Comment by Camille Agon for December / January CCB 115
This month’s articles highlight an interesting trend that we have seen evolving over recent months: governments’ increased investment in expanding community service. For example, the UK Government has recently unveiled two wide ranging volunteering initiatives, investing a total of £80m to encourage ‘the giving of time, money, goods, and services.’ Likewise, the European Commission has designated 2011 as the European Year of Volunteering, with the aim to boost volunteering and raise awareness of voluntary activities across Europe.
Let’s hope that governments are serious about this challenge, because if taken seriously, politicians argue, volunteering is not simply about adding societal value. In fact, they suggest that providing opportunities to expand community service should be considered for its potential to help the EU emerge from the economic crisis. The European Commission has positioned the European Year of Volunteering as an ‘efficient and sustainable growth strategy’. To illustrate this point, it has estimated that with just under 100 million adults involved in voluntary activities across Europe, volunteering already contributes anything up to 5% of the EU’s GDP.
In parallel, companies are also starting to recognise the economic contribution their businesses can make in the communities in which they operate. Employee volunteering often stands at the core of these efforts. Employees can indeed strengthen corporate citizenship from the inside out and an effective employee volunteering programme can have a substantial impact in the community. In addition, a recent study published by Corporate Citizenship and the City of London Corporation, “Volunteering – The Business Case”, shows that effective employee volunteering can have a significant financial value to the business in terms of the skills and competencies developed through volunteering.
Hopefully, as the European Year of Volunteering kicks off, businesses and non-profit organisations will take this opportunity to tap into the power of volunteers, and not only lift the country’s spirit but also maybe boost economic recovery.
Camille Agon is a Senior Researcher at Corporate Citizenship.
David Erasmus, philanthropist and chief executive of mobile business company Cubate, has released the report Mobile Giving, which highlights the need for charities to embrace new media in their fundraising efforts. The paper finds that charities must overcome a lack of knowledge on mobile fundraising and social media in order to encourage giving from younger donors, who are increasingly reliant on “new media”. The paper introduces the concept of Givey, which aims to provide infrastructure to charities to enable integration of donation via media channels such as SMS, mobile web, Twitter and Facebook.
The UK Government released a green paper on giving on 29 December, outlining two new volunteering initiatives and pledging an £80 million allocation to the Community First programme. Initiatives include: a Volunteering Match Fund that will match private donations to volunteering projects; an England-wide Volunteering Infrastructure programme to support volunteers and managing organizations; and the Community First programme, consisting of grants to small organisations and match funding for local endowments. The paper further investigates options for making giving and volunteering “as easy as possible”, including the use of social media and cost-free and convenient giving.
The Communities and Local Government department launched a new Barrier Busting website on 15 December where charities and community groups can ask for help in overcoming bureaucratic obstacles to their work. The website will let people setting up or running local community projects submit queries about regulations, such as by-laws or health and safety rules that hinder them in their work. Users will be able to track the progress of queries online and will be provided with a direct contact within the department. The service aims to find practical solutions, assisting local people in achieving their own neighbourhood ambitions.
The WWF has introduced a new file format to discourage unnecessary printing. “Save as WWF, save a tree” is a plug-in that enables documents to be disseminated as pdf-type files that cannot be printed. The ‘.wwf’ format, launched 30 November by WWF Germany, advertising agency Jung von Matt and Dederichs Reinecke & Partner, is currently available from www.saveaswwf.com for recent Mac operating systems, with a Windows version to follow. It joins the existing initiative, “think before you print”, as a practical and educational consumer-oriented measure to reduce market pressure on the world’s forests.
Charities and charitable giving in Britain has been assessed in Mintel’s latest biennial report. The report found that the number of charities fell by almost 17,000 over the last six years, a 9% drop compared to a high of 190,541 in 2007. This was attributed to mergers, economic hardship and a belief that the sector is reaching “saturation point”. In contrast however, charity income has risen by around 48% since 2004, with a greater number of individuals donating larger amounts. Brands associated with charitable pursuits were viewed favourably with 58% saying they would prefer to buy from such a brand if faced with the choice.
Charity leaders fearful for future despite Big Society agenda
The latest survey by the National Council on Voluntary Organisations suggests rising pessimism about the sector’s future prospects. The quarterly Charity Forecast Survey, released in December, shows that charity leaders’ confidence levels are at their lowest since the survey began three years ago. 69% of respondents predicted that the financial situation of their organisation would worsen over the next twelve months; 26% had plans to decrease paid staff numbers over the next quarter; and 56% expect their organisation’s expenditure to reduce over the next year. NCVO urged the UK Government to take heed of the concerns and to manage cuts intelligently to enable the sector to play a full role in delivering the Big Society agenda to communities.
Contact: National Council on Voluntary Organisations
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