Volunteering

We are committed to supporting, enabling and celebrating volunteering in all its diversity. Volunteering is someone spending time, unpaid, doing something that aims to benefit the environment or someone who they're not closely related to. Volunteering must be a choice freely made by each individual.

NCVO doesn’t broker or place volunteers in charities directly but we have a selection of resources to help you find a suitable opportunity.

• I want to volunteer
• What to do if volunteering goes wrong

Volunteer management

NCVO's main information and guidance site and offers a range of resources on volunteer management - practical and step by step guidance to help you manage volunteers and the process of volunteering well

We run training courses on volunteer management throughout the year. Take a look at our event listing to find out more and browse our training.

Investing in Volunteers award is a quality standard specifically for excellence in volunteer management.

We also run bespoke consultancy on a variety of volunteering themes. Find out more about our consultancy and how to get in touch.

Vision for Volunteering

In June 2021, we announced Vision for Volunteering, a new collaboration between National Association for Voluntary and Community Action, Volunteering Matters, the Association of Volunteer Managers and NCVO. We’re delighted Sport England has now joined this strategic partnership. We’re inviting you to create a long-term plan for volunteering in England. We’ve released the first round of consultation workshop dates.

More workshop dates will be announced in the next few weeks. You can sign up on the Vision for Volunteering website to be notified of future developments. If you can’t attend a workshop, you can complete the call for submissions. You’ll find a detailed frequently asked questions guide on the website for your reference. We've also listed the six priority areas that’ll help us focus on creating a long-term vision for volunteering in England.

Volunteers' Week

Volunteers' Week is an annual event, coordinated by NCVO, which takes place on 1-7 June. It is a time to say thanks for the contribution millions of people make across the UK through volunteering.

To find out more, visit the Volunteers' Week website. 

Volunteer Centres

Volunteer Centres are our local delivery partners, providing assistance to individual volunteers and volunteer involving organisations.

• Volunteer Centre Quality Accreditation (VCQA)

National Volunteering Forum

Our National Volunteering Forum brings together volunteer-involving organisations and volunteer infrastructure bodies from around England to discuss issues of shared concern, feed into NCVO’s policy positions and to network. We run three events every year, including at least one outside of London.

Previous forums have discussed a variety of topics:

• National Volunteering Forum: Employer-supported volunteering, November 2019
• National Volunteering Forum: Digital and the volunteer journey, May 2019
• Time Well Spent - NCVO volunteer experience research and what it means, January 2019
• Incentivised volunteering and rewarding volunteers, October 2018
• GDPR and the volunteer journey, May 2018
• Volunteering and wellbeing, February 2018
• Volunteering and digital – transforming how we give time, September 2017
• Full Time Social Action Review and Election 2017, May 2017
• Volunteering in the public sector - what can charities learn?  February 2017
• Volunteering and social cohesion in a post Brexit world, September 2016
• Demonstrating the impact of volunteering, May 2016
• Employer supported volunteering, November 2015
• The post-2015 general election landscape, July 2015

Step on Board

Step on Board trains and helps your senior employees and emerging leaders to take up positions on the boards of charities and other organisations. It's an innovative volunteering programme which is a cost-effective and sustainable way of providing professional development. Employees will be given training, their skills then matched with an organisation, coaching while in post and finally an impact assessment will take place after the placement.

Research

NCVO works to positively influence the external environment on behalf of the voluntary sector. One of the ways in which we do this is through our policy and research work. We have developed a strong evidence base on voluntary sector issues and work with our members to influence government and other decision makers.

• NCVO UK Civil Society Almanac provides statistics on volunteering and the voluntary sector.
• Read more about NCVO's policy work around volunteering.
• Time Well Spent is a major report into the volunteering experience based on a national survey (10,000+ respondents)

Latest press releases

Latest volunteering blogs