The Road Ahead

Our analysis of the major opportunities and challenges facing the voluntary sector in 2024. Learn more

Volunteering

We're 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.

Volunteer management

We have a range of volunteering resources for organisations. This includes practical step-by-step guidance to help you manage volunteers and the volunteering process well.

We run training courses on volunteer management. Take a look at our involving volunteers 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.

The Big Help Out

The Big Help Out is a campaign to showcase how volunteering benefits both communities and the people who take part.

The campaign launched with a national day of volunteering in May 2023, which engaged 6 million people. This year’s Big Help Out will take place over the weekend of 7–9 June.

Get involved in the Big Help Out

Vision for volunteering

NCVO with partners, National Association for Voluntary and Community Action, Volunteering Matters, the Association of Volunteer Managers, launched the Vision for Volunteering in May 2022.

Find out more about Vision for Volunteering and how you can get involved.

Volunteers' Week

Volunteers' Week is an annual volunteer recognition campaign. This year’s event will run from Monday 3 to Sunday 9 June. It's a time to say thanks for the contribution millions of people make across the UK through volunteering.

Discover how your organisation can get involved

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 two events every year which are open to members.

Step on Board

Step on Board trains and helps senior employees and leaders take up trustee roles on boards of charities and other organisations.

Find out more about the Step on Board programme.

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.

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