evmp

The results are in: Statistics Portugal’s Survey on Volunteer Work for 2012

EVMP — Fri, 03 May 2013 18:36:56 +0000

More than one in 10 adults in Portugal gives their time to volunteer activities,
Statistics Portugal reports.

The volunteer rate of people that participated in a volunteer activity either through an organization or directly for other individuals is estimated to be 11.5% of residents aged 15 or older—about 1,040,000 people. This represents the equivalent of approximately 4% of the total hours worked in Portugal, or about 1% of GDP.

51.6% of these individuals participated in a volunteer activity through an organization, of which about 90% were social economy organizations. This corresponds to about 40% of the total hours worked in this kind of organization, which means that volunteer work represents a very substantial resource for the sustainability of the Portuguese social economy.

These data were gathered via a pilot Survey on Volunteer Work 2012. This pilot survey was conducted as an annex to the Labour Force Survey on the 3rd quarter of 2012 as part of Statistics Portugal’s development of the satellite account on the social economy, and was developed based on the principles outlined in the ILO Manual on Measurement of Volunteer Work. However due to space and cost limitations it was not possible to include all of the questions encouraged by the Manual. Because important prompts were not included, it is likely that they survey underrepresents the number of volunteers in Portugal.

Despite its limitations, the survey gathered key variables for characterizing volunteer work in Portugal, namely: number of volunteers, their sociodemographic characteristics, the institutional context of the volunteer work, the task type and number of hours spent volunteering.

The publication of these data is also important because it represents the outcome of a cooperative effort between statistics officials and the volunteer community in Portugal. The Portuguese Confederation of Volunteering (CPV) has set up a working group to pursue the measurement of volunteering in Portugal as part of the European Volunteer Measurement Project. This working group is composed of representatives of civil society, such as CPV, Eugénio de Almeida Foundation and CNE–Catholic Scouts, the Catholic University–Porto, and the Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal (partners of CPV), as well as State agencies, including Statistics Portugal, the National Council for the Promotion of Volunteering, and the Studies and Planning Office/Ministry of Solidarity. A draft of the work plan is under review and will be presented to all members of the working group in early June.

Learn more about this important pilot study and to explore the data in more detail, see the links below.

Portuguese: Data | Press release | Publication

English: Data | Press release

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cross-posted to ccss.jhu.edu and volunteermeasurement.org

Mesv: il progetto entra nel vivo!

EVMP — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 16:18:13 +0000

English version

Circolare n. 6 del 28 marzo 2013

Da pochi giorni Istat ha avviato le interviste per la rilevazione “Aspetti della Vita Quotidiana 2013″ che interesserà 24 mila famiglie di tutto il territorio nazionale. Come sapete, nell’ambito dell’indagine, s’inserisce il progetto Mesv (Misurazione del valore economico e sociale del lavoro volontario); infatti grazie all’accordo siglato fra Istat, CSVnet e Fondazione Volontariato e Partecipazione, la rete dei CSV ha offerto il proprio prezioso contributo in merito al nuovo modulo dell’indagine dedicato al volontariato dal titolo “Attività gratuite”, che consentirà di calcolare le attività gratuite svolte dai cittadini e misurare il valore economico e l’impatto sociale delle attività di volontariato in Italia.

Risultati molto positivi ha avuto la formazione congiunta dei referenti dei CSV e responsabili Istat regionali sul nuovo modulo, avvenuta nel mese di febbraio a Roma.
CSVnet e i referenti dei CSV hanno costituito un solido punto di riferimento in tutte le regioni per i responsabili dell’indagine Istat; CSVnet ha predisposto dei materiali aggiuntivi per la formazione dei rilevatori e a supporto del lavoro sul campo; ha inoltre attivato un partecipato e competente ambiente intranet (Spazio FAD) con cui tenersi aggiornati sull’andamento dei lavori, condividere e affinare le risposte standard sulle classificazioni, sciogliere i dubbi sui contenuti e condividere materiali ed esperienze.

