Community and voluntary action UK

Community and voluntary action can contribute to resilient, thriving, empowered and unique communties.

Community and voluntary action for sustainability has common and overlapping interest with the wider community and voluntary sector. Both have an interest in the capacity and well-being of the sector as a whole - the extent to which community and voluntary action, especially at the local level, can thrive.

Both can be allies within partnerships. Representatives from the more formal voluntary sector have a wealth of experience, whilst sustainability brings a unifying vision. At the local level, in different areas different kinds of agencies may be the most natural allies, or potential allies, to local action for sustainability. In the UK for example, in some areas it may be Councils for Voluntary Service, in others it may be Volunteer Centres or Rural Community Councils.

• WWOOF UK
• Projects, experiments.friendsoftheearth.uk, Steal our ideas, Please take the ideas we love but cannot work on, experiments.friendsoftheearth.uk
• National Coalition for Independent Action
• The Conservation Volunteers Green Gym programme aims to provide people with a way to enhance their fitness and health while taking action to improve the outdoor environment. It can be seen as enabling people to get fit who would not normally attend a conventional gym or sports centre. ^W
• Volunteering England
• National Association for Voluntary and Community Action, national membership body for local support and development organizations in England. It is a registered charity, based in Sheffield, and was previously called the National Association of Councils for Voluntary Service (NACVS). NAVCA is a strategic partner of the Department of Health (government) and the Cabinet Office's Office for Civil Society. ^W
• National Council for Voluntary Organizations, umbrella body for the voluntary and community sector in England. NCVO works to support the voluntary and community sector and to create an environment in which an independent civil society can flourish. NCVO has a membership of over 10,000 voluntary organizations. These range from large national bodies to community groups, volunteer centres, and development agencies working at a local level. ^W

• Research for the Home Office Citizenship Survey 2001 showed that just under two fifths of people took part in formal volunteering (39%, taking part at least once in the last 12 months), whilst two thirds of people (67%) volunteered informally...Home Office Research Development Statistics link not found, June 2015
• "Research guesses put the number of under-the-radar groups at around 900,000." Navca...civilsociety.co.uk, 19 Dec 2011
• OpenCharities, A quick and simple project to open up the information on the UK's Register of Charities, and make it available to the community in a variety of forms. It's built by the people behind OpenlyLocal.com, a project to open up local government data and other local public sector information...opencharities.org
• NCVO UK Civil Society Almanac, statistics on the Voluntary Sector and Civil Society in the UK

• Wikipedia: Charities based in the United Kingdom (category)
• Charity Commission for England and Wales, non-ministerial government department that regulates registered charities in England and Wales. ^W
• Civil Society Futures, PACT, putting it into practice
• KnowHow NonProfit

Research

• Civil Society Futures, "a national conversation about how English civil society can flourish in a fast changing world"

See also: Community currencies UK, Rural sustainability UK, Urban sustainability UK

local information can be found, or shared, via our many UK location pages