announced by ministers in June.
The moves come in a green paper on giving, published today. It sets out wide-ranging ideas, including the use of online and social media, for making giving and voluntary action in the UK "as easy and attractive as possible".
The discussion document says the government will set up a Volunteering Match Fund worth up to £10m a year that will match private donations to volunteering projects.
It will also set up an England-wide Volunteering Infrastructure programme, worth £42.5m over four years, that will "provide brokerage as well as front-line support to volunteers and the organisations that manage them".
The green paper says the Community First programme will consist of £30m for grants to small organisations and £50m of match funding for local endowments over the next four years.
Community First "will seek to encourage the giving of time, money, goods, services and facilities for wider community benefit by matching these donations with money", the document says.
This programme is being seen as the successor to the previous government's Grassroots Grants, which totalled £130m in the years 2008 to 2011.
On financial incentives for giving, the green paper says: "We know that tax reliefs for charitable giving provide incentives for donors and support to charities more generally. We will review the relationship between financial incentives and giving."
The green paper was launched today by Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office, and will be taken forward by Nick Hurd, the Minister for Civil Society.
Maude said in a statement: "People giving time, money, assets, skills and knowledge all drive social action and help make life better for all. This green paper offers practical, common-sense ways we can boost charitable giving."
Five elements are identified in the green paper that it says will build social action by changing social norms:
- Opportunities: the government wants banks to says how giving can be facilitated at ATM machines. It also wants to hear more ideas about cost-free giving, such as the search engine Everyclick, and online and mobile giving methods.
- Information: charities - particularly smaller ones - are asked to improve their social impact reporting to help defuse public uncertainty about their effectiveness.
- Visibility: the green paper appeals for ideas about better use of social media to encourage giving. It also suggests honouring acts of giving more broadly, including thank-you letters from ministers and a national day to celebrate donors.
- Exchange: the document calls for a discussion about peer-to-peer financing to connect sponsors to those seeking funds, and about the best approaches to time banking.
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The training centres will interview 16,000 applicants for the London Ambassadors Programme
Ten volunteer centres in London will recruit and train 8,000 volunteers as part of a £7m scheme to help tourists find their way around the city during the 2012 Olympic Games.
The centres, not yet appointed, will interview about 16,000 applicants for the London Ambassadors programme, which is being run by the London Development Agency and Greater London Volunteering.
The teams of volunteers will be based in central London and at major train stations and airports. They will give directions, answer questions and provide information about local restaurants and entertainment.
Kerry Tweed, chief executive of Greater London Volunteering, said the scheme had received start-up funding from the LDA but a commercial partner was also being sought. She said the scheme would cost about £7m to run.
She said GLV and the LDA had not yet chosen which 10 centres would be responsible for interviewing, selecting and training.
The centres would provide training on London orientation and cultural awareness for the volunteers, who would work from 20 July to 10 September 2012, Tweed said.
"There will be a tight schedule but we think it is feasible for each centre to interview about 1,600 people," she said. "The 10 centres will be able to draw in staff from other volunteer centres in London."
Each volunteer would receive free transport within the capital and a free meal for every shift they completed, according to Tweed. The application process for the scheme ends on 31 December and the volunteers will be interviewed in April next year.
Third Sector Today November 16th 2010
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Free Publication about Volunteering in East London
Download your copy today
Funded through Changeup and produced in partnership with 8 of the sub regions volunteer centres, the East London CVS Network has produced Changing Lives Shaping Communities’. This electronic publication illustrates the positive impact and benefits of volunteering both for the volunteer and the volunteering involving organisation.
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Volunteering England’s Value Volunteer Management Campaign Stage 2 has now been launched !
The first stage of the Campaign focused on raising awareness of the value and importance of volunteer management. Over 250 organisations have signed the Value Volunteer Management Endorsement so far, and many have cascaded the Campaign to their members and networks, providing a total readership of more than 130,000 individuals.
Stage 2 is a practical call to action, asking organisations to assess and champion how they currently value volunteer management, as well as to consider further ways of valuing the profession.
One of the main outputs of Stage 2 is “Recognise, Support, Invest – Your Guide to Valuing Volunteer Management”. This document explores what “valuing volunteer management” really means and is designed to help organisations assess how they currently value volunteer management, why this is important, and what extra steps they could take.
You can access a free copy of the Guide from the Campaign homepage by clicking the link at the bottom of the page. If your organisation hasn’t signed the Value Volunteer Management Endorsement yet, make sure you do at http://www.volunteering.org.uk/vmendorsement.
The Value Volunteer Management Campaign is funded by the Office for Civil Society as part of Capacitybuilders’ Volunteer Management Programme.
Twitter:- http://twitter.com/VEVolManagement
Contact:- valueVM@volunteeringengland.org
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Institute of Volunteering Research launches free research database
By David Ainsworth, Third Sector Online, 12 August 2010
Evidence Bank, with 200 entries, set up by research arm of Volunteering England
A database of volunteering research has been launched by the Institute for Volunteering Research, the research arm of Volunteering England.
According to the institute, its free Evidence Bank contains about 200 entries, including all public reports produced by the research organisation since 1997. It plans eventually to extend the database to list third party work as well.
Nick Ockenden, the director of the institute, said: "We are pleased to have developed a landmark resource that makes all our research into volunteering accessible. Over the past 13 years we have accumulated a wealth of knowledge about volunteering, which we are keen to share with others."
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Volunteer Management Portal
http://www.volunteering.org.uk/vmportal
Volunteering England’s Volunteer Management Portal acts as a gateway to the world of volunteer management with links to over a thousand resources and information on support, training and development opportunities for people managing volunteers.
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