La disponibilità e la competenza dei referenti CSV sono stati molto apprezzati dai responsabili Istat.
Infatti, in più della metà delle regioni, i referenti CSV hanno realizzato direttamente la formazione negli incontri provinciali dei rilevatori sul modulo dedicato al volontariato.

Questa positiva collaborazione attesta il sistema CSV come un interlocutore di livello nazionale competente e capace. Ringraziamo pertanto i referenti per la grande competenza e passione dimostrata e i CSV per l’impegno dedicato al progetto.

Continua a seguire gli sviluppi del progetto Mesv sul sito di CSVnet.

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Cross-posted from CSVnet.

MESV – The project comes alive!

EVMP — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 16:02:31 +0000

Circular n.6 of 28 March 2013

The Italian National Statistics Institute (ISTAT) has begun conducting interviews for the “2013 Daily Life Aspects” survey, involving 24,000 families across the Italy. The Measuring Economic and Social Value of Volunteer work (MESV) project is inserted within this survey; thanks to the agreement signed between ISTAT, CSVnet and the Volunteering and Participation Foundation, the Volunteer Support Centres (VSC) network offered its invaluable contribution to the new survey module devoted to volunteering, called “Unpaid Activities.” This module will allow us to measure unpaid activities carried out by the population and the economic value and social impact of voluntary activities in Italy.

The joint training sessions for VSC liaison staff and INSTAT regional officers working on the new module, held in February in Rome, achieved very positive outcomes.

CSVnet and VSC staff constituted a solid reference point in all of the regions for the INSTAT officers in charge of the survey. CSVnet prepared the additional materials for training interviewers and in support of the field work; moreover, it activated a participatory and competent Intranet environment (distance learning site) to stay up-to-date with the work in progress, share and fine-tune standard answers on classifications, unravel doubts on contents, and share materials and experiences.

The approachability and competence of VSC staff was very much appreciated by INSTAT officers. In over half of the regions, VSC staff directly trained interviewers in sessions held at the provincial level on the survey module on volunteering. This positive collaboration proves the VSC system as a competent and capable partner at national level.

Therefore we wish to thank staff for the great competence and passion shown and VSCs for the dedication to the project.

Keep following the MESV project developments on CSVnet website.

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Translated from the CSVnet – Circolare n.6 of 28 March 2013

Technical workshop on volunteer measurement | 21 Februrary 2013

EVMP — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 15:26:39 +0000

On 21 February 2013, CEV and the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) hosted, in Brussels, Belgium a technical workshop on volunteer measurement. The objective of the event was to gather input for a European Parliament pilot project proposal for the systematic collection of comparable data on volunteering across Europe.

Various European Union policy documents stress the need to gather comparable data on the amount, character and role of volunteering and recommend the use of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Manual on the Measurement of Volunteer Work for this purpose. The workshop aimed to help translate these policy recommendations into action at the EU Member State level. The meeting gathered national statistics experts from EU countries as well as European stakeholders, and facilitated the discussion and planning of technical aspects for the implementation of a volunteering module in national statistics, as part of a European Parliament pilot project.

This initiative is part of an on-going advocacy campaign supported through the Network of European Foundations by the Robert Bosch Stiftung and the King Baudouin Foundation.

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Cross-posted from the European Volunteer Centre (CEV)

EVMP partners present a paper at the 10th ISTR Conference | Siena, Italy | 11 July 2012

EVMP — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 18:41:45 +0000

EVMP partners presented a paper at the 10th edition of the biennial International Society for Third Sector Research (ISTR) Conference, which took place in Siena, Italy, from 10-13 July 2012. The paper “Institutionalising the measurement of volunteering: Insights from the European Volunteer Measurement Project,” (English and Italian) by Daniela Bosioc of CEV, Lester M. Salamon of CCSS, and Ksenija Fonovic of SPES, addresses “the breakthrough that has recently been made in developing an approach for generating systematic data on at least the scope and scale of volunteering in countries around the world” with the adoption of the ILO Manual for the Measurement of Volunteer Work, the progress that has been made in to encourage the adoption of this Manual in Europe through our European Volunteer Measurement Project, and identifies the next steps needed to fulfil the promise that this Manual presents for scholars and volunteer promotion organizations in Europe and elsewhere.

