This is another post in the series about third sector organisations. Today it’s voluntary organisations.
I’ve heard there was no such thing as the voluntary sector until the 1970s and I do have a slight recollection of the idea becoming current around the time I started as a community development worker. Of course, there were any number of charities, mutuals and self-help groups going way back but these did not self-identify as voluntary sector organisations until the 70s.
I’m not convinced it was a positive move. The idea of mutuals is people work together to benefit together, an idea that survives in an attenuated form within community organisations and some co-ops.
In voluntary organisations though, the volunteer works for someone; typically a wealthy professional voluntary sector organisation delivers services through the agency of volunteers recruited, trained and supported by paid staff.
The old Councils for Voluntary Service, now Voluntary Actions, tried to count community groups as voluntary sector. But are they? Community organisations whilst finding Voluntary Actions helpful, have been a little suspicious, they were not exactly in the same game.
A community organisation is typically a self-help group, they’re not volunteers but work for themselves. Indeed some community organisations employ staff. We can use the term volunteer loosely to cover self-help but I think we should attend to the nature of community organisations more carefully.
The way in which local authorities for example, expect local people to take part in their schemes can be particularly galling. I’m sure this attitude depends on the idea members of community groups are volunteers. It is little wonder from time to time members of community groups ask to be paid.
They may have a point but there is a place for self-help groups and if people always expect to be paid, most would never get off the ground and their members would not experience the benefits of community activism.
There may be a case for local people getting together and establishing mutuals where they pay themselves for their community work. If groups can find ways to trade and benefit themselves and their neighbourhood, they should be encouraged and supported. Where this works it is likely to build more stable structures than the grant aided fiefdoms that periodically collapse, depriving local people of valued services.
Volunteers supported by grants have never been a stable way of developing community. A more entrepreneurial approach might be better all round.
Do you know of successful grant-free local enterprises, owned and run by local people?
