About the Plan

Accessing the plan

The Volunteering Action Plan aims to create a Scotland where everyone can volunteer, more often, and throughout their lives. Designed to provide actions over a 10‐year period as a living plan. It seeks to raise the profile of volunteering and its impact on society. You can access the full Volunteering Action Plan, or a useful summary, by clicking on the links below.

Goals

The Volunteering Action Plan aims to:

  • Increase volunteering participation by focusing on non-volunteers and lapsed volunteers, and especially those who will gain most benefit.
  • Listen to volunteers by ensuring the volunteer ‘voice’ is heard and that volunteers help make decisions that affect them
  • Widen access to volunteering by understanding and reducing the barriers to participation and supporting community-based, ‘place-making’ activities
  • Provide great experiences whereby volunteers feel supported, valued, and recognised for their contribution

Development and Background

The Plan was developed through a co-produced effort, with working groups mapping out strategies to drive change. Volunteers are integral to delivering services across Scotland, supporting communities, and preserving cultural assets. However, their role is often taken for granted, leading to a lack of strategic focus. The Volunteering Action Plan, building on the “Volunteering for All” framework, seeks to address this gap and promote equality in volunteering.

Volunteering For All Framework

Cross-Cutting Themes

  • Policy Impact: Volunteering is underrepresented in public policy, hindering engagement. A robust infrastructure is needed to ensure volunteering’s value is recognised across policy areas.
  • Funding for Success: To achieve the Plan’s goals, volunteering must be appropriately funded. This includes involving funders as co-creators and increasing the visibility of volunteering within third-sector funding.
  • Enabling Environment: A supportive environment is crucial for volunteering to thrive. This includes strong leadership, evidence-based strategies, continuous learning, and capacity building. Additionally, digital volunteering and resilience-building are key to future success.

Ideas into Action

Volunteering happens through the relationships between people, organisations, and places & spaces. Five Working Groups created a single high-level system map to inform ‘ideas for change’ and provide the basis for more detailed actions.

Action themes identified include:

  • To increase public awareness of volunteering, and to tackle stereotypes around what it is and who volunteers
  • To engage community assets, organisations, and local leadership to maximise the contribution of volunteering at the community level.
  • Increase the opportunities available to volunteer: widening the breadth of opportunities and increasing access for under-represented groups
  • Strengthen relationships between ‘volunteering’ and ‘community engagement’ partners, and between national and local stakeholders
  • Develop a targeted approach to new research evidence
  • Promote the ‘value’ of volunteering more widely.
  • Building knowledge and skills within inclusive volunteering, reducing bureaucracy, and widening standards of practice.

By focusing on these areas, the Volunteering Action Plan seeks to unlock the full potential of volunteering in Scotland, ensuring it is inclusive, well-supported, and strategically valued.

Contributors and Supporters

The ‘Plan’ is co-owned and we’d like to thank individuals from stakeholder organisations, many of whom gave up their time over more than a year to contribute to the development of the plan.

Chair: Natalie Masterson, CEO, Stirlingshire Voluntary Enterprise

  • Louise McGinty, Quarriers
  • Calum Irving, Scottish Government
  • Alan Stevenson, Volunteer Scotland
  • David McNeill, SCVO
  • Paul Reddish, Volunteering Matters
  • Paula Meise, Scottish Charity Regulator
  • Paul Okroj, Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland
  • Rachel Cackett, Samaritans Scotland
  • Ian McLaughlan, formerly Youth Scotland
  • Jen Reston, Aberlour
  • Mick Doyle, Scottish Community Development Centre
  • Debbie Adams, The Conservation Volunteers
  • Colin Lee, CEMVO
  • Kim Atkinson, Scottish Sports Association
  • Gün Orgun, Scottish Refugee Council
  • James Whyte, Sight Scotland
  • Sarah Latto, formerly Shelter Scotland

A management team with Volunteer Scotland driving the work and Scottish Government facilitating and supporting was established to support this process.

  • Calum Irving, Scottish Government
  • Fiona Zapirain, Scottish Government
  • Niall Kearney, Scottish Government
  • Hilary Morrison, Scottish Government
  • Ruth Hutton, Scottish Government
  • Alan Stevenson, Volunteer Scotland
  • Margaret Starkie, Volunteer Scotland
  • Adrian Murtagh, Volunteer Scotland
  • Matthew Linning, Volunteer Scotland

The following team members of Volunteer Scotland provided support relating to evidence, supporting working groups, document content and design, and website design.

