Volunteering – words and meaning

The most generally accepted definition of volunteering (Commission on the Future of Volunteering, 2008) is as follows:

“Volunteering is an activity that involves spending time, unpaid, doing something that aims to benefit the environment or individuals or groups other than (or in addition to) close relatives.” (Volunteering Compact and Code of Good Practice.)

The report of the Commission on the Future of Volunteering (2008) drawing on the work of Justin Davis Smith (2000) identifies at least four types of engagement in volunteering:

• Mutual aid or self-help
• Philanthropy or service to others (which may be formal volunteering in clubs or organisations or informal volunteering simply helping others in the community)
• Participation (which includes involvement in political or decision-making processes on a voluntary basis at any level such as being a board member, on a users’ forum, or a youth representative)
• Advocacy and campaigning.

These types can at times be overlapping. Rochester (2006) also notes that volunteering can include the activities where volunteers themselves decide how they can best give their time, rather than those decisions being made by the organisations in which they volunteer.

Davis and Edwards (2004) drawing on results from a number of seminars and events on participation and social inclusion identify five key aspects which need to be in place to ensure that youth participation is a transformative experience and not tokenistic. These are:

• Participation involves being heard and something changing for the better as a result;
• Participation is best promoted through opportunities for engagement in dialogue, not oppositional or confrontational processes between children, young people and decision-makers;
• Participation needs to be rooted in the lived lives of children and young people on tangible issues of concern and importance to them;
• Participation is political and is about the enfranchisement of a disenfranchised group in society to ensure effective action to make change happen;
• Participation needs to be inclusive through opportunities for the young to take part on their own terms and on their own issues and not just through adult initiated or established models and processes.

A full literature review of volunteering practice can be found in the learning and evidence section >>