August 2011
Civic Agenda Briefing Volunteering & Digital _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Introduction Volunteering and community action forms a key pillar of the Government’s Big Society agenda, set out in the Giving White Paper of May 2011, for empowering individuals and communities to “give time and money and so make the change they want to see”1. The Government is working to foster a culture of giving both time and money by making it easier for citizens to volunteer and “determine the shape”2 of their neighbourhoods as part of its localism agenda3. The “measures to encourage volunteering and involvement in social action” set out in the Building the Big Society report4 are part of an agenda for more citizen-‐ and community-‐centric local governance and provision of services. This policy is also reflected in the Open Public Services White Paper which calls for greater Government accountability and transparency through making data and transaction applications available online, and a Channel Shift in Government-‐citizen interaction and provision of public services to digital channels which are open to public feedback. The Government is looking to volunteers to help deliver this policy, and to realise the aim of solely Digital by Default services, through a strategy of Assisted Digital, by which the 8.7m adults currently offline are brought online through a combination of mediated access and skills transfer. Social engagement through digital The internet offers both Government and voluntary organisations opportunities to publicise, organise and deliver their voluntary initiatives, and to engage with users directly. Social media is an increasingly popular focus of users’ time online, with Facebook witnessing an 18% increase in unique visitors between July 2009 and July 2010 to over 25 million (6.76% of total internet site visits from the UK5). Integration with, and publicising through social media sites therefore offers voluntary organisations the opportunity to leverage existing communities and social groupings to help encourage participation in their projects. There are a series of dedicated volunteering social media sites, such as i-‐volunteer, dedicated to connecting potential volunteers to available opportunities through a system whereby individuals set up detailed profiles about themselves, their skills, the sort of work they are looking to do and their volunteer status (whether they are currently available to volunteer or not). Furthermore, Prime Minister David Cameron is looking to the promotional value of online social networks as a means of more effectively delivering Big Society policy aims for greater levels of volunteering: “If Facebook simply added a social action line to their standard profile, this would do more to create a new social norm around volunteering or charitable giving than any number of government campaigns.”6 1
Giving White Paper, May 2011, p. Cabinet Office, Building the Big Society, May 2010. 3 The Government sets out its complete localism policy in the Localism Bill, before Parliament as of September 2011. 4 Cabinet Office, Building the Big Society, May 2010. 5 eMarketer, UK Internet Users and Usage: Top 2010 Trends, November 2010, pp. 6-‐7. 6 Prime Minister David Cameron, The Big Society speech, 10/11/09. 2
This online drive for promoting volunteering is also intended to help deliver the Government’s own digital Channel Shift policy; stating in the Open Public Services White Paper its intention for “utilising the power of digital communication and social media to help drive the virtuous circle of digital take-‐up”7.
