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22
Jun
I’m quite excited by the concept of a Bigger Society — of people taking more control of their lives and in support the lives of those around them.
Hopefully this will limit waste in supplying social activities and not do too much harm to those who need the help most however is society ready for the supersizing?
After years of the diminishment of mutuals and charities; of less natural volunteering — people used to do things to help their community out without this being organised. Now it seems to require an army of support.
My personal thought is that we need to promote altruism and this needs to come from society as a whole, here are some suggestions:
- Freeing parents and carers up to volunteer
- Employers to give every employee a day’s paid volunteering
- Bosses to be given a reward or recognition for mentoring
- National service for the jobless young
- Day release for teenage employees
- Volunteering accepted as a natural part of unemployment
- Pre-retirement volunteering introductions
- Tax breaks to professionals for providing services to the voluntary sector
- Some form of GiftAid for voluntary work — allowing charitable bodies to claim some tax from those who volunteer for the organisation.
However biggest of all — we need new ideas to demonstrate that taking part in society isn’t about purely being some selfless saint character. Taking part in voluntary activity is good for you — it teaches new skills, opens up new experiences, broadens social circles and gives a huge ‘up’.
How is it so difficult to get this across to people? My feeling is that for so long the populus have been told to think that it’s government’s job to supply these sorts of services — I, for one, would prefer society as a whole to take a firmer control of itself.
People do have time to volunteer and take part in their communities — it’s just about freeing up time. I suspect most people are able to do this, given the support of their family, friends and neighbours. It’s also about exposing people to those opportunities that appeal and effectively reward them.
- Published by Jon in: Navel gazing
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5 Responses to “Big society = more altruism?”
Good piece Jon, I particular like the concept of employers actively encouraging the giving back to society by partially standing the cost of its employees doing that. I think tax breaks for the companies involved would assist with the adoption of this.
In particular doing something with those on unemployment benefit is crucial to try and break the seemingly benefit generation that is with us presently.
The world would be a much better place if we all helped our fellow Man when were able to.
Jon, I disagree.
If an employer finances a day of each employee per week for volunteer work that would equal 20% of their total HR costs. To me it would make much more sense to have them pay more taxes and then create REAL jobs in the public and social sector and that way get more people into paid work.
Why create and finance an army of unemployed people who are usually willing and able to work, provided there are adequate jobs, and then have those who DO have jobs and already contribute to society with their work power and their income taxes go and volunteer?
Unemployment has lots of detrimental effects on society and on the people concerned — high costs, diminished self-esteem, psychosomatic illnesses, increasing crime rates, social decline and so on. It would make much more sense to use the money you would use for volunteering to bring unemployment down.
I am not against volunteering. But there are a couple of things that should be fixed first — and differently.
Thanks for the feedback; the day’s paid volunteering was seen as ‘per year’ or ‘per quarter’.
I’m also not aiming to finance unemployed people in any way we don’t already — but to create a society where volunteering is accepted as a suitable way to use time when unemployed.
If the organisations that use the volunteer time are aware of the ebb and flow of the economy they will need to use volunteers when these are available and pay people when they are not (which is also usually when the economy can support them).
Another thought — big companies (banks, grocers, petrochemicals) could easily afford to offer these types of solution — tho admittedly it might hit the share price and bonuses a little. But would this be a bad thing?
I regularly volunteer my photography services for free to families who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford professional photographs. I also take part in fares and open days to cover the event for free and also donate what I can at the event.
I would really like to do more volunteering but my work load is far too great to allow me to volunteer every week.
I had to think of this today: http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/896
[ted id=896]
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