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VOLUNTEERING/
MORE ATTENTION
source: www.jhu.edu/~ccss/pubs/
pdf/globalciv.pdf
www.lse.ac.uk/collections/CCS/
pdf/CSWP_10_web.pdf
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Recent years have witnessed a considerable surge of interest throughout the world in the broad range of institutions that occupy the social space between the market and the state…- known variously as the ‘non-profit’, the ‘voluntary’, the ‘civil society’, the ‘third’, the ‘social economy’, the ‘NGO’, or the ‘charitable’ sector, this set of institutions includes within it a sometimes bewildering array of entities - hospitals, universities, social clubs, professional organizations, day care centers, grassroots development organizations, health clinics, environmental groups, family counseling agencies, self-help groups, religious congregations, sports clubs, job training centers, human rights organizations, community associations, soup kitchens, homeless shelters, and many more;
- a 2003 report provides an overview of the non-profit sector in 35 countries, including data on countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. “Global Civil Society: Dimensions of the Non-profit Sector” presents findings of the Johns Hopkins Comparative Non-profit Sector Project, including a country-by-country analysis. Researchers discovered that on average, volunteers accounted for more than 1/3 of non-profit labour, while in three countries – Sweden, Norway and Finland – volunteers made up more than 50% of non-profit labour. Globally, social services and culture and recreation non-profits accounted for more than half of volunteer time, while other areas accounted for only 5% to 8% each; (1)
- according to the report, of the 39.5 million FTE (Full Time Equivalent) civil society workers, approximately 16.8 million, or 43%, are volunteers and 22.7 million, or 57%, are paid workers. This demonstrates the ability of civil society organisations to mobilise sizable amounts of volunteer effort. In fact, the actual number of people involved in the civil society sector exceeds even these numbers since most volunteers work only a few hours a week and even many paid employees work part-time. The actual number of people volunteering for civil society organisations in the 35 countries analysed in this study, for example, exceeds 190 million. This represents over 20% of the adult population in these countries.
National governments across the globe are beginning to pay more attention to volunteering and want to support and encourage it… - for example, in the aftermath of the 1995 Kobe earthquake, Japan is considering ways and means to encourage volunteering; in 1999, the Labour government in Britain upgraded the Active Community Unit (formerly Voluntary Services Unit) in an effort to make volunteering and local community participation more a part of everyday life;
- similarly, other European countries like Italy or France have established volunteer centres to inform citizens about volunteer opportunities, and the Netherlands and Germany set up local co-ordinating agencies to match volunteers to organisations that might need them;
- and developing countries like Brazil are considering volunteering programmes for unemployed youths in urban areas as a way to combat crime and truancy among teenagers. (2)
(1) Salamon L. M., Sokolowski, S. W., and List R., “Global Civil Society. An Overview”, Center for Civil Society Studies, The Johns Hopkins University, 2003.
(2) Anheier, Helmut K.and Salamon, L. M. “Volunteering in Cross-national Perspective: Initial Comparisons.”, Civil Society Working Papers, Centre for Civil Society, LSE 10, 2001.
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