Volunteering Victoria – Research Digest 4

25 - 31 March 2013

1. Australian state and territory peak organisations

Organisation / Item / Summary
Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) / March 2013 update to the ACNC guide:
Not-for-profit reform and the Australian Government

Regulation; reform agenda; Australia / The guide provides an overview of the reform agenda and the regulatory environment in which now charities operate since the establishment of the ACNC in 2012. This guide includes:
  • a short account of ‘who’s who’ in the NFP reform agenda
  • a table summarising the current status of the parts of the NFP reform agenda
  • some key statistics about charities and not-for-profits in Australia
  • a brief overview of the ACNC and its relationship with other regulators
  • an overview of some of the significant reviews that have informed the NFP reform agenda, and
  • short descriptions of the different parts of the NFP reform agenda.

2. Research, reports, articles, blogs

Organisation / Item, source, keywords / Summary
Volunteer Canada / Fast Facts related to the Canadian volunteering landscape

Canada; volunteering_data / Useful presentation of facts related to volunteering in Canada; could be worth a look in preparing advocacy statements for Vic/Aus. Sub-headings:
  • The power of volunteers
  • Today’s volunteers
  • Today’s volunteer-involving organisation
  • Corporate citizenship
  • Volunteer Canada continues to raise the bar.

Institute for Volunteering Research (IVR), UK / Volunteering and volunteering infrastructure in the current economic climate
Volunteering for Stronger Communities research project. Year one report, March 2013

volunteering; research; Big Society; UK / Context: the Big Society discourse, the current economic climate and its effect on volunteerism.
Research examines issues currently affecting volunteering, the voluntary sector and volunteering infrastructure. It draws on fieldwork conducted in the local areas of 15 Volunteer Centres across England.
Conclusions
  • Increased demand and decreased funding for volunteering infrastructure
  • supply of good-quality volunteering opportunities was affected by the decline in volunteer managers and issues around job substitution.
  • A drastic decrease in funding was not uniform

Institute for Volunteering Research (IVR), UK / Understanding how volunteering creates stronger communities – A literature review, July 2012
Volunteering for Stronger Communities research project

research; literature review; Big Society; UK /
  • compiled for the Volunteering for Stronger Communities project (above)
  • aims: to provide a summary of relevant debates and concepts, and to establish a framework for future research
  • three main areas:
  • Policy Drivers – Volunteering and the Big Society;
  • Key Players – Volunteers, communities and infrastructure;
  • Theories of change – Community Cohesion, Social Capital and Resilience
  • Conclusion: there is no single theoretical framework which can fully account for or help explain the relationships between volunteering and stronger communities
  • Volunteering is a personal, social and a situated practice; there is a need to keep questioning definitions of volunteering
  • Community is not a given or static concept but complex and varied. It is important to recognise that volunteering happens in space and place, and that the community is simultaneously a location, a site of identification and a set of relationships, with a history and with a certain set of social and economic circumstances.
  • a stronger community is not premised just on volunteering

Harvard Business Review
Blog Network / Social Enterprises Need a Solid Measurement System
Greg Hills and Marc Pfitzer, March 29, 2013

Social_impact measurement /
  • Only by tracking both social benefits and economic value and how they're connected can firms hope to have a large-scale social impact.
  • Process
  • Identify the Social Issues to Target
  • Make the Business Case
  • Track Progress
  • Reassess the Concept and Identify New Value

New Philanthropy Capital (NPC) / Making an ImpactDecember, 2012

This study offers the first representative picture of the UK charity sector’s response to the challenge of impact measurement.
Social_impact measurement /
  • The study surveyed 1,000 charities with incomes over £10,000
  • aimed to understand changes in charities’ impact measurement practices, the drivers behind measuring impact, and the benefits and challenges that it brings.
  • The two most important drivers are:
  • change in funding requirements
  • prioritisation of impact measurement by the charities’ board or senior management.
  • Only 5% of charities say that wanting to improve services is a primary motivation for increasing their impact measurement efforts; and yet, improved strategy and services, as well as the ability to demonstrate impact, are the main benefits they see.
  • Most obvious barrier: a lack of funding for impact measurement

International Society for Third Sector Research (ISTR) / Alternative models of accountability for
third sector organisationsin New Zealand
Aimers and Walker, 2008

International Society for Third Sector Research, Eighth International Conference, Barcelona, Spain, July 9-12, 2008, Working Papers
Social_impact measurement; research; New Zealand /
  • reflects on New Zealand research over the past 10 years that identifies alternative models of organisational practice and accountability that can be applied to measure the success of third sector organisations.
  • offers a toolkit from which third sector organisations can select models of organisational practice and accountability that are most suitable for them.
  • contributes to the argument for a pluralistic approach to organisational practice and accountability for the third sector.