When volunteering becomes an institution
The relationship between the state and voluntary sector has been a source of controversy for many years. Frank Furedi believes that the state’s close interest in volunteering has led to it becoming institutionalised. Does the prospect of official and unofficial volunteering threaten to split the voluntary sector in two, between those who cooperate with the state’s agenda for volunteering and those who don’t?
The following post started off life as an off-the-cuff analysis of Frank Furedi’s recent article in the Australian, “Do good, but do it our way” (3rd December 2011). You can’t read it there (unless you subscribe to that paper), but you can read the full version on his website.
Furedi’s opinion piece touches on the thorny issue of how the state promotes and supports volunteering. If (for arguments sake) you conflate volunteering and voluntary services, this is not a new issue, as the quote from Attlee intimates.
Ironically, Furedi’s criticism is that volunteering is precisely not doing what Clement Attlee identified as voluntary services’ great contribution when he worked at Toynbee Hall over a hundred years ago. Attlee famous for presiding over the creation of the modern welfare state in the UK, worked at Toynbee Hall as Secretary for around a year early in his career. Furedi asserts that voluntary services are effectively being constrained by the state in how they can ‘humanize our national life’ and how they can go from the ‘general to the particular’. Not to put to fine a point on it: volunteering is becoming institutionalised.
There’s confusion about how we resolve the issues that arise, the more the state gets involved in the development of volunteering and voluntary services. Issues such as independence, influence and professionalisation of the voluntary sector are just some examples. Meta Zimmeck and Colin Rochester’s recent summary of the issues with the Compact (an agreement between government and the voluntary and community sector first published in 1998) provides more practical examples of the kinds of issues in formalising the relationship between government and the voluntary sector.
We’ve come a long way since the antipathy and suspicion of the Thatcher years, the formalised partnerships with the Deakin Commission and the Compact under Blair, the grand plans under Brown, and the cuts and optimism with Cameron’s Big Society. However, while prime ministers come and go, volunteering appears to be on an inexorable rise on the policy agenda. But is this evidence of a creeping institutionalisation of volunteering as Furedi suggests?
Although I don’t buy Furedi’s central argument about a golden age of volunteering and public virtue, behind his column lies a pertinent question about the institutionalisation of the voluntary sector. We ignore it at our peril.
- What are the implications of the state’s steadily growing involvement in the volunteering agenda?
- Is institutionalisation an inevitable part of the government and the voluntary sector working closer together?
Since the 1970s in particular, governments across the world have taken an increasing interest in volunteering, providing it with greater recognition and financial assistance. Is institutionalisation the next step in this evolution of the relationship? Will the state get a greater and greater say in the kind of social order and rules that govern volunteering?
In 2009, Colin Rochester set out the positions in the debate about state and volunteering as follows:
State can play a role in the development of volunteering
- State is both benign and competent: for example, state can set strategic direction for volunteering; (issue is one of making technical improvements to policy and implementation)
State can not play a role in the development of volunteering
-State is neither benign nor particularly effective;
Volunteering is – and should be – every bit as anarchic, ungovernable and untidy (Dahrendorff; Kearney) – “if government has a role, it extends no further than ensuring that there are few, if any, obstacles to volunteering. Otherwise it needs simply to ‘get out of the way’”
Panel Session- NCVO conference: Making a difference? Reviewing government’s involvement in volunteering, ‘Losing Soul’: Should we be concerned about the independence of volunteering?’ (PDF), Colin Rochester
The contrast between how the state-volunteering issue is usually discussed, is that Furedi’s tone is substantially more pessimistic. He has no time for the achievements that have come from this closer working relationship between the voluntary sector and the state. A forward looking analysis must assimilate both the benefits, as well as the costs. What Furedi does do that’s helpful, is to sound a warning shot to all those currently rethinking the nature of the relationship between state and volunteering in the future.
Just yesterday, the Policy Exchange published a report (PDF) by Anthony Seldon which called for a revived Big Society. It was laced with the kind of institutionalised version of volunteering we’ve come to expect from policy proposals (emphasis added):
- “retired people should volunteer and continue to be actively involved in helping others in their communities”.
- “dramatic boost to volunteering and training schemes should be urgently introduced to ensure that every young person can be occupied in meaningful employment”
- “All schools to have compulsory volunteering afternoons: those children who volunteer when young are more likely to continue when older”
It’s a quick step from “should volunteer”, to volunteering “as occupying time”, to “compulsory volunteering afternoons”. Is a world where volunteering becomes an institution desirable or not?
- Can volunteers be trained to combat terrorism?
- Can access to the police be made dependent on prior volunteering?
- Can state benefits be linked to volunteering?
