About Us
The Forum is an unconstituted group and does not exist to promote the interests of, or to seek funding or resources for, any one organisation. Its fundamental purpose is to facilitate collaboration for the overall benefit of volunteering in Scotland. The Forum has no paid staff. It is facilitated by individuals who volunteer their time above and beyond their organisational day jobs to influence change.
Purpose
The Scottish Volunteering Forum is a collaborative group of cross-sector organisations that are committed to developing and improving volunteer participation in Scotland. We exist to influence the strategic landscape and champion innovative approaches using our collective intelligence and expertise.
Structure
A group of active forum members will form a steering group who will meet quarterly. This group will be responsible for:
- Agreeing content for an annual survey to better understand the experience, expertise and influence of forum members
- Agreeing content for thematic surveys to be sent to forum members quarterly
- Reviewing survey content and identifying relevant forum members to feed into thematic meetings
- Identifying any wider consultations or engagement activity we’d like to respond to
- supporting the chair to engage with the Scottish Government and other key decision-makers
The wider forum membership, twitter followers and key stakeholders will be invited to provide evidence and help shape responses.
This will be achieved through engagement with surveys, followed by targeted attendance at thematic meetings.
The wider forum, twitter followers and key stakeholders will also be invited to respond in a reactive manner to other consultation or engagement opportunities that arise.
Sarah Latto
Volunteer Development Manager
at Shelter Scotland
The elected chair of the Scottish Volunteering Forum is Sarah Latto. Sarah has worked in third sector volunteer development posts since 2008, and has been a volunteer in various guises since she was in her mid-teens. She is extremely passionate about volunteering and has a particular focus on improving equality of participation. Sarah has been a member of the Scottish Volunteering Forum since 2014 and became co-chair then chair in 2017 and 2019 respectively.
She started out as a Volunteer Development Officer with Volunteer Centre Fife, latterly Fife Voluntary Action, in 2009. This provided significant understanding into the experience of small volunteer involving organisations, and local capacity building.
In 2014 Sarah moved on to national organisation Children 1st as their Volunteer Development Officer. In this post she led on the development of volunteer journeys, and provided guidance to colleagues across the organisation on supporting volunteers. Sarah is now the Volunteer Development Manager at Shelter Scotland where she leads on the strategic development of volunteering nationally. Both of these positions have provided insight into the experience of volunteer involvement in national organisations.
Sarah has held a number of volunteering roles with a range of national and local organisations, including being a trustee on several occasions, and has most recently been a mentor with the Career Ready programme.
The Scottish Volunteering Forum is a collective of cross-sector organisations with a national strategic focus. All members have an equal voice and role in the forum, including intermediary bodies such as Volunteer Scotland or SCVO, and key representatives from the TSI network.
Some key stakeholders who might have an interest in our work without becoming members include:
- Association of Volunteer Managers
- Wider TSI network
Our Members
For more information about our members and to find out more about what they do, simply click on one of the organisation logos below to be navigate to their website.
