The Big Help Out: Why it matters and how to get involved

Volunteering is challenging at the best of times. The cost of living crisis has made people question if they can even afford to do it. Being unable to afford travel costs or having to go for paid work instead, are just some of the barriers our members have told us.

So, the Big Help Out has come at a key time.

The Big Help Out is a campaign to showcase how volunteering benefits both communities and the people who take part. The long-term aim is to get more people volunteering who traditionally don’t consider it.

The campaign will encourage a national day of volunteering on Monday 8 May 2023, the bank holiday of the coronation weekend.

The campaign was designed by the Shaping the Future with Volunteering and Together coalitions.

• Organise and register an event of your own for the national day of volunteering.
• Spread the word! Get creative with the campaign logos, posters, social media posts and newsletter copy using the Big Help Out toolkit below.
• Use the publicity to highlight other longer-term volunteering opportunities.
• Share your stories of volunteering through the diverse roles available and how it enriches people’s lives. We’re looking for volunteer case studies – another great way to highlight your volunteer opportunities. If you have case studies, get in touch: communications@ncvo.org.uk.

The Big Help Out campaign group has:

• selected Do It to host the volunteering opportunities
• created a dedicated Big Help Out recruitment site which will launch soon.
• created an app which will be available for the public to use.

By listing opportunities here, it'll help track the campaign’s success and allow follow-ups with people who have taken part.

Of course, you may instead want to work with your local volunteer centre and other local networks to publicise your volunteering roles.

NCVO has been invited to collaborate with the Big Help Out team. We’ll be working with our members, volunteer centres and sector stakeholders to shape the campaign.

We know that 14% of small organisations say volunteer recruitment is one of their top concerns, which dips to only 2% of large organisations. So we’ll focus our efforts on helping smaller organisations take part in this campaign so they can realise the benefits of this national drive.

This year there will be a big focus on volunteering for the sector. There are three key themes and activities underpinning this focus:

• We need more volunteers. The Big Help Out will support this.
• We need to celebrate and thank volunteers. We’ll do this through Volunteers Week, Thank You Day and Trustees’ Week.
• We need to reimagine volunteering to make it sustainable. Exciting work is already underway for as part of the Vision for Volunteering work.

For regular updates, sign up to our emails and keep checking the Big Help Out website.