ABSTRACT
Volunteering is assumed to be a defining characteristic of the charity sector. Volunteers fulfil a wide range of roles in charities with running events being the most popular, followed by administrative work and fundraising. Skills-based volunteering is significantly different from more generic volunteering. As charities have taken on more public service contracts and greater attention has been paid to safeguarding vulnerable people, volunteers’ roles have also changed. Charities now navigate funding and regulatory requirements when they decide to take on volunteers, and this has led to a shift in the types of roles where volunteers are sought. Big Society encapsulated the fantasy of the charity: projects set up by motivated local people who were, by their very local-ness, best-placed to solve local problems. In addition to limits on the availability of volunteers there are further limitations on the extent to which volunteering, and volunteer preferences, support the operational models of charities today.