  • Debbie Maltman, Volunteer Scotland
  • Gemma Jackson, Volunteer Scotland
  • Nicola Henderson, Volunteer Scotland
  • Rosie Abernethy, Volunteer Scotland
  • Sarah Latto, Volunteer Scotland
  • Working Group 1: Lifelong Engagement
    Chair: Tricia Imrie, Impact Funding Partners

  • Working Group 2: Policy Impact
    Chair: Selina Ross, West Dunbartonshire CVS (TSI)

  • Working Group 3: Recognition and Celebration
    Chair: Tamsin Ferrier, Volunteering Matters

  • Working Group 4: Places and Spaces
    Chair: Mandy Andrew, Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland

  • Working Group 5: Inclusive Volunteering
    Chair: Janice Malone, NHS Healthcare Improvement Scotland
  • Caroline McKenna, Social Good Connect
  • Beverley Francis, Volunteering Matters (Project Scotland)
  • Petra Biberbach PAS – Planning Aid for Scotland
  • Fleur Dijkman, PAS – Planning Aid for Scotland
  • Kirsty Gemmell, CLD Standards Council
  • Suzanne Macaulay, Volunteer Centre Western Isles
  • Jill Keegan, outside the box
  • George Eckton, Director of Advice Services, Citizens Advice Scotland
  • Jenni Snell, YouthLink Scotland
  • Eileen Cawley representing the Scottish Pensioners’ Forum on Older People’s Strategic Action Forum (OPSAF)
  • Eileen Cawley representing the Scottish Pensioners’ Forum on Older People’s Strategic Action Forum (OPSAF)
  • Catriona Mason, Seniors Together South Lanarkshire (Scottish Older People’s Assembly Trustee)
  • Maureen O’Neill, Faith in Older People
  • Stephen Penny, Lifelines Scotland (NHS Lothian)
  • Charlie Wallace, Volunteering, Engagement and Programme Manager, Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park
  • Douglas Guest, Home Start
  • Mike Melvin, ACVO
  • Mandy Burrell, Volunteering Matters
  • Kirsten Urquhart, Young Scot
  • Jim Duffy, Awards Network
  • Diane Waugh, SupportED The Community Eating Disorder Charity
  • Bella Kerr, Generations Working Together
  • Audrey Gatt, Voluntary Action South Ayrshire
  • Maureen Sier, Interfaith Scotland
  • Ben Thurman, Carnegie UK
  • Fiona Thomson, outside the box
  • Marion Findlay, Volunteer Edinburgh
  • Malcolm Dingwall-Smith, SportScotland
  • Miriam Leighton, Volunteer Midlothian
  • Jayne Stuart, ACOSVO
  • Lorraine Toner, Volunteering and Citizenship Manager, Glasgow Life
  • Irene Cree, Glasgow Life
  • Neil Ritch, The National Lottery Community Fund
  • Lori Hughes, PKAVS
  • Sharon Douglas, Fife Council
  • Helen McCabe, CEMVO Scotland
  • Laura Turney, Scottish Government
  • Charly Anderson, Volunteer Borders
  • Liz Wigelsworth, Head of Volunteering, Chest Heart Stroke Scotland
  • Jayne Laidlaw, Equal Futures
  • Chris Lau, Volunteer Centre Borders
  • Allan Lindsay, Young Scot
  • Mairi Allan, British Red Cross
  • Linda Cummings, Scottish Government
  • Catriona Maclean, Scottish Government
  • Louise White, Scottish Government
  • Paul Wilson, Volunteer Edinburgh
  • Rosie Wylie, Historic Environment Scotland
  • Alison Clyde, Generations Working Together
  • Sarah Van Putten, Befriending Networks
  • Alice McArdle formerly Voluntary Action South Ayrshire
  • David Maxwell, Volunteer Glasgow
  • Gregor Muir, Scottish Sports Association
  • Elaine Crichton, Inspiring Scotland
  • Naomi Mason, DTAS
  • Kevin Kane, YouthLink Scotland
  • Fiona Inglis, Impact Funding Partners
  • Stacey-Ann Lindsay, Scottish Government
  • Neil Bird, Trussell Trust
  • Ruth Noble, outside the box
  • Kirsty Struthers, Voluntary Action North Lanarkshire
  • Tommy Seymour, Inspiring Scotland (Specialist Volunteer Network team)
  • Ian Buchanan, Disability Equality Scotland
  • Debbie Zima, Inspiring Scotland – intandem
  • Abi Gardner, Nature Scot
  • Diane Wilson, Impact Funding Partners
  • Christine Ryder, outside the box
  • Fiona Harvey, CHAS
  • Sophie Bridger, Eden Project
  • Marie Oliver, Voluntary Action South Ayrshire
  • Tracey Passway, NHS Tayside
  • James Fowlie, COSLA
  • Emily Wallace, Corra Foundation
  • Craig Tobin, Macmillan Service Manager (Lanarkshire)
  • Claire Stevens, Voluntary Health Scotland
  • Andrew Paterson, Scottish Community Development Centre (SCDC)
  • Kerry Jardine, Scottish Government (Community Resilience)
  • Kate Kilpatrick, Scottish Government Principal Researcher
  • Catrina Steenberg, SG (LGBTI)
  • Aqeel Ahmed, SG (Race Equality Policy)
  • Margaret Stygal, Finance at Deaf Blind scotland
  • Brian Scott, Glasgow Disability Alliance
  • Catriona Macleod, CVS Inverclyde
  • Alison Matheson, NatureScot
  • Hannah Bardett, DTAS
  • Janine Stenhouse , Fife Voluntary Action
  • Elaine Hill, Central Scotland Regional Equality Council (CSREC)
  • Ralph Throp, Scottish Government (Community Resilience)