I’ve just come back from being on the BBC Breakfast sofa talking about volunteering. As is always the case with these things, it’s all very rushed and last minute and it’s over in a flash. Actually that’s one of good things in a sense because it gives you less time to panic! It was a great opportunity to fly the flag for volunteering in the middle of Volunteers Week and to talk about the sheer wealth of volunteering which happens in Manchester, as one exampleof the amazing work of volunteers across the whole country.
I talked about the 94,000 volunteers who give their time in Manchester. Of course you don’t get time to go into this in any kind of detail in a 2 minute slot on breakfast TV. So here is a bit more…
In 2013 we published our State of the Sector report. This told us that there are 3093 voluntary and community organisations in Manchester. Within those organisations are 94,300 volunteers contributing an estimated 370,400 hours of their own time per week. So from that you can get to a figure of £121million if those hours were paid for at National Minimum Wage (though of course it should be Living Wage anyway!).
When we looked at what roles those volunteers were doing this is what we saw
• 20 per cent of volunteers were in management roles, including committee/board members
• 9 per cent of volunteers were in administrative roles
• 68 per cent of volunteers were in roles delivering services.
Of course that’s not all the volunteering which goes on in Manchester. For example it doesn’t include
• One-offs and occasional events like litter clean-ups , running marathons to raise funds,
• Volunteering within public services: e.g. school governors, GM Police Special constables, etc.
• General “good neighbourliness”
• Unpaid carers
So even though the figure of 94,000 is hugely impressive it’s by no means the full picture of voluntary action in the local community. We’re even better than that! Volunteering is much more fundamental to our community and our economy than is generally realised. It’s part of the social glue which binds the public and private economies together.
That’s why we need to nurture volunteering and support volunteers. One of the things I’m proudest of in my time at Macc is that we were finally able to fill in a long-standing gap in Manchester when we opened the city’s Volunteer Centre at the beginning of 2012: we’re already past our 8000th registered volunteer. Volunteering is continuing to evolve, but there’s no shortage of people wanting to get involved.
We’re also continuing to work with the local voluntary sector to develop voluntary action – our next Voluntary Sector Assembly at the end of June will be focused on volunteering. You can book a place at the event here: Voluntary Sector Assembly
So despite all the nerves, it was great to have a little moment this morning literally under a spotlight on national TV to talk about volunteering.
And yet the thing that I was kicking myself for as I left the Breakfast studio was not that I hadn’t managed to get all this detail into the conversation. That's the nature of it.
No, what I really wished I'd managed to say, in the middle of Volunteers Week, was simply “thank you” to everyone who has given up their time, energy, skills, money and ideas whether it’s in a voluntary group, charity or any capacity.
Above all the soundbites, the strategy and the statistics, just that: THANK YOU.
Update
And here is me managing not to say all of that live on national television.! Thanks to my sofa neighbour Beth Pipe (@CumbrianRambler) for sharing and the BBC.