Comment: volunteering: voluntary contributions Aug 04

The UK government is gearing up for another call on companies to help promote volunteering. While the business case is clear, the public sector should be investing resources too.

Those with long memories will know that there’s nothing new in governments being interested in promoting volunteering. When Douglas Hurd was Mrs Thatcher’s home secretary in the late 1980s, he promoted ‘active citizenship’ and offered funding for volunteer bureaux. While in opposition in the mid 1990s, David Blunkett developed ideas for a national youth volunteering scheme, later to become Millennium Volunteers. First as education secretary and now as home secretary, he continues to promote citizenship.

The Treasury’s keen interest is understandable: studies claim an economic return of some £12 billion on the public sector’s £400m pa total spending on volunteering organisations and infrastructure. The prize is cheaper, and arguably better, public services. Individual companies too see a real and measurable return on their investment in employee volunteering, whether team building, skills development or reputation as a good corporate citizen.

The problem is that volunteering is meant to be, well, voluntary. The old military injunction “you, you and you, volunteer now” doesn’t work so well in civvy street. The only way to get increased activity is to publicise opportunities and make it as easy as possible to get involved. Unfortunately early hopes of using new technology have not resulted in an army of extra helpers. The BBC-backed on-line TimeBank scheme, for example, has helped 50,000 people volunteer since 2000; a welcome addition but hardly a revolution.

One problem is that the main mechanism for actually getting involved locally, namely volunteer bureaux, is still patchy and of variable quality. Companies can help by using the workplace as a recruiting ground; IBM’s On Demand is just one of growing number of intranet-based schemes. But the case for public investment in a comprehensive local network, not just individual initiatives, is compelling.