August 2011
Civic Agenda Briefing Volunteering & Digital _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Introduction Volunteering and community action forms a key pillar of the Government’s Big Society agenda, set out in the Giving White Paper of May 2011, for empowering individuals and communities to “give time and money and so make the change they want to see”1. The Government is working to foster a culture of giving both time and money by making it easier for citizens to volunteer and “determine the shape”2 of their neighbourhoods as part of its localism agenda3. The “measures to encourage volunteering and involvement in social action” set out in the Building the Big Society report4 are part of an agenda for more citizen-‐ and community-‐centric local governance and provision of services. This policy is also reflected in the Open Public Services White Paper which calls for greater Government accountability and transparency through making data and transaction applications available online, and a Channel Shift in Government-‐citizen interaction and provision of public services to digital channels which are open to public feedback. The Government is looking to volunteers to help deliver this policy, and to realise the aim of solely Digital by Default services, through a strategy of Assisted Digital, by which the 8.7m adults currently offline are brought online through a combination of mediated access and skills transfer. Social engagement through digital The internet offers both Government and voluntary organisations opportunities to publicise, organise and deliver their voluntary initiatives, and to engage with users directly. Social media is an increasingly popular focus of users’ time online, with Facebook witnessing an 18% increase in unique visitors between July 2009 and July 2010 to over 25 million (6.76% of total internet site visits from the UK5). Integration with, and publicising through social media sites therefore offers voluntary organisations the opportunity to leverage existing communities and social groupings to help encourage participation in their projects. There are a series of dedicated volunteering social media sites, such as i-‐volunteer, dedicated to connecting potential volunteers to available opportunities through a system whereby individuals set up detailed profiles about themselves, their skills, the sort of work they are looking to do and their volunteer status (whether they are currently available to volunteer or not). Furthermore, Prime Minister David Cameron is looking to the promotional value of online social networks as a means of more effectively delivering Big Society policy aims for greater levels of volunteering: “If Facebook simply added a social action line to their standard profile, this would do more to create a new social norm around volunteering or charitable giving than any number of government campaigns.”6 1
Giving White Paper, May 2011, p. Cabinet Office, Building the Big Society, May 2010. 3 The Government sets out its complete localism policy in the Localism Bill, before Parliament as of September 2011. 4 Cabinet Office, Building the Big Society, May 2010. 5 eMarketer, UK Internet Users and Usage: Top 2010 Trends, November 2010, pp. 6-‐7. 6 Prime Minister David Cameron, The Big Society speech, 10/11/09. 2