Sleepwalking to oblivion?
‘What will the volunteering infrastructure look like after 20% cuts?’
That was a question that wasn’t asked at The House Magazine conference: ‘promoting and Expanding Volunteering in the UK: Innovative opportunities for communities, economies and individuals’ that took place in London yesterday – but perhaps it should have been.
References to ‘the recession’ and ‘tough times’ were made, but I had expected the event to be dominated by the economic conditions and the prospects for reduced funding from donors, central and local government... and it wasn't (unless it boiled over in the afternoon session, which unfortunately I missed)
The issues discussed were interesting – including the current state of volunteering research, the importance of volunteering for refugee women, the achievements of v and some of the outcomes of the Commission on the Future of Volunteering – but the main speakers made relatively little reference to the current political situation.
The most engaging part of the event was when delegates used keypads to vote on a range of issues. In answer to a question about whether the recession was a threat to volunteering or an opportunity, a surprisingly small 16% thought it was a threat. Far more (39%) thought it was an opportunity, with about the same (41%) saying it was equal part threat and opportunity.
However, delegates were clear about what was happening to public expenditure, with 66% saying that they expected funding for volunteering to be cut.
Perhaps it’s just too soon to know what the implications of the coalition government’s programme will be. They say that they are committed to volunteering, but we also know there will be less money. Who knows how it will play out in the end?
Terry Ryall, chief executive of v, suggested that while direct funding will be cut for volunteering, there will be more opportunities in areas like promoting volunteering to promote employability. So perhaps, with great voluntary sector ingenuity and creativity, it will all be okay in the end.
Or perhaps not. Perhaps, like British society as a whole, the volunteering sector still hasn't grasped the scale and implications of the spending cuts to come.
Also surprising, in a morning that was looking at 'innovative opportunities', was the lack of mention of online communications in general and social media in particular. In response to a question (from me) about social media Jo Sullivan explained how Guide Dogs were making very successful first steps, but none of the other panellists gave it a mention.
Replying to my tweet on this omission @paddaniels tweeted that the 'worry now is that volunteer managers see social media as peripheral to volunteering and leave funding issues to fundraisers'.
I agree. Social media is already a communications revolution and it has huge potential to engage people with charities in new ways, linking volunteering with donating, campaigning and genuine consultation. But it will only happen if we are open to it.
@nic I think parts of the voluntary sector have started using social media but I'd like to see organisations using it to engage with people (including traditional volunteers) in a new way; making them genuine participants in the organisation's work (see link from @JamieT above). I don't think that's happening much. Social media still seems to be seen largely as a top down tool for disseminating an organisation's message.
@padddaniels - thanks for the excellent round-up. I guess the danger for organisations is that they put so much effort into working out how to leverage funds that they lose focus on what they actually want to do.
@MeeraV95 - I did put a question mark after the title... ;-)
@HelenP - agreed, the morning seriously failed to live up to its billing (apart from the interactive voting, which was interesting)
Sounds like it was a pretty naff event all round - I had a quick look at the agenda which included things like looking at new ways to promote volunteering and at the opportunities that the new Government's Big Society programme would bring. Not including social media in this context seems absurd to me, but perhaps this is down to the event planners just not understanding this agenda?
Sorry to hear @HelenP that you found the response from one of the panel as patronising and condescending - we should expect better from our sector leaders, it's one thing to not agree with a point of view but quite another to be rude and unhelpful.
At the end of the day if I'd paid £225 for a day, especially in these challenging economic times, I'd be miffed if the day did not deliver what it said it would!
I attended this event and had high hopes for it. Frankly I was disappointed. The event itself was very well organised, lovely venue and lunch and it was useful to meet the speakers and network with others who appeared to have the same opinion as me - interesting event but it didn't do what it said on the tin.
The morning of the event was billed (the afternoon achieved its stated objective):
The morning of this Policy and Practice Briefing will provide delegates a forum to discuss and be informed on current thinking and debates on volunteering in Britain, from both the Government and opposition, as well as experts in the field. Delegates will gain a comprehensive view of current issues and thinking.
IT DID NOT DO THIS. No-one was there from the Nick Hurd's team. No-one was there from NCVO, VE, NAVCA, AVM, GLV - Where they not invited??. No-one (from what I can determine) was there from 'within Westminster and Whitehall'.
The morning speakers gave admirable acounts of themselves and what Jo Sullivan had to say about post Comm of the Future of Volunteering work was useful.
But as for 'gaining a comprehensive view of current issues and thinking', I know more from my own research on the web.
