Lincolnshire Vision for Volunteering was launched by Lincolnshire Voluntary and Community Partnership in June 2024 and ties into the national Vision for Volunteering.
The national Vision is a ten-year collaborative project involving NAVCA, NCVO, Volunteering Matters, DCMS, AVM and Muslim Charities Forum.
It is designed to create a better future for volunteering by exploring what volunteering could look like, especially in our post-Covid world and how volunteers feel about their roles, including those who have never volunteered before, or who don’t know where to start looking for volunteering.
It is all about empowering local communities through social action.
The aim is that the Vision would be fully implemented by 2032, but with a great deal of learning and innovation along the way.
There are 5 themes that underpin this vision:
We launched the Lincolnshire Vision for Volunteering on 12th June 2024 via a conference aimed at Volunteer Managers, titled ‘Building Lincolnshire’s Vision for Volunteering’.
Through support from a range of sponsors, one of whom designed our Lincolnshire Vision logo, we attracted 100 delegates from VCSE organisations across the county.
There is definitely an appetite to change the way we do things, grow and develop volunteering across the county.
As well as hosting a great networking experience, we used the conference as a mechanism for dialogue to discuss the 5 themes of the national Vision and to gain insight into what a Lincolnshire Vision for Volunteering might look like.
This work continues through the Volunteer Managers’ Network, our Forums and other events and activities that we host aimed at organisations.
As part of this on-going piece of work, we are keen to partner with as many organisations and stakeholders as we can across the county, to develop and deliver the best range of volunteering opportunities and make Lincolnshire a great place to volunteer.
We strongly believe that everyone can make a difference and we want to inspire people to do so.
That’s why in 2025, we are focusing on Equity and Inclusion and Power as our key themes.
Our Volunteer Centre service has been greatly enhanced through ‘Team Kinetic’, our Volunteer Management platform which is enabled through partnership with LVET.
This is having a big impact on the way we are able to connect with people.
Within its first year, 1,400 volunteers registered on the system (January 2024 to January 2025), but we know that for many people (about 30% of the population), digital services are not easy to access and we want to hear from them.
With this in mind, we have been running a series of Marketplace events for the community and we will be holding further listening events throughout the year.
These are aimed at people who may never have considered volunteering and we are offering these events in parts of the county where it may not be quite so easy to visit one of our nationally accredited Volunteer Centres in person.
We want to listen particularly to voices that are often not heard and therefore could be easily missed. Again, we are hoping that this will be a collaborative piece of work, engaging a wide range of partners, as well as grassroots engagement.
Our hope is to gather as many voices as we can, experiment, promote and create a culture where volunteering is highly valued and is a dynamic force for good.
We would also like to know what isn’t working, to see what can be done differently. This gives us our focus for the future and means that we will be working with as many partners as we can, to spread the word across the county.
Above all, we want action rather than words, but for this to happen, we first need to listen carefully.
We would love to hear from you if you are keen to join us in this venture.
