Home Office readies drive for Year of the Volunteer

by Ben Bold,, Marketing 02-Feb-05, 07:00

LONDON - The Home Office is planning a high-profile integrated campaign to encourage consumers and businesses to take part in volunteer work.

COI Communications has hired direct agency 23red to develop promotional activity to support the government-backed Year of the Volunteer 2005, which was launched by chancellor Gordon Brown last month.

The agency was appointed following a pitch against two undisclosed agencies.

Year of the Volunteer 2005 is a partnership between Community Service Volunteers and the Volunteering England Consortium. It is supported by the Home Office.

Promotional activity will include telemarketing, direct mail, email, online work and advertising. The aim will be to challenge perceptions of volunteering and convey how easy it is for people to participate in a volunteer scheme without losing out on their leisure time.

The Home Office also hopes to link up with companies and other organisations to promote the cause, and 23red will work with these as part of the campaign.

Home Office minister Fiona Mactaggart said that the government was eager for businesses to encourage their employees to commit to volunteering because of the obvious "benefits it can offer individuals and society".

The Home Office Citizenship Survey found that volunteering was worth £22.6bn to the UK economy in 2003, with more than 26m people in England and Wales taking part in some sort of voluntary activity. They contributed 1.9bn hours, the equivalent of about 1m full-time workers.

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