The Voluntary Sector

Overview of the voluntary sector: its history, importance and current responsibilities. Practical guidance and analysis of issues facing voluntary sector including its legal framework in UK and EU, fundraising, management and accountability.

Voluntary organizations have moved from the margins to the centre of policy discussions in Canada, and citizens and politicians now view them in a new way. Rachel Laforest shows how members of voluntary organizations have struggled for a stronger voice in policy making and redefined their relationship to the federal government through key collaborations. This vivid account of how a loose coalition of organizations was transformed into a distinct sector offers a new conceptual framework for explaining dynamic state-voluntary sector relations at all levels of government.

Voluntary Organizations and Public Sector Delivery examines how aspects of voluntary sector employment are affected by its engagement with the growing trend to the market-based outsourcing in the delivery of public services within industrialized countries. The volume draws together a team of well-recognized academic contributors from the UK, Canada, Australia and the United States to explore how the process of outsourcing is impacting the internal and external labor markets of voluntary organizations, and the implications for the policy objectives underlying the externalization of the delivery of public services to them. These themes of change in employment are covered in depth in the UK with dedicated chapters exploring, workforce patterns and skill needs, HR policies and practices, recruitment and selection, graduate recruitment, unionization, pay and conditions and psychological contracts in organizations. The book also contains a significant international comparative dimension with individual chapter analysis of employment issues in Australia, Canada and the United States, as well as an Anglo-German comparison.

Experts in Canadian policy examine the shifting relationship between federal government and the voluntary sector.

A comprehensive guide to charities and voluntary organizations in the UK and abroad. CONTENTS: Understanding the voluntary sector - working in the voluntary sector - finding the right work for you - looking at opportunities for young people - giving your free time - making a career in the voluntary sector - moving up, moving on - working overseas - working with people - working for animals and the environment

In the 1990s the voluntary and charity sector is being forced to become an increasingly important provider of health and social welfare in Britain. How can it respond to this pressure, who is running it and how should it be managed? As well as offering a full overview of the voluntary sector the editors and contributors: examine its history and importance within welfare provision explore its current position and responsibilities offer practical guidance for and analysis of the issues facing the voluntary sector today including its legal framework in the UK and EU, fundraising management and accountability. An Introduction to the Voluntary Sector will be invaluable reading to all students and lecturers of social policy and organisational studies as well as to professional policy-makers and voluntary sector personnel.

This new book addresses the topical issues surrounding employment relations in UK voluntary organizations that operate within the quasi-market of social care. Combining an analysis of the established literature with in-depth qualitative field work, Ian Cunningham explores the nature of power relations between state and voluntary sector; implications of employment policy and subsequent pressures for change in pay and working conditions; the influence of trade unions in the sector; management’s capacity to resist external pressure and employee responses to this environment. Cunningham’s focus on the employment relationship in this sector is unique, highlighting a complex and variable pattern of interdependence and subordination between government agencies and voluntary sector employers. The author examines the way in which financial pressures from the state coupled with weak unionization diminish working conditions, arguing that employee morale will not be sustained if the voluntary sector fails to maintain its autonomy and minimize its dependency on state funding.

This text offers a perspective on welfare politics in Britain which shows that Britain has always had a mixed economy of welfare with the voluntary sector playing a major role. It traces the ideas of the Charity Organisation Society, which became the Family Welfare Association in 1946.