Volunteering with Community Groups

• Why get involved with community groups in your local area?
• Why should LGB people get involved in community groups?
• How to get involved
• Setting up your own community group or charity

Why get involved with community groups in your local area?

There are plenty of voluntary and community organisations working in your area to either campaign or provide services to local people. There are plenty of opportunities for you to get involved in your local community. If you feel passionate about an issue you’ll probably find a community group that's passionate about it too.

If you are particularly passionately about issues affecting lesbian, gay and bisexual people then there are numerous community organisations out there working on everything from bullying in schools to supporting older gay people.

At a time of tight budgets, community organisations need more help than ever. Volunteering with local groups, in whatever form that takes, can make a real difference to your local community. 

If you feel passionately about a particular issue in your area but you can't find a local community group that's working on this area - you can consider setting up your own group. Many inspirational and well known charities began because an individual or group of individuals recognised there was an issue and wanted something to be done about it. You could be the start of something big.

Why should LGB people get involved in community groups?

Across the UK there are numerous local groups which provide support for local lesbian, gay and bisexual people. They provide a variety of services such as:

• Supporting LGB people experiencing domestic violence
• Helping LGB people who are homeless
• Providing counselling services for LGB people with mental health issues
• Providing youth groups and mentoring for young LGB people 

To find out about the many local groups that you can support click here.

How to get involved

There are plenty of voluntary or community organisations out there with different opportunities that require a different level of commitment, skills and responsibility. There will be numerous opportunities in your local area. The choice is essentially yours. To find out more about what opportunities there are in your local area visit:

• Do-it is a national database of volunteering opportunities in the UK. Do-it is a non-profit-making organisation. They do not charge people to use the database. 
• LGBT Consortium
• Time bank
• Charity Commission
• Volunteer England
• NAVCA 
• CSV
• UK Volunteering 
• National Council for Voluntary Organisations
• Voluntary Arts Network
• I Value The Arts
• The Amateurs Theatre Network
• LGBT History

Setting up your own community group or charity

To be a charity a group must have specific aims which are defined by charitable activities, it must show that it operates for the benefit of the public and it must have a board of trustees who are responsible for the running of the charity and maintaining its aims and activities. A charity cannot have a political aim.

To find out more about setting up your own charity visit the website of the Charity Commission here.

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