What emerges most clearly from the discussion in the paper are three central conclusions:

First, despite the methodological and policy challenges to doing so, the initial implementations of the Manual confirm that it is possible to make reasonable quantitative estimates of the scale and nature of volunteer work and the characteristics of volunteers in a region as diverse as Europe in a way that is both comparable internationally and respectful of different national conceptions and patterns.

Second, the ILO Manual has struck a reasonable balance among the competing conceptions of how and what to measure initially about volunteering and has consequently won important support among researchers, the volunteer community, and statisticians in Europe.

Third, important work is still needed to secure the institutional endorsement of Eurostat and governments Europe-wide to ensure full implementation of the capability to generate reliable, cross-national data on volunteer work in Europe as well as other parts of the world.

The paper was presented within a panel moderated by the Institute for Development Studies on “Methodologies for Valuing Volunteering—How to understand the impact of volunteering.” The panel also included the papers “Valuing Volunteering: Using systemic action research to assess the impact of volunteering on poverty,” presented by VSO International, and “Evaluation of the UK’s International Citizens’ Service: critical methodological reflections from the Mid Term Review stage,” presented by the Institute for Volunteering Research.

Phase 1 Wrap-up Conference: ILO Manual Implementers Discuss the State of the Art | Rome | 19 April 2012

EVMP — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 17:09:03 +0000

Representatives of 6 European national statistical institutes and EVMP partners discussed progress in measuring volunteering through the implementation of the ILO Manual at a Technical Workshop in Rome on 19 April 2012. The workshop took place within the framework of the EVMP Phase 1 Wrap-up Conference entitled “Value and Role of Volunteering: Presentation of the ILO Manual on the Measurement of Volunteer Work.”

Representatives from Italy, Poland, Hungary, Montenegro, Portugal, and Germany shared lessons learned to date, addressed the challenges of translating the Manual standards into the local cultural context, and pinpointed some initial comparative opportunities in a stimulating process of peer-learning. All participants showed great interest and availability to continue and further this work within a developing EVMP platform to ensure that they can remain engaged as a group, share resource materials, and collaborate in planning for the promotion and dissemination of data with EVMP partners.

The participants also agreed that it is necessary for Eurostat and national governments to clearly endorse and support a common, obligatory, and sustainable European statistical instrument for the measurement of voluntary work. Statisticians and EVMP partners agreed to keep in contact, share relevant information on www.evmp.eu and devise new collaborative initiatives to further volunteer measurement and comparative work.

National representatives each offered an overview of developments in their country:

ITALY
ISTAT’s reference expert for the volunteering module, Tania Cappadozzi, focused on the process leading to the preparation of the draft questionnaire (read her speech and view her presentation). As a model of statistics agency-civil society cooperation, Ms. Cappadozzi emphasized ISTAT’s collaboration with the Italian National Coordination of Voluntary Support Centres (CSVnet), which will be training interviewers, helping with classification activities, and collaborating in preparing and disseminating the results.

POLAND
Pioneering EVMP statistical expert, Slawomir Nalecz of the Central Statistics Office of Poland and the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences, with great generosity and competence offered his input to colleagues preparing for their first implementation. As noted in his presentation about lessons learned from the Polish implementation experience, Mr. Nalecz attaches great importance to both the thorough preparation of interviewers and the careful adaptation of the module questions to the cultural background and cognitive abilities of the target population. It was also anticipated that the volunteering module results will contribute to the realization of non-profit sector satellite account and to new social capital analyses.

HUNGARY
The Hungarian Central Statistical Office (HCSO) inserted the ILO Manual as an “ad hoc” module in the third quarter of its 2011 Labour Force Survey, thus becoming the second EU country to complete the implementation of the standard volunteering module. In her presentation, HCSO Deputy Head of the Labour Market and Education Statistics Department, Elizabeth Lindner, previewed the very first results of the work led by the HCSO colleague Rita Varadi, and contributed an analysis of the process and all documentation.

