Thank you for not asking, but we do not want a national volunteering platform.

I have worked at all levels of the VCS over the years and have pretty much settled down from being angry to being simply annoyed and grumpy. But what does make me angry is the national parachute jumpers who all to frequently land in my local area with their big ideas, big budgets and unwanted interventions.

The latest of these is the Big Help Out. Sorry to those of you working on this I will try not to be angry with you just with the whole misguided idea. I will ask if you hate me and my team, if you were deliberately planning on making our lives harder, or if you haven’t really thought this through and simply taken the governments shilling.

Over the pandemic we watched jealously those areas that had a local volunteering platform. We didn’t have one and it made our life harder, but it cemented in our minds that we wanted one for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. We worked together to find the funding, identify the platform, and develop the sites. We now have two great sister sites that we are all rightly proud of (links in the comments). So, after a soft launch in November last year and a proper launch a month ago (which is still going and won’t stop) what we needed most was a national site and campaign to muddy the waters for potential volunteers and local organisations.

Volunteering is almost totally a local thing, I would love to be a RNLI volunteer crew member but living in Cambridge means that it is not an opportunity open to me (I know I could take on other roles, but I want to be on a boat, at least in my heart). To truly grow volunteering numbers and embed it in people’s lives what we need is well supported and well resourced local sites that cover the country, and these exist in many places but often with precarious funding and support. We do not need a national campaign. It is at the local level that investment should be made. We are in it for the long hall and will be there to support both volunteers and the organisations recruiting them in many ways apart from just the site. Sure, some help with improving our media work would not go amiss. I am also up for a national platform but one that linked to the local sites via a map or postcode search and NOT a national database or site that replicates what is happening locally.

We are already matching volunteers and organisations, building volunteer numbers, supporting those with barriers to take the first steps into volunteering, helping organisations deliver safe and attractive volunteering programmes, and encouraging businesses to see the value of volunteering beyond simply painting a fence.

So, I am sorry if anyone contacts me about this (or any other parachute initiative) and I am more than my usual grumpy self. I really do want to encourage more people to volunteer, I am sure there are things I could learn and I really do need more funding to make a real go of it, so come offering support, offering funding, and asking how you can help build Volunteer Cambs. Do not come with a national website that detracts from what we are doing locally. Do not parachute in, knock politely and ask how you can help us and then wait to be invited in. Do not talk about numbers like they are impact and expect me to be impressed.

Changing attitudes to volunteering and making it stick takes time. It is about supply and demand. It is about building relationships and trust.

Most importantly it is something that should be done locally.