An author and volunteering expert has suggested volunteers should go on strike to show how vital their help is. Despite doing important work, say on search and rescue or supporting children at risk, Linda Graff says volunteers are not respected. Withdrawing their labour would, she suggests, be a good way to demonstrate the value and impact they have.
Dame Elisabeth Hoodless, the executive director of Community Service Volunteers (CSV), said volunteers make valuable contributions in many public services including schools, hospitals, prisons, crime prevention and social services, but policy-makers need evidence of the return on investment in volunteering.
Yet Graff's strike call does have its flaws. The problem is if volunteers are vital it would be irresponsible to withdraw their labour, and if they are not a strike may be pointless.
So how can volunteers show their impact? Well, just look at the election of Barack Obama, says David Blunkett. The former home secretary said Obama showed "the great things that can be achieved when you give people the chance to make a difference". Blunkett, giving a keynote speech at the CSV's conference for the Institute of Advanced Volunteer Management tomorrow, says: "Lives can be transformed through volunteering and we need to make it easier for people to get involved."
Maybe pressing for more recognition with an Obama-style community based campaign is a better way to show their impact and reach. Anyone for a volunteers' union?
