Volunteering for stronger communities

Projects

Background

Volunteering England, in partnership with 15 volunteer centres, has been awarded a £1.9 million Big Lottery Fund grant over three years to help communities most affected by the recession through stimulating volunteering. As part of this, IVR is carrying out a major new research project to explore the role that volunteering can play in helping communities to cope with the future recessions and public spending cuts.

Aims

To explore the role of volunteering in helping communities cope with the negative impacts of recessions and the subsequent cuts in public expenditure, and the role of volunteering infrastructure – especially Volunteer Centres – in enabling this. In doing so it will:

Explore and identify the nature and extent of any impacts of recession and public spending cuts on individuals and communities;
Explore the potential of volunteering to help communities manage, cope with or resist these negative impacts (e.g. through the development of social capital, community cohesion and ‘community resilience’);
Explore the role of and experiences of volunteering infrastructure in supporting local communities to volunteer.

Methods

The research, running over the next three years until the end of October 2014, will employ a variety of research methodologies, including:

Scoping study, including a literature review;
Light-touch tracking study of all 15 Volunteer Centres taking part, involving face-to-face and telephone interviews;
In-depth case studies of two Volunteer Centres and their communities. This stage, which would make up the bulk of the research, would include mapping volunteering infrastructure in the local areas, tracking a group of volunteers over the course of the project to explore their experience and the impact of volunteering, and research with the local community and residents about their perceptions of volunteering and volunteering infrastructure.