Thinkpieces

IVR’s Thinkpiece series address issues of keen interest to policy makers and practitioners within volunteering research. They seek to challenge some of the commonly held ideas about volunteering within public debate. In doing so, they allow their authors to offer their own perspectives on issues of the day, whilst grounding their thinking in the research evidence.

Thinkpiece 3: The flawed third principle of volunteering

July 2011

Definitions of volunteering have long been based on its three principles: that it is of freewill, unpaid, and of benefit. This paper argues that the third principle is a key weakness of the definition and we should not afford everything that might bear the label volunteering the accolade of being for benefit.

Thinkpiece 2: International volunteering league tables

March 2011

The Giving Green Paper argued that UK's lowly ranking (29th) in an international league table of giving meant that the British should and can give more time. This piece highlights the peversity of this statistic and argues that more limited comparisons with European countries are more likely to raise the important questions around the future of volunteering in the UK.

Thinkpiece 1: Volunteering and the recession

January 2011

This short article uses national survey data to show that claims that volunteering ‘flourished’ during the recession were premature and overly optimistic and that in fact rates have declined. It goes on to offer some possible explanations for this fall in volunteering and concludes by discussing why it is important to understand the impact of the recession.