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Voluntary action in the United Kingdom has never had such a high profile. The UK government has committed itself to achieving a step change in volunteering and has developed a high-profile Active Communities Initiative to help bring this about. The last National Survey (Davis Smith 1998) found that almost half of the adult UK population had volunteered. As this study counted only those who had formally volunteered through an institution, it is likely to have offered a very conservative figure. If informal volunteering, such as neighbourly help, is included in this assessment, the figure of volunteer participants rises to nearly three quarters of the population. Still, the UK government would like to see this number grow, and has set itself the target of involving one million new volunteers by the year 2005 (Home Office 1999).

Shift of Focus Prompts Need for Increased Research on Volunteerism
This emphasis on volunteering constitutes something of a shift in focus from a former preoccupation with voluntary organisations. Much of what has been studied academically about the third sector has concentrated on how the changing welfare state impacts upon voluntary organisations. Now, however, it is becoming much more widely recognised that an expansion of voluntary organisational activity does not necessarily imply a corresponding growth in volunteering. More importantly, researchers now recognise that volunteers are involved in a much wider range of activities than the simple delivery of social welfare services. Current interest in social capital and civil society is helping to sharpen thinking on just how important voluntary activity is to the health of communities.

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