Rural volunteering

Volunteering adds value everywhere, but can make a particularly big difference in rural communities that lack the infrastructure of urban areas.

In 2022 convened an expert panel from our member organisations Rural Service Network, the Plunkett Foundation, Action with Communities in Rural England (ACRE) and the National Association of Local Councils (NALC).

Working with the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) we discussed how to support volunteering in rural areas and formulated key recommendations.

These included ‘rural-proofing’ volunteering policies and practices by teaming larger national charities resources around marketing and recruitment with smaller local organisations’ greater access to community resources and assets, to improve overall volunteering infrastructure across the whole country.