Pathways Through Participation » volunteering

Pathways present at the VSSN/NCVO annual Research Conference

Ellie Brodie — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 11:38:15 +0000

The Pathways through Participation team were out in force at this year’s Voluntary Sector Studies Network (VSSN) / NCVO research conference, held over two days earlier this week at Leeds University. Sarah Miller made the case for using life stories in volunteering research as part of an IVR-led panel on the impact of volunteering, and Eddie Cowling and I presented on the findings from community mapping workshops that we held earlier this year as part of the first phase of the fieldwork. Click on the links if you’d like to see our presentations and papers.

Life stories in volunteering research paper
Life stories in volunteering research presentation
Community mapping paper
Community mapping presentation

The influence of major life events on volunteering

Veronique Jochum — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 08:10:09 +0000

The Center for Nonprofit Strategy and Management of Baruch College recently published a new working paper on the influence of life cycle and major life events on volunteering.

Research shows that people’s volunteering behaviors change over the life cycle. Young people might volunteer as means of improving their CV. Newly married couples decrease their volunteering in the face of the adjustment to married life. As couples begin to have children and invest in family life, their involvement shifts to be more involved in schools, youth organisations and religious communities. In their more mature years, people might increase their volunteering hours as they retire from their jobs. But as old age and declining health interfere, volunteering tapers off. In addition to the effect of the life cycle on volunteering, the paper looks at how certain life events can also influence volunteering, including the birth of a child, getting divorced or being widowed.

The full paper can be found here.

‘Grandmentoring’ scheme launched: teenagers to receive help, support and guidance from older volunteers

Eddie Cowling — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 11:44:03 +0000

Last week saw the launch of Welfare Minister Lord Freud’s initiative ‘Grandmentoring’; where older volunteers are paired with young people not in employment, education or training to support them in the pathway into adulthood. Nat Wei, the government adviser on the Big Society argues how the scheme, delivered with CSV, can help create new cohorts of people who have seen the benefit of being more socially active, and who feel a desire to give back which helps others but which also energises them.

To find out more see here

The Big Society: shaping people’s pathways?

Eddie Cowling — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 17:00:22 +0000

A month on from the end of an election campaign that certainly wasn’t short of talk of devolution, community involvement, and ‘people-power’ from all three main parties, it is now becoming apparent what participation might look like under the new coalition government. The widely discussed ‘Big Society’ is now being implemented into policy, with Downing Street outlining last month how the idea will be at the heart of public sector reform.

The Pathways team and the partnering organisations have been monitoring the developments and debates around the Big Society with interest, and it seems logical that for such a concept to work and be sustained, it is crucial for politicians and practitioners to have a good understanding of how and why individuals involve themselves in various forms of participation throughout their lives.

The new government emphasises how one of the key principles of Building the Big Society is to encourage people to take an active role in their communities, as well as encourage charitable giving and philanthropy. Such forms of participation can manifest themselves in very different ways, so thorough and insightful research is needed to explore the connections and patterns between different participatory activities, something that the Pathways project will also begin to explore as we go into the in-depth interview phase of the project.

National Trust volunteers in a life-course perspective

Veronique Jochum — Thu, 27 May 2010 17:58:31 +0000

The Third Sector Research Centre (TSRC) and the National Trust are offering a CASE studentship to explore the pathways through volunteering, and the relationship between the aspirations of volunteers and the goals of the National Trust. The application deadline is 1 June 2010. Interested? More information is available on the TSRC website.

Unfortunately the final report won’t be available before our project ends!

2008-09 Citizenship survey: volunteering and charitable giving topic report

Veronique Jochum — Mon, 10 May 2010 17:30:30 +0000

Using 2008-09 Citizenship Survey data, CLG has just produced a report that looks at participation in formal and informal volunteering and trends in participation over time. It discusses the activities that volunteers do, the organisations they help, sources of information and motivations for, benefits from, and barriers to participating in volunteering. It also reports on participation in employer-supported volunteering. The report then focuses on charitable giving, looking at who gives to charity, the ways in which people give to charity and the amount of money people give.

Regarding volunteering, the report indicates that the number of people formally volunteering at least once a month has fallen since 2005 (26% in 2008-09 compared to 29% in 2005) but that people who volunteer regularly are volunteering more hours. It also notes that people who regularly participate in formal or informal volunteering are more likely to give to charity than people who are not regular volunteers.

Volunteering for civic roles

Ellie Brodie — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 14:27:38 +0000

Another report just out from CLG and Business in the Community, called Volunteering for Civic Roles – information for employers and employees, gives a helpful overview of ‘non-typical’ civic volunteering roles, from young offender panel members to housing association board members. These roles, the report argues, help to ensure integrity in public life. Statutory appointments and charity trustees are also included in the overview.

Calling on employers (from across all sectors) to allow and support staff to undertake volunteering in work time, the report includes a ’myth buster’ about employee-supported volunteering to help emphasise its message: that volunteering benefits the employer, the employee and wider civil society.

Read the report here.

Can micro-volunteering make a difference?

Veronique Jochum — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 12:09:32 +0000

There has been an interesting discussion on the NCVO website on micro-volunteering, i.e. ‘volunteering in bite size chunks – from your own home and when you want to’. Reactions to micro-volunteering have been somewhat mixed, but on the whole there is recognition that it responds to a need and addresses a gap in the ‘market’. Do you think this new form of volunteering can make a difference? Join the conversation.

Generation X: apathetic, cynical and disengaged? Apparently not. . .

Ellie Brodie — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 12:34:40 +0000

An article appeared recently in the online magazine new geography which casts doubt on received wisdom in the United States about differences in participation and civic engagement between generations.

Some commentators and academics (Robert Putnam amongst them) have proposed that the difference in participation levels between different age groups is less to do with people’s age and more to do with which generation they belong to. The argument (simply put) goes that Baby Boomers (born 1946 – 1964) are the great moral and ‘civic’ generation; with Generation X (born 1965 – 1981) being cynical, individualistic and ‘low participators’, whilst the Millennials (born 1982 – 1998) have a deep commitment to community and helping others, and they put their beliefs into action.

Pete Peterson challenges such stereotypes and, using data from the latest (US) Civic Health Index, argues that Generation X-ers not only volunteer more than Baby Boomers and ‘retired seniors’, but had increased their participation in the last year compared to Millennials, Boomers and Seniors. One of the reasons why Generation X-ers are currently derided and Millennials applauded is, Peterson suggests, because of their respective political leanings, with Millennials overwhelmingly self-identifying as Democrats (52%) compared to Republicans (30%). He warns, however, that Millennials also display a strong libertarian streak, and express support for fiscally conservative policies. He concludes that ‘while pundits keep handing out participation trophies to the Millennials, maybe this year they should save a few for the enlightened sceptics of Generation X.’

Whilst we won’t be handing out any trophies on the Pathways project, we will be looking at the influence of life stage and age on people’s participation, as well as a host of other factors!

For the full article, and some useful references go to: http://www.newgeography.com/content/001374-get-real-aout-generation-x-stereotypes

Volunteering and society in the 21st century

Veronique Jochum — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:37:41 +0000

Colin Rochester, Angela Ellis Paine and Steven Howlett have just published ‘Volunteering and society in the 21^st Century”. Amongst other things this new book discusses the current challenges facing volunteering, including: the need to change its image; the push for an inclusive approach; the danger of formalization; and the threat to its independence. More information is available from the publisher’s website.