Academic Commentary: 'Toward Deeper Understandings of Volunteering Practice'

Abstract

Volunteering is on the rise. Sure, it has been around for over a century. And over the past decades, overall levels of voluntary activity have remained relatively stable in the UK. But what has been changing is the attention for volunteering and its centrality to the governance of Western societies (see, for example Bryer, 2014). We are witnessing increasing ambitions and expectations about how much people should volunteer and what voluntary organisations should achieve.