MONTENEGRO
Monstat‘s decision to implement the ILO Manual was made largely as a result of the encouragement and support of EVMP National Focal Point ADP-Zid, which translated the Manual into Montenegrin and hosted a regional Technical Workshop in Podgorica in January 2012, in collaboration with Monstat.

Monstat’s volunteering module reference person, Ivana Tanjevi?, reported that Monstat plans to implement the module in their 2013 Labour Force Survey, but requested technical guidance in the preparation of the questionnaire and the analysis of results. Setting an example for other countries, she relies on the contribution of the voluntary sector to assist with training and dissemination.

PORTUGAL
The Portuguese National Institute for Statistics (INE), which has just published the results of its nonprofit satellite account, was represented by Ana Cristina Ramos, Head of the Unit for Satellite Accounts and Quality Assessment of the National Accounts. INE, which has committed to implementation in 2013, is relying on the EVMP platform in order to continue to exchange experiences with other countries, and on collaboration with the voluntary sector. The development of data on volunteering will usefully complement future efforts to update its satellite account.

GERMANY:
As one of few EU countries that already has in place a good national survey of volunteering (which is, as of 2012 managed by DZA, the German Centre of Gerontology) Germany was welcomed with particular interest to the workshop. DZA Representative Julia Simonson, Vice-coordinator of the volunteering survey (Freiwilligensurvey-FWS), inquired into a series of technical aspects – such as reference period and fields of activity – in order to study and test the best possible options for rendering the German survey results comparable with the ILO Manual standards, without losing the historical FWS series data.

Detailed reports and a comprehensive set of country resources is available here.

Phase 1 Wrap-up Conference: ISTAT announces implementation in 2013 | Rome | 19 April 2012

EVMP — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 17:07:07 +0000

Over 100 people participated in the EVMP Phase 1 Wrap-up Conference held in Rome on 19 April 2012. The conference gave EVMP partners the opportunity to thank the funders and report on the Project’s progress in completing, disseminating, and encouraging adoption of the ILO Manual in Europe. The event, titled “The value and role of volunteering: Presentation of the ILO Manual on the Measurement of Volunteer Work,” convened in the prestigious conference hall of the Italian National Council of Economy and Labour (CNEL), was organized by EVMP partner SPES in collaboration with the funding partners ACRI, Forum del Terzo Settore, CONVOL, Consulta dei Comitati di Gestione, Consulta del Volontariato presso il Forum del Terzo Settore, and the Italian National Coordination of Voluntary Support Centres (CSVnet).

Lester M. Salamon, Director of EVMP partner CCSS presented an overview of the Manual and reported on EVMP progress to date to the participants, who were primarily representatives of Italian civil society networks. In his remarks Professor Salamon emphasized the importance of generating reliable, comparative data as the very basis to support and promote volunteering and its networks.

Gian Paolo Gualaccini, coordinator of the CNEL Observatory on Social Economy, which produced one of the first Italian efforts to shed light on the economic scale of organization-based volunteering, moderated a roundtable on the economic valuation of voluntary work in the non-profit sector. During the roundtable, pivotal civil society leaders including CNEL President Antonio Marzano, Forum del Terzo Settore Spokesperson Andrea Olivero and ACRI President Giuseppe Guzzetti discussed their views on measuring the social and economic impact of volunteering, and showed appreciation for the EVMP results.

Professor Leonardo Becchetti, an economist well known for his work on measuring happiness, then shared a stimulating speech on how different aspects of measurement can all contribute to the valuation of social capital. (Download the speech in Italian or English.)

EVMP partner CEV, was well represented by Director Gabriella Civico and Policy and Project Officer Daniela Bosioc, who stressed the importance of EYV2011 policy developments and explained how European networks and national level developments can usefully complement each other to further the cause of volunteer measurement.

