#7 Explain why we need to Shout Volunteering
The pervasive misunderstanding of the importance of volunteering to society and our economy leads to it being significantly undervalued and therefore not properly supported and protected.
Volunteering is seen as a positive thing to do but often treated as a ‘nice to have’ as it were the icing on the cake of society, but the reality is that it is a key ingredient of the cake itself. Volunteering is an essential part of how our society functions but in almost every sphere volunteering is undervalued and under-appreciated.
We all need to #ShoutVolunteering because:
volunteering is normally a local activity and the organisations who need volunteers do not have the marketing power and resources to compete with the global companies who dominate what we see and hear
levels of formal ‘traditional’ volunteering are dropping as the nature of how people want to volunteer has changed, i.e. more flexibly, and we just simply need more volunteers and more resources for volunteer management than we used to. Note: the desire to volunteer has not dropped!
if levels of volunteering drop, our communities, society and economy will weaken by an even larger amount (Volunteering Multiplier Principle)
there are too many misconceptions about volunteering, that it is…
(i) an ‘add-on’ to development programmes rather than essential element of development(ii) cheap or free labour rather than a practice worthy of investment
(iii) nice to have rather than a strategic asset for local development
volunteering is the almost invisible infrastructure keeping our society together and communities strong but because no one really talks about it, it stays invisible and under-supported
to deliver social progress and stronger communities we need to invest in volunteering as a strategic asset
we need more and better data on the value and impact of volunteering
UK volunteering delivers approximately as much social and economic impact as all UK manufacturing but the level of support and development we give the latter dwarves what we give to volunteering.
The need to #ShoutVolunteering is not just a UK issue, but a global one:
The United Nations have declared 2026 the International Volunteer Year #IVY2026
IAVE have a global ‘Call to action for the future of volunteering’: 164 countries, one shared message that volunteering must be recognised, supported and protected. Their Call to Action Insight Paper gives more detail and has useful recommendations.
‘Volunteering must be nurtured and supported to harness its full power to build more equitable, sustainable and inclusive societies.’ IAVE Call to action
“Volunteerism should no longer be viewed solely as charitable work but as a strategic, multidimensional contributor to sustainable development.” Tanzania National Dialogue
“More than 20 years after the first International Year of Volunteering was commemorated, the contribution made to communities is still invisible in many countries, and therefore not recognised”. – Latin America regional dialogue