ChangeUp - East Midlands Infrastructure

Introduction to the Volunteering Hub

The Volunteering Hub’s work is organised under three themes:

Strategy and management - The volunteering infrastructure must reach every community in the country. To do this, organisations from all parts of the volunteering and community sector must be fully involved in the Hub from the start. Our priority is to reach out beyond the existing membership of the organisations at the core of the Hub, and especially to include under-represented communities.

Information dissemination, good practice and management development - Our role at the Hub is to see our sector’s already excellent work in this area carried out in a more strategic, cohesive and consistent manner. There are many strands to the work planned, with a focus on researching and developing information resources and training strategies

Modernising infrastructure - Organisations in the voluntary and community sector have already done a great deal of work towards modernising the volunteering infrastructure. Our task is to create an infrastructure which is lean, robust and securely funded, locally, regionally and nationally.

News

Future of Volunteering report - The Commission on the Future of Volunteering launched its final report on 28 January 2008. The Commission is an independent body established by the England Volunteering Development Council to develop a long-term vision for volunteering in England as a legacy of the Year of the Volunteer 2005. The final report, Manifesto for Change, can be found on the Commission’s website at www.volcomm.org.uk

Trustee brokerage within Volunteer Centres is being developed by Volunteering England with the support of the Governance Hub. This builds on the successful work of the 'Get on Board' trustee campaign. Volunteering England will run a programme of support and training on trustee recruitment to eight VCs, who will subsequently promote the continuing development of trustee recruitment in their region. Volunteering England will also develop an online downloadable resource to support all VCs to recruit and support trustees.

The September issue of Hubbub, the Volunteering Hub newsletter, looks at the successes of the Hubs since 2005 and the specific impact of the Volunteering Hub on volunteering development.

The Institute for Volunteering Research (IVR) has embarked on a new Hub-funded project exploring the capacity of organisations to involve and manage volunteers.

The ChangeUp funded Good Practice Bank aims to improve information sharing and reduce duplication within the volunteering sector. Core Themes deal with general good practice on managing volunteers, while Specialist Themes focus on more specific topics. In each theme there are articles, information sheets, case studies and links to other helpful guidance or external websites.

A report on 'A Sustainable Funding Framework for Volunteer Centres', produced by Northampton Volunteering Centre for the Volunteering Hub has identified the key factors affecting the cost and performance of volunteer centre services, identified the true cost of providing some of the services, and developed a formula that allocates resources at a local authority level and a number of possible delivery mechanisms.

The Management Development for Volunteer Centre Managers programme is being designed and the initial pilot for the programme will commence later this year. The Volunteering Hub are keen for involvement in the design phase and are asking five questions around the needs and aspirations of Volunteer Centre managers.

New Risk Management research has found that fear of litigation and excessive risk management is causing a real barrier to volunteering. Volunteering England is calling for excessive risk management to be challenged, arguing that it stops potential volunteers from coming forward. A Risk Toolkit has been produced: How to take care of risk in volunteering: a guide for organisations.

The Learning Loops project aims to build the learning capacity of volunteer managers across England by setting up a cross sector network of locally-based groups. Local Learning Loops will be facilitated by voluntary Learning Advisors.

The Volunteering Hub is the principle sponsor of the Commission on the Future of Volunteering established by the England Volunteering Development Council.

Main Aims of the Volunteering Hub

To enable far more people to volunteer – many through employer-supported volunteering.
Volunteers to be more diverse and to include many more from under-represented groups such as rural communities, refugees and asylum seekers.
More volunteers to be more active where they are needed most, with organisations working in the most deprived communities.
All volunteers to be well managed and supported, so that they remain committed and motivated and continue to volunteer.

The Volunteering Hub will work to achieve the ChangeUp high level objective that by 2014 there will be a leaner, effectively-marketed and high-quality volunteering infrastructure, reaching, recruiting and placing a greater number and diversity of individuals, coupled with improved volunteer management.