- Can volunteering be the condition of access to - subsidised transport?-
These are just some of the examples of current practice by UK government. But at what point do they effectively institutionalise volunteering?
I feel like this question gets to the nub of the issue and reveals the shifting tectonic plates in how volunteering is developing in the UK.
On the one hand, there’s the cause for greater professionalisation in the voluntary sector that could be advanced with the greater status and recognition that institutionalisation confers. On the other hand, the cause for a fuller appreciation of volunteering’s potential is set back by its institutionalisation.
Let’s face it: we have difficulty enumerating volunteering’s secret sauce, let alone bottling it.
The question of insitutionalisation alludes to a very real tension that’s ratcheted up, each time volunteering climbs higher the policy agenda.
I don’t pretend to have the answer to such a fundamental question, but I feel like it’s an issue that needs airing outside the political arena. Thinking it through helps to articulate the juncture that we’ve reached in volunteering today. A fork in the road where we run the risk of seeing officially recognised volunteering and unofficial unrecognised volunteering splitting the voluntary sector in two.
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Full post with links, references and supporting notes:
http://jocote.org/2012/01/when-volunteering-becomes-an-institution/
Think you've summed up what I'm trying say :-) On the one hand we need a climate conducive to volunteering being all that it can be in society. Then on the other, we have a sense that volunteering remains at its core: anarchic, ungovernable and untidy. I think the interface between the two is summed up by the process we could call institutionalisation. I going to try and write another post summing up all these different tensions that exist in what we call volunteering... may be some time :-)
I think the pitfall of having both the cake and the eating of is close to us all in this debate! :-)
As you helpfully cited Patrick, Colin Rochester set out one position as:
Volunteering is – and should be – every bit as anarchic, ungovernable and untidy (Dahrendorff; Kearney) – “if government has a role, it extends no further than ensuring that there are few, if any, obstacles to volunteering. Otherwise it needs simply to ‘get out of the way’”
But just getting out of the way feels a naive 2-dimensional response. It feels that a more focused effort is needed to create a climate conducive to allowing volunteering to be all that it can be in society.
The suggestion of voluntary volunteer managers from the civil service is a more direct intervention, but even this could be argued as adding to the anarchy...
However I can see how current managers of volunteers could quickly condemn this initiative as undermining the advanced skill-set that is required to manage volunteers. However, the vast majority of these managers readily admit they fell into a volunteer management role themselves - and learnt how to do it as they went along.
So would this initiative institutionalise volunteering, or would it increase the dialogue between practitioners and policy makers?
If volunteer managers want to prevent this type of suggestion, they need to make it impossible for people who cannot demonstrate the proven competencies to step into a management role (as would happen in a range of professions). But this would require the setting up of a professional body with entry requirements, assessment and monitoring of professional development....some sort of Institute I suppose...!
So is it the wanting of cake and eating it, or the fighting of fire with fire?
Either way, I wouldn't be surprised if volunteering remains at its core, anarchic, ungovernable and untidy!
Hi Steve - agree that politics is hard to keep at bay given the issues - but was interested (even as a thought experiment) to try and keep the politics out of this debate about vol sector and state. Usually end up creating more heat than light to use an old cliche. May be it's impossible to keep politics out of it and then we need to find a way to manage it.
Thanks for the link to VAHS - think that's a really useful review- gives a lot of detail I left out and I have a lot of sympathy with the argue than suggest for how we can see the future more optimistically.
Money and funding is an important part of this- but I'd argue it often restricts the terms of the debate to one where the voluntary sector's left putting its case with one arm tied behind it's back.
For example, take the recent call/proposal in the Giving White paper for voluntary volunteer managers from the civil service - recently highlighted by a paper from ResPublica. This is where we're in a lose lose situation for the cause of the professionalisation of volunteer managers. We not recognised as a profession in our own right by the state, and yet the state wants a big part in shaping the development of volunteer management in the future. Somehow volunteer managers need to get the recognition and freedom and complete autonomy to drive its own development as a profession. Or is this wanting to have your cake and eat it too? Think this is the challenge insititiutionalisation of volunteering lays out.
Thanks MJR. Think you put the issue really succinctly with your example of the economy. In a way, government actions are inevitably (directly or indirectly) going to impact on the voluntary sector. Take the example you cite: macro-economic policy. It can affect how much time we have to volunteer. In this way, it's difficult to escape the conclusion that the state's involved in one way or another, consciously or unconsciously. And there's a case for saying that the vol sector needs to be able to flag up the impact policy is having, whether or not it was originally designed to impact on the vol sector.
I really like the example of the do-ocracy- this should be used much more to describe how volunteering creates impact and why it needs to be arms-length from the state.
