Get InVOLved Innovation Fund

What is it?

Funding and advice to help organisations explore new ways to make volunteering more inclusive, for those that work with:

• Adults who have learning disabilities
• Autistic or neurodivergent adults
• Looked-after children / children leaving care

Projects supported people from these groups who face barriers in engaging in volunteering or become volunteering ready.

Who could apply?

Constituted organisations that have up to date policies and work with the target groups.

Funding rounds have now completed, projects are running until December 2026

What does the fund support?

Projects that:

• work with people (from the groups above) who don’t currently volunteer
• offer activities to help them become ‘volunteering ready’
• create opportunities so they can experience volunteering
• are a new development for the organisation

Awards are for short term projects (up to six months) and can be funded up to £7,500.

Completed projects 

Current Projects 

Resources and Reports 

Podcasts and Blogs 

Break work with young people in, around and leaving care.   Their Innovation project piloted a volunteering programme that addressed the barriers they already knew existed for the young people they work with.   

They gathered small groups of four to six young people and set up volunteering placements in familiar settings to many of the participants.  

Break provided support to run eight sessions over six months, offering volunteering at Wrongs Covert: Woodland Restoration In Norfolk and Fen Zen - Mother's Fire Circle, Event, Nature Education Groups as well as taking part in fundraising efforts at Break.  

Young people undertook heritage land-stewardship skills using traditional coppicing techniques; weaving dead hedging and screens using traditional methods; constructing and maintaining footbridges over becks; digging up clay for flooring; learning species identification and habitat sensitivity; making co-produced conservation-led decisions for long term habitat health.  

In the final sessions, participants came together to discuss the barriers and enablers to volunteering as a group, and identified and applied for further volunteering through Get InVOLved Norfolk 

Break’s Opportunities Team Leader told us: ‘We began the volunteering as a way of getting opportunities for free and making money go a bit further, but it has had a much greater impact than we anticipated.  

Let me explain: We took a bunch of young people to the zoo for a day. They had fun and said it was OK.  

But when we took the same group to volunteer, painting the wood around the penguin enclosure and doing some weeding, they said it was the best thing they’d ever done in their lives.  

With young people in care, people are always thinking about what we can do for them, when in fact they are learning the skills to support others.  

Participants told us: 

• “I became more aware of how to communicate my needs, respect other people’s boundaries, and adapt when plans needed to change.”  
• “The co-design process worked really well.”  
• “There was a strong feeling of shared ownership.” 
• “People make friends through helping each other – long term friends.” 

Nansa has been working with people with special educational needs since 1954. Their innovation project developed a Visible Volunteering Project, so that young people could undertake a volunteering training programme at an appropriate pace and environment to their needs, and then present what had been learnt at the Visible Volunteering Neuro Diversity festival, where they were linked to partner organisations and NANSA’s own DRAGONS project. Lots of work happened around advocating for needs and adjustments, and templates were developed for volunteer applications and advocacy. 

These are tools we hope to share with the sector on the Volunteering for Health Legacy 

NANSA told us a little about the process of receiving funding: We really appreciated the panel’s thoughtful comments. The recognition of the timeframe and our approach affirms exactly what we’re trying to build: a supportive, enjoyable, and realistic journey into volunteering.  

Opening Doors is a user-led organisation run by and for adults with learning disabilities. They design and deliver training and provide high quality translations for local and national organisations. They work with people who have learning disabilities, multiple disabilities and autism, and support adults with learning disabilities to run groups where people learn new skills.  

This project was about asking participants with Learning Disabilities what the barriers were for them in volunteering and what worked well for them.  

Participants then volunteered by developing accessible shareable templates for people with Learning Disabilities to get volunteering across multiple organisations and worked on two short films to support that work.  These are tools we hope to share with the sector on the Volunteering for Health Legacy Resources page. 

Opening Doors also developed three new volunteering roles within the organisation, including in governance. 

We have held one day where we worked hard on governance volunteering – what it means, what the barriers are (for people with learning disabilities) and what the fears are (for peers without learning disabilities about working alongside self-advocates).  

We are now planning day two where we will focus on volunteering more generally, what the barriers are (for people with learning disabilities) and how to overcome them and then hopefully (time-permitting) moving onto recording, reporting and rewarding volunteering.  

From that we have been gathering the ‘what would help’ and look at what resources we can share as editable templates which then hopefully through your Get Volunteering networks can be shared widely for people to use.  

 We won’t be able to do them all so will have to choose at some point after the main days have been done – the ideas on the list so far are:  

• Easy read expenses claim form for volunteers  
• Easy read fillable handbook  
• ‘My volunteering story’ template to enable people to share their positive experiences of volunteering  
• What’s ok – and what’s not - card game to help people identify good and bad support/practice in volunteering  

Fen Zen is eight acres of beautiful wild meadows in Denver, near Downham Market.  This innovations project offered supported-volunteering for neuro divergent women. The brief was to build a changing block and toilets for the community gatherings and home education groups that are sited here. Volunteers planned and built the building together, learning carpentry skills at their own pace and supporting each other throughout the project.  Fen Zen also provided person centred support, carpentry expertise, a cooked meal and hot drinks throughout the winter’s volunteering.  Some participants are continuing to volunteer here, on other projects that require community support.  

"I love that there is always something to do here, like, even if everyone else is chatting, you let me crack on with something to keep busy"  

"I've had a fantastic day! Really great to get stuck in!"  

"I've never seen anything like this before, I want to tell all my ND mates"  

Fen Zen’s Director, Tabitha Nolan, said:  

"I really appreciate the input that [Voluntary Norfolk] is having, I feel like, even from the start, my ideas and project were seen and valued, rather than just being lost in a pile of applications written by professional bid writers, my words were actually read, my project seen, and really supported from day 1, that means so much to me, and the project. The support and offers of support I have been getting along the way has made a huge difference. I feel like the project is going to be even more successful, because of the support we are receiving. I know that if I'm struggling with any aspect of running the group, help is only an email away"  

Community Voices research programmes are Norfolk & Waveney Integrated Care Board (ICB) led projects that work with trusted communicators to speak with communities to hear and better understand what is important to them, around specific health related issues.  

Having found it difficult to find any research on volunteering and those with care experience, Voluntary Norfolk and the then Norfolk & Waveney ICB commissioned some research into attitudes to volunteering, with care-experienced young people, professionals and carers.  The conversations were gathered and summarised in the following report.  

The report outlines both positive and negative views towards volunteering, as well as the barriers and enablers.   

Barriers identified included practical challenges such as transport, admin and finance to get to a placement; anxiety and lack of confidence; the impact of trauma and the care-experience, and a lack of relationship with the hosting organisation.   

Many of the enablers were centred on trust and familiarity – with volunteer settings, host organisations, supporting organisations and peer volunteers.  A good understanding of trauma-informed practice from supporting and host organisations was important to potential volunteers, as were the provision of clear benefits of volunteers role and potential pathways from volunteering to employment. 

The reports can be found via the hyperlinks below or by the pink buttons. Click on the text to open the report. 

Community Voices Report:Attitudes to Volunteering of Care-Experienced Young People

Full enablers and Barriers to Volunteering Report 

Key Recommendations: How to make volunteering inclusive