Untold Stories of Volunteering:
A Cultural Animation Project
Professor Mihaela Kelemen, Keele University
Véronique Jochum, NCVO
Origins and History of the Project
• Follow on study based on an initial AHRC scoping study ‘Exploring
personal communities: A review of volunteering processes’ (2012)
• The initial study established via a literature review and interviews
with 30 volunteers that:
– Definition of volunteering is complex: some people volunteer but do
not use the label of volunteering to qualify their involvement
– Wide range of practices identified as volunteering
– Volunteering stories and experiences are a powerful way of
understanding how personal communities are formed, sustained and
how they change over time
Outcomes of the Original Study
• The documentary drama on volunteering, ‘A little act of kindness’
was showcased by the AHRC in London, March, 2013
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QsosP821t0
• The story of the Ford Green Hall which was threatened with closure
but saved by its volunteers
– From altruistic volunteering to militant volunteering
• The Etruria Industrial Museum’s story focused on the ‘princess’ (the
engine of the last steam powered potters’ mill in Britain). The
volunteers restored the engine to working order
– From instrumental volunteering to militant volunteering
• The New Vic volunteering story explored how volunteering could
turn one’s life around by giving ‘voluntolds’ a second chance in life.
– From forced volunteering to instrumental or altruistic volunteering
A Little Act of Kindness
Untold stories of volunteering
• Who is missing from our story?
• Official discourses based on the assumptions that
– There is an unlimited reservoir of goodwill in communities
– People can be encouraged to volunteer more
• However, at a grassroots level we find
– Diversity in people's engagement with and support for
volunteering
– Constraints related to other activities, such as work and
personal caring commitments
– Diverse motives, practices and affective relations involved
in volunteering
Background
• ‘Untold Stories of Volunteering: A Cultural Animation Project’
– Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) under
the Connected Communities Programme
– Keele University, University of Leicester, New Vic Theatre, NCVO
– 17 month project in two phases (Feb 2013 – June 2014)
• Four Phase 1 workshops
– Between 15-21 participants at each workshop (2:1 female to male),
over 30 in total
– Range of volunteers, volunteer managers, senior managers, senior
researchers, academics and theatre practitioners
– New Vic Borderlines, Victim Support, Staffs Buddies, Mum’s on a
Mission, Roma Volunteers, Voice for Change, NCVO, CDF, Volunteer
Centre Lambeth, RNIB, The Cabinet Office etc.
– Wide range of ages and experience
Cultural Animation
• Draws on the everyday experiences of ordinary people
and their abilities to achieve things
• Describes community arts work or methods which
animate or 'give life to' the dynamics of everyday life
• Builds up trusting relationships between participants
by inviting them to work together in activities which
may be new to them but which draw on their life
experiences
• Articulates ideas and experiences in actions and images
rather than the written word
Cultural Animation Outcomes
• A series of artefacts, based on themes and
issues raised by the volunteers themselves
– Poetry, songs, puppets and models, shadow
puppet theatre and short plays
– A code of ethics for co-designing and co-producing
research with communities
It’s Paradoxical
You can volunteer for a short time friend
But you better find yourself a job in the end
(It’s paradoxical)
They sent me to work in a factory
What! You want my time and you want it for free!
(It’s paradoxical)
They want the community to have more say
So why are you taking all the funding away?
(It’s paradoxical)
Big Society is a propaganda
But we all have a proper agenda
(It’s paradoxical)
I want to do something for my community
But you come and tell me I need a CRB
(It’s paradoxical)
Stacking shelves for free is not my future see
I want to work in geology
(It’s paradoxical)
We’d like to do everything that comes our way
There’s only 24 hours in a day
(It’s paradoxical)
Some people see volunteering as fashion
The rest of us think that it’s all about passion
(NOT paradoxical)
Key Findings (1): The ‘voluntold’
• Time frames
– ‘Volunteer short term – fine. Volunteer long term – get a job!!’
• Recognition and rewards
– ‘Volunteering is fine if you’re paying tax’
– ‘Do too much volunteering and then you’re not looking for
work’
– ‘Volunteering is an individual thing and shouldn’t be dictated by
government’
• Commodification
– ‘Free work is not the same as cheap work. Unpaid work is not
volunteering’
– The stigma of being ‘low hanging fruit’ for 3rd party providers
Key Findings (2): Relationships with the
State
• The absence of local government: contrary to the spirit of
the Localism Act, 2011, the discussions referred exclusively
to central government
• National bodies and individual volunteers found it
difficult at times to understand each other’s
experiences and points of view
• Impact of government policy is diluted to the extent
that volunteers are mostly unaware of official policy,
choosing to concentrate on the immediate needs of
individuals and their community
Key Findings (3): Research Process
• There are significant differences between codesigned/co-created projects and existing research on
volunteering which tends to be output rather than
process focused
• A wide range of other stories of volunteering need to be
considered in Phase 2. For example:
– Stories from professional volunteer management
– Stories from ‘voluntolds’
– Stories from people who work during the day and cannot attend
day time workshops
– Stories from disabled volunteers
– Stories from younger people (school pupils)
– Stories from volunteers with bad experiences
– Stories from corporate volunteers, including civil servants and
MPs
Phase 2 Involvement
• People could become involved in Phase 2 of the project in a
range of ways, including:
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Direct involvement in co-design and co-creation
Partial involvement through occasional workshop attendance,
Engagement with project blog
Keeping a diary about their volunteering experiences
Doing their own recordings
Being interviewed by the team
Direct or indirect dissemination of project information and
findings
• Outcome: an interactive piece of documentary theatre
performed in Stoke, Leicester and London in 2014