ISTAT announces implementation. A crucial and exciting development was the announcement by Linda Laura Sabbadini, Director of the Italian National Institute of Statistics‘ (ISTAT) Department for Social and Environmental Statistics, that ISTAT has agreed to implement the ILO Manual in the upcoming 2013 ISTAT survey “Aspects of everyday life,” and to throw its support behind encouraging Eurostat to make the volunteering module mandatory on the European level. Sabbadini also expressed appreciation for the excellent collaborative relationship ISTAT has enjoyed with the volunteering sector and announced that agreements will be made for a joint management of the implementation process. One such point of collaboration was described by Riccardo Guidi, Director of the Fondazione Volontariato e Partecipazione, who presented the challenges of a small-scale test of the Italian ILO Manual module that was carried out among Italian voluntary organisations in collaboration with ISTAT.

In addition, representatives of statistical institutes from Poland, Hungary, Montenegro, Portugal, and Germany illustrated briefly the state of play in their countries, reporting on implementation efforts and progress. Our report on this technical workshop, including country report summaries, is available here.

CEV Director brings volunteer measurement to the attention of European Commission Vice-President Rehn

EVMP — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 17:00:03 +0000

Together with a delegation from the Social Platform, CEV Director, Gabriella Civico, met Vice-President Olli Rehn, European Commissioner of Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Euro on 5 June 2012. The topics of discussion were the inclusion of social objectives in European economic governance, the sustainability of public financing for social services, and the use of civil dialogue to improve the democratic process at EU level.

The CEV Director brought attention to the fact that volunteering is already recognized at the EU level as being relevant for achieving European Union (EU) strategic objectives and to act as catalyst for European values and she stressed the important role that European policy and decision-making can play in protecting and supporting volunteering.

Referring to recommendations formulated by Civil Society in the Policy Agenda for Volunteering in Europe (P.A.V.E.), Commissioner Rehn was asked to make the opportunity to use volunteer time as co-funding for EU programmes mandatory and to introduce a mandatory EU volunteer measurement programme using the National Labour Force Surveys according to the model proposed in the ILO Manual for the Measurement of Volunteer Work. According to Director Civico “this will ensure a cost effective and proper monitoring of the impact on volunteering of the austerity measures and provide a means for the EU to be able to measure whether the recommendations concerning fiscal and economic governance do not have a negative effect on social objectives that can be met through volunteering. Equally, that there is no negative effect on the potential of volunteering to decrease the democratic deficit.”

The policy recommendations made to Commissioner Rehn in the 5 June meeting are further backed by text of the European Parliament Report adopted on 12 June 2012, that calls on EU Member States “to promote the use of volunteer time as matching funding for European projects,”, noting that data countries can obtain “robust comparable data” by implementing the ILO Manual.

MEPs continue their support for the measurement of volunteering

EVMP — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 18:28:53 +0000

Following the recommendations to implement the ILO Manual issued by the European Commission in its September 2011 Communication on volunteering and by and the Council of the European Union in its October 2011 Conclusions the European Parliament adopted on 12 June 2012 a Report on recognising and promoting cross-border voluntary activities in the EU.

The adopted text includes a recommendation to “the Member States to adopt the use of the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) Manual on the Measurement of Volunteer Work and the United Nations’ Handbook on Non-Profit Organisations with a view to making available comparable statistics and data providing a clear picture of the significant contribution made by volunteering and of the needs of volunteers and providers throughout the European Union.” Furthermore, the Report calls on the European Commission to recommend the implementation of the Manual across the EU, “in order to ensure robust comparable data which can help improve monitoring and policy-making.”

“I believe that the adoption of such a Report shows that volunteering is an indispensable tool and active support for the expansion of a common public spirit,” declared Rapporteur MEP Marco Scurria in a press statement issued after the vote.

Initiated within the Committee on Culture and Education, the Report is backed by the Opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, with MEP Marian Harkin as Rapporteur. The adoption of this Report can in fact be viewed as the ultimate expression of the outstanding support that Ms. Harkin and a number of other MEPs have shown for the ongoing efforts of the EVMP to make adoption of the ILO Manual and the measurement of volunteering a Europe-wide priority.