Case study: GO ON Pass IT on and Digital Champions Race Online 2012’s Go ON initiative encourages people of all ages to pass on digital skills to the 8.7m adults currently offline in the UK. The organisation provides resources online for volunteers to encourage and enable them to inspire others to use the internet8. Through such voluntary initiatives, the Government hopes to leverage the time and skills of volunteers so as to both realise its policy of public services provided Digital by Default, but also to help those currently offline benefit from the economic and social benefits of digital, such as cheaper goods and a greater range of jobs, outlined in the Communities and Local Government report Digital Inclusion: An Analysis of Social Disadvantage and the Information Society9. The Government has also worked with Big Society’s Big Mouth, an initiative set up in response to a survey of 16-‐25 year olds which found a frustration over lack of influence on Government, to improve Government engagement with young constituents through social media and digital technology such as mobile apps, and thereby improve the ability of policy-‐makers to influence and inspire young people to volunteer. Innovative Digital Approaches to Volunteering Prime Minister David Cameron has asserted that: “Millions of people who don’t currently volunteer would like to do so if they had the time and information to make it as easy as possible.” Just as the Government intends for a Channel Shift to digital services which are more innovative, customer-‐centric and available “wherever you are”10, individuals and charitable organisations can benefit from the opportunities digital can offer for volunteering. The growing smartphone market in particular offers organisations the opportunity for increasing user engagement with voluntary activity: • The number of smartphone users has grown by 70% between January 2009 and January 2010 to over 11 million11. • IDC predicts that global annual downloads of applications, or ‘apps’, for these devices will increase from 38.2 billion in 2010 to 182.7 billion by 201512. • 47% of young people aged 12-‐15 own a smartphone13. • 27% of adults now own a smartphone and 28% of adults access the internet on their phones14. • 37% of adults and 60% of teens admit to being “addicted” to their smartphone15. These statistics represent a considerable opportunity for voluntary organisations and Government to promote, organise and deliver voluntary projects in a user-‐centric manner through mobile digital channels, particularly in order to encourage younger people to volunteer and, especially relevant to the Government’s Assisted Digital policy, pass on their digital skills to others. 7
Open Public Services white paper, July 2011, p. 53. http://champions.go-‐on.co.uk/ 9 Digital Inclusion: An Analysis of Social Disadvantage and the Information Society, October 2008. 10 Open Public Services white paper, July 2011, p. 52. 11 ComScore, March 2010. 12 IDC, Worldwide and U.S. Mobile Applications, Storefronts, Developer, and In-‐App Advertising 2011–2015 Forecast: Emergence of Postdownload Business Models, June 2011. 13 Ofcom, Communications Market Report: UK, August 2011, p. 47. 14 Ibid., pp. 4, 8. 15 Ibid., p. 4. 8
Case study: Orange’s ‘Do Some Good’ app In March 2011, Orange released its ‘micro-‐volunteering’ smart phone application, ‘Do Some Good’, which is based on the idea that the individual act will take no more than five minutes, and is readily accessible on people’s mobiles. The app allows people to take part in 12 different volunteering opportunities, including Cyber Mentors, translations, taking surveys, mapping local areas and taking photos. In its first three months of operation, this app saw 1,000 hours of volunteer time to complete 15,000 actions on the service. Prime Minister David Cameron praised this system, describing it as “a great way of tapping into this huge pool of untapped volunteering energy”16. Speaking at a Big Society Network event, Lucy Bernholz, author of Disruptive Philanthropy has claimed that “open data...allows the people in a place to become the experts about what’s needed”.
Case study: FixMyStreet The FixMyStreet website was launched in 2007 and allows people to report, view or discuss local problems with their local council by locating them on a map. It can be used for reporting graffiti, potholes, broken public lighting and other public cases of things which are broken or need clearing. This site was built by mySociety, in conjunction with the Young Foundation, and uses open-‐ source code which helps the public develop the site or produce their own projects. FixMyStreet have also developed apps for iPhone, Android and Nokia, which allow users to take photographs of local problems and submit them to their local council based on their GPS location. Innovative use of digital technology can also help motivate users to participate in voluntary projects through exploiting the customisability of digital services, which can provide volunteers with a record of voluntary achievements.
Case study: Youth Net’s ‘+U’ YouthNet, which operates the Do-‐it website for searching volunteering opportunities, is working with Sony to develop the ‘+U’ app, which will take the functionality of Do-‐it and combine “volunteering opportunities, with social and gaming benefits”17. The app will use geo-‐location technologies to identify local projects, and then award points based on the opportunities if individuals complete the task. Users can also post their results to Facebook, “making volunteering faster, easier and more social”. The release date of the application is due to be announced in September 2011. This briefing has been produced by Civic Agenda for the Digital Leaders Programme. For further information please visit www.civicagenda.co.uk or call 0207 387 0422
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Digital Strategy Consulting, David Cameron backs Orange Volunteering mobile app, 01/04/11. Emma Thomas, CEO of YouthNet, quoted at UKFundraising, Sony and YouthNet develop mobile volunteering app +U, 01/06/11. 17