As the morning session was entitled: 'Current and Future policy: Potential Changes, Stronger Structures and Greater Profile' and this was within the days' theme of 'Promoting and Expanding Volunteering in the UK: Innovative opportunities for communitie, economies and individuals', I expected a few issues to be high on the agenda - use of social media, the implications or perceived impact of the ISA Vetting & Barring regs and process, The Olympics 2012 community legacy (fact or nice fiction), the shape (maybe unknown) of the new Civil Society office or whatever the OTS has morphed into, How can we use the Compact (David Cameron's favoured mechanism) to manage the potential and threat presented by macro-environmental change (which includes funding cuts)? and so on.
Tom Green raised the issue of Social Media (which is an innovative tool that wasn't on the agenda specifically and I raised the issue of the ISA/V&B fears (which was on the agenda). We both got fobbed off with one panel members' response to each question. In my case Terry Ryall's response was both patronising and condescending and several people came back to me at the lunch break to express their feelings about this.
My feeling is that the event did not deliver what is said it would. Maybe it was too early after the election result to run an event like this. Maybe the agenda didn't reflect the reality of what could be delivered at this time.
Although the afternoon session was interesting and DID do what it said on the agenda, the organisation I work for paid good money for me to attend this evetn and I don't think we gor what we paid for.
Having said all that - I made use of the opportunity to meet some very helpful and useful people and so it was not a wasted day. But the questions the event promotion material rasied where not addressed. And that is a shame.
Great piece Tom, gives a good flavour for what was dicussed - or not - at the event. I'm amazed that social media was not mentioned; if we're looking at new ways to enable communities to mobilise and come together then social media has a massive role to play, especially as most of the key platforms are free to use, and others, like ours, cost little to run. @Nic you raise some good points, I suspect v's reference to employability points towards where they will need to go in order to maintain their funding as I would not be at all surprised if they end up running the proposed National Service scheme. You'd also be surpised at how few volunteering organisations are engaging with social media right now and ther is much to do to show them how it can enhance their work. But I think there real take up here will be groups and communities doing their own thing, mobilising themselves to tackle issues they care about and using social media as tools to facilitate this. A while ago Tom wrote an excellent piece on how government and charities might look to the lessons of Web 2.0 - link here - whereby they look to provide the tools for people to mobilise themselves and focus less on actually delivering everything directly; I think conceptually this is really interesting...
This is a very intersting article. Thanks Tom for the update, very interesting title "sleepwalking to oblivion". I think that as a sector we are very adaptable and creative, more so than any other sector. After George Osbourne spending cut review, few questions like will their be a funding cut in tthe third sector? How can we carrry out the activity at lower cost? Will funding be available with different objectives? I found your comments on Social Media very interesting and I feel it will take some time for organisation to move from traditional methods and embrace it .
Thanks Tom for this round up of the event. I think we're starting to get a better idea of how the government is approaching cuts to spending. Yesterday George Osbourne announced the framework for the spending review (PDF). Here are some questions which the voluntary sector, amongst others, will be asked in the days/weeks ahead:
Is the activity essential to meet Government priorities?
Does the Government need to fund this activity?
Does the activity provide substantial economic value?
Can the activity be targeted to those most in need?
How can the activity be provided at lower cost?
How can the activity be provided more effectively?
Can the activity be provided by a non-state provider or by
citizens, wholly or in partnership?
Can non-state providers be paid to carry out the activity
according to the results they achieve?
Can local bodies as opposed to central government provide the
activity?
For me one of the key questions is about the emphasis on 'economic value'. I think that if we government's interest in volunteering is that which provides economic value we set for even more emphasis on employability type outcomes for volunteering programmes. (Or we need to get creative about the economic value of volunteering :-))
In terms of the 'Big Society' stuff, it seems (although this is not yet entirely clear) that the strategy may be for Big Society ideas to leverage more private funds, rather state funds. This emphasis on private, as opposed to state funding, seems to be key in the approach of people like the Govt's new advisor on the Big Society Nat Wei have taken in the past. Whatever happens it's clear a debate about this issues is in the offing and so we need to be marshalling our arguments.
This is a very interesting article. I do think that the very best of the sector is highly adaptable and creative, perhaps more so than any other sector. There is little question that if public sector funding is cut this must impact on the third sector. Perhaps even more significant than that though is the idea that this coalition is likely to have an entirely different base approach to the sector. What funding may be available may well be attached to entirely different objectives. It is interesting to me that v considers that additional funding may be available for volunteering with the object of increasing employability - while this has always been a significant benefit, especially for young people, other countries such as Australia will tell you the rules change when you start engaging in 'work experience' which is what this becomes when you remove the voluntary aspect of it. Very interested in your comments on social media - I had thought that the third sector had broadly embraced it but it appears I am wrong.