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 Knowhow is NCVO's main information and guidance site and offers a range of resources on volunteer management including a Studyzone video training course Good Practice in Volunteer Management.

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.

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

Our publications include the best-selling Volunteering Impact Assessment Toolkit. We also have some free volunteering downloads for NCVO members, on topics including DBS, health and safety, and expenses.

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

Volunteers' Week

Volunteers' Week is an annual event, coordinated by NCVO, which takes place on 1-7 June, recognising and celebrating the contribution made by volunteers nationwide.

To help you and your organisation prepare for Volunteers' Week, and to learn more information about the campaign, you can watch our webinar from Volunteer's week 2019: 

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: 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

Accreditation

Investing in Volunteers (IiV) Benchmark the quality of your volunteer management and involvement.
Volunteer Centre Quality Accreditation (VCQA) Strengthen your organisation, provide a better service for your users and increase funding.

NCVO offers a 10% discount on quality standards for members. Take a look at all our quality standards.

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.
• The Institute of Volunteering Research is home to reports on volunteering and its imapact.
• Read more about NCVO's policy work around volunteering.

Latest press releases

Latest volunteering blogs