In terms of professionalisation, I think it goes beyond money and being paid to do a job (and therefore having a vested interest in a certain position). I think the state is significant in the issue of professionalisation because it's a source of prestige, status and authority- all things that could bolster nascent professionalisation in the vol sector.
Not sure about framework- would be good to get your take more on what that would look like. Think I'm just saying that there's a dynamic relationship there that exists (between state and vol sector) which we need to understand better (and the direction it's going in).
When politics are brought into this argument, a tangential discussion can easily ensue, but when the question is about the institutionalising of volunteering, it's a bit inevitable that politics gets in there.
The factor I would concentrate on is funding. It could be argued that the more the state funds the voluntary sector - the more institutionalised it becomes (...the payer of the piper calls the tune...?)
...and we have had a year where commentators and practitioners have described the funding cuts as a fig-leaf for Big Society.
http://www.vahs.org.uk/2012/01/rochester-zimmeck-review-2011/
But there are many that complain that the government has too much control over the voluntary and community sector, and the VCS needs to fight for its independence.
It would appear on the face of it, at each end of the spectrum a voluntary community organisation is either:
(i) Funded by government and at risk of becoming institutionalised, or
(ii) Funded by wider society and independent.
It appears that people should limit their complaining to either the funding cuts, or the lack of independence. However I've heard people complaining (sometimes bitterly) about both issues...
Once the state is involved, it's not purely volunteering. It's some sort of government-supported arms length civil society.
Is that healthy? I tend to think it isn't, because it reduces both the democracy (if it even existed - the state funds many undemocratic foundations in preference to democratic associations working in the same fields, which I feel is a shame) and the do-ocracy (be reducing the need for supporters to commit time to do tasks).
What is the benefit of government involvement in civil society? The main one I can see might be where a government has "got it wrong" and tipped the country into recession somehow, thereby reducing the amount of volunteering time available, so the government involvement is compensating for their past mistake. Of course, such involvement should be clearly exceptional and time-limited.
Are there other possible benefits of state involvement that I'm not seeing?
Professionalism in the voluntary sector is not necessarily a good thing. At its most basic, a professional is someone who is paid to profess a particular view. Do we really want more people working in the voluntary sector simply because it pays well, rather than because they believe in the cause? I've no problem with well-paid volunteers, but let's say no to the professional foul!
If there's no other benefit, then I believe that the state should set a framework for volunteer societies and then generally keep out of the way. In fact, I'd say it should do the minimum possible to create the framework because the recent past is littered with projects that looked like horrendous market-perverting civil-society-corrupting wastes of money to me, which I feel caused damage to all sectors.
Thanks Steve really appreciate having your thoughts. I really like the freedom and discipline idea. I'm wondering whether the discipline kicks in in terms of working to ensure the extent to which the volunteering in question is socially beneficial.
I guess part of the reason I posted this was that I'm really interested in bringing out all the different tensions and balances that come into play when the state gets involved in volunteering in some way. When it's individuals prerogative, you volunteer in whatever you like. However, that shifts the more the state gets involved- hence the idea of thinking more at the moment about what institutionalisation of volunteering means.
One tension for example is the state allowing volunteering that works change the state, i.e. (on a spectrum- campaign, protest, demonstration through to political activism). I like paraphrasing the old George Orwell quote about liberty:
"Volunteering, if it means anything at all, it means the right to do what some people don't want done (for the benefit of others who do)."
Thanks for the summary and pointers Patrick – really useful!
It certainly appears that volunteering arguably needs a mixture of freedom and discipline to be healthy phenomena.
On the one hand freedom unfettered, can be frenzied, hyperactive, enlightened, qualitative, flexible, and based on ‘home-grown’ wisdom.
On the other hand discipline unfettered, can be tedious, quantitative, concrete, and based on ‘scientific’ wisdom.
The other main reflection that comes to mind is the importance of developing a climate for learning between people – rather than relying on a few learned people. Volunteering is like a blob of mercury – you think you’ve put your finger on it and it squishes away in another direction. If we rely on the thinking of a few ‘experts’ to determine our direction, then we are basing our actions on too limited a spectrum of volunteering, which will inhibit progress.
So to return to (or rather refer to!) your original question of ‘Should volunteering be institutionalised by the State?’, it would appear that:
(i) Volunteering cannot be institutionalised (based on the ‘blob of mercury’ principle)
(ii) Freedom is a crucial element, however if volunteering was left to itself, it could become too chaotic for effective learning and development to take place.
(iii) Discipline is important, however this can shackle inspired thought and action.
Therefore I see a joint responsibility between the state and the volunteering community.
The State needs to create an environment where freedom and discipline in the development of volunteering are not mutually exclusive, and those involved in leading volunteering (at any level) have a role to play in developing ‘pan-universal’ knowledge and practice, so volunteering can live, breathe and have its being.