Informal v Formal Volunteering

What's the difference?

We offer two types of volunteering, Formal and Informal. What are they?

Formal volunteering

This is where you volunteer for a specific task such as working in a charity shop or food bank, as a driver, operating a support service or many other roles. These opportunities are nearly always for organisations such as charities, theatres, support services. Formal volunteering will generally be for fixed hours, at the same time each week, in the same premises.

Informal Volunteering

This differs to formal volunteering in many ways. You won’t usually be assigned a specific task but are much more likely to register your details and then be offered jobs. These can be many and varied such as lawn mowing, walking a dog, collecting shopping or prescriptions. As well as being more flexible, you tend to offer your services to one person in your community as opposed to an organisation.

Therefore, formal volunteers have defined roles and schedules and will be affiliated to an organisation. Informal volunteers tends to be spontaneous, community based and focusses on your own initiative.

You can view a list of recent formal volunteering roles and request more information as well as register your details for informal volunteering. Select Formal Volunteer opportunities to see the list and click Online application to send you details,

Alternatively, or as well, click the View button in the Informal Volunteering section below and complete a tiny form.  In both cases, you are always in control and we won’t send you unwanted emails.

Remember, a small amount of your time can mean the world.