Rapid research COVID-19 Briefing #6: Stepping up and helping out: grassroots volunteering in response to COVID-19

In Briefing 5, Volunteering through crisis and beyond: starting, stopping and shifting, we provided an overview of literature on volunteering. It ended with a question: would all those who have stepped up in their communities call themselves volunteers?

Our current research into community responses to COVID-19 across 26 areas of England offers insights related to other questions raised in Briefing 5, concerning what volunteering is taking place, who is getting involved, how it is organised, whether new forms of volunteering are emerging as a result of the pandemic, and whether volunteers’ energy can be sustained as it continues.

We explore these issues in this briefing, using the term ‘volunteering’ as shorthand to encompass all the unpaid community activity observed over the last six months.


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