Keeping Volunteers Safe: Restarting your Volunteer Programme

2.1. Volunteering is a Choice

The Scottish Government’s Volunteering for All – A National Framework, states that

“Volunteering is a choice. A choice to give time or energy, a choice undertaken of one’s own free will and a choice not motivated for financial gain or for a wage or salary”.

Informal volunteering can include individual activities such as helping a neighbour, or group activities such as taking a friend’s children to school, without involving a group. Then there are forms of community action or social participation that can include residents’ committees or a community centre, where groups and group or organisations will often be involved to enable the voluntary activity. There is also formal volunteering, where you commit to giving your time to a group, such as fundraising in a local charity shop (see Figure 4).

Figure 4: The Scottish Government’s Volunteering for All – A National Framework (Crown Copyright, with permission)