Prince of Spain Endorses EVMP at Workshop in Madrid

EVMP — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 18:52:40 +0000

The EVMP and the Plataforma del Voluntariado de Espana hosted a workshop on March 28 in Madrid that brought the leadership of the volunteering community in Spain together with government and Statistics officials from Spain’s National Institute for Statistics (Instituto Nacional de Estadistica, INE) to discuss the measurement of volunteering, and explore possibilities for implementation of the ILO Manual in Spain.

This workshop was as part of a pre-conference event of the Service Innovation Summit which was hosted by Meridian International Center’s Global Service Leadership Initiative, the U.S. Embassy in Spain, and the Rafael del Pino Foundation. The Summit was designed to present innovative solutions to addressing social challenges in Spain through service and volunteering, surface collaborative opportunities, and call participants to action. The importance of having better, more reliable and comparable data on volunteering came up throughout the Summit and was highlighted in the conclusions as one of the concrete recommendations made by the Summit working groups.

In his opening remarks at the Summit, His Royal Highness, Felipe, Prince of Asturias, recognized the EVMP saying, “I want to thank the European Volunteer Measurement Project that was a product of the European Year of Volunteering 2011, which provides a new tool to share more and better information on what is done in this area and to help more effective management.”

Moving toward implementation in Spain. Representatives from INE’s Labour Statistics Department eagerly endorsed the ILO Manual as the “ideal tool” to measure volunteering and agreed that the “labour force survey is the ideal platform” for measurement. They described current and past efforts in Spain to capture data on volunteering and concluded that “we have a methodological chaos.” The austerity measures brought on by the economic crisis in Spain prevents INE from taking on the ILO Manual immediately, but INE officials have taken steps to seek a path towards implementation and have requested that a module on voluntary work, based on the ILO Manual methodology be included in the Eurostat’s Working Programme for the upcoming years because “it is important to harmonize our approach now and it needs to be implemented.” INE officials stressed the important role of statistics offices across the EU in expressing support for this initiative to Eurostat to include the module in its Working Programme.

The economic climate in Spain is putting the volunteer community under enormous pressure. In advance of the workshop, some in the volunteering community had expressed concern about how the Spanish government would use the resulting data—concerns that were discussed and debated at length during the workshop. In the end, most volunteering community participants found their concerns alleviated, and agreed that while the measurement of volunteering is not a panacea for addressing the many challenges facing the volunteering community in Spain, it does promise to provide the volunteer community, policy-makers, government officials, and business leaders with objective information on which to base their discussions, and agreed to support its implementation in the country.

Sharing experiences and strategies. Tania Cappadozzi, from the Italian National Institute for Statistics (ISTAT), which is preparing to implement the ILO Manual in 2013, highlighted ISTAT’s successful collaboration with Italian civil society groups in forging a strategy for the Italian implementation. As an example of that collaboration, SPES (an EVMP partner) translated the Manual into Italian and triggered a wide-ranging working group of volunteering sector representatives which is working with ISTAT towards the implementation. This civil society partnership secured support from a local foundation to help cover the costs of implementation, reviewed the questionnaire with a “volunteer’s eyes,” is helping to test the module, and will be training the interviewers and helping to disseminate the results.

Liliana Fernandes from the Catholic University in Porto described similar efforts taking place in Portugal, where INE is seeking the means to implement the ILO Manual. One important formal step that has been taken is that a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Catholic University in Porto and the Portuguese Confederation of Volunteering (CPV) on February 14, formally sealing their cooperation to move ahead together in all future matters dealing with EVMP.

This workshop provided an opportunity for an open exchange if experiences and strategies between Spanish and Italian officials, members of Spain’s volunteering community, and those pursuing implementation of the ILO Manual in Portugal and Italy. As a result, momentum is growing to find a way to see the Manual implemented in Spain despite the current economic difficulty. Volunteers have a vital role to play in such times, and the importance of establishing a system to better understand that role and to maximize their impact is being recognized by government, statistical officials, and the volunteering community. The EVMP partners hope that these sorts of cross-national exchanges will help to make Europe-wide implementation of the ILO Manual possible despite hard economic times.