Volunteering Futures

Making Volunteering Fun, Easy and Accessible to All

CLIENT

Arts Council England

Volunteering is known to be one of the most rewarding and beneficial activities for our wellbeing that we can do. However, whilst many of us want to get involved, there can be lots of barriers stopping us from doing so. Launched by DCMS in 2021, the Volunteering Futures Fund set out to address this exact problem by supporting high quality volunteering opportunities for young people, and those experiencing barriers to volunteering, across arts, sports and other community settings.

Working alongside Creative BasildON, Achieve Thrive Flourish (ATF), Trust Links and Basildon, Billericay and Wickford CVS (BBWCVS) we led a successful bid, attracting £250,000 of investment into volunteering in Basildon. Three full-time Volunteer Coordinators were recruited to work with local organisations, residents, and social prescribers to identify new opportunities and support growth of volunteering activity.

Over two years, 200 individual projects were delivered across the Borough with over 50 project partners, engaging 6769 volunteers. The creation of a Volunteering Passport for Basildon enabled organisations and potential volunteers to work collaboratively together, sharing resources and opportunities.

Volunteering Futures generated major learnings, demonstrating that volunteering significantly increases physical activity, reduces loneliness and increases feelings of community belonging, all whilst improving skill level and capacity.

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‘My confidence has grown from volunteering. I know that I can do it now and I look at other things in my life as well and think oh yeah, I can probably do that as well. It has given me confidence all round doing everything.’

– Local Resident

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