Centre History

Volunteer Centres Ireland (VCI) began in the year 2000 when some of the earliest volunteer centres in Ireland came together to discuss common issues that affected them all.

Volunteer centres act as ‘brokers’ between individuals who want to undertake voluntary activity and organisations that seek to involve volunteers. Their primary function is to match individuals and groups interested in volunteering with appropriate volunteering opportunities and to offer advice and support to volunteers and organisations through a range of services. Local volunteer centres provide an invaluable link between volunteer-involving organisations and individual volunteers and are a vital element of the volunteering infrastructure of any country.

In 2001, it was decided to formalise this grouping and Volunteer Centres Ireland was born. VCI adopted a constitution, membership criteria and agreed aims and objectives. By 2005, the membership of VCI had expanded to include the following volunteer centres:

Ballyfermot Volunteer Centre (now the Dublin City South VC)

Bray Volunteer Centre (now County Wicklow Volunteer Centre

Cork Volunteer Centre

Drogheda Volunteer Centre

Newbridge Volunteer Centre (now the Kildare Volunteer Centre)

Tralee Volunteer Centre (now the Kerry Volunteer Centre)

Since its inception, the membership of VCI had lobbied government to support a national infrastructure of volunteer centres, central to the recommendations of Tipping the Balance (2002). In January 2005, the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Volunteering published its report, Volunteers and Volunteering in Ireland, in which it specifically recommended that the existing volunteering infrastructure be developed through volunteer centres and VCI . A few months later, the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs announced a package of funding measures to realise that recommendation. Core funding from the Department was extended to all the volunteer centres (previously only the Tallaght Volunteer Centre and Volunteering Ireland had received core funding) and VCI itself received funding to employ a national development officer. Announcing the funding, Minister of State Noel Ahern stated that ‘the VCI network and the [Volunteer Centres] that go to make up the network constitute a valuable infrastructure on which to build for the future’.

By September 2005, VCI had recruited its first member of staff. With extra human resources within VCI and additional support extended to the centres themselves, VCI were able to clarify its aims and objectives and begin to work on shared projects across the volunteer centres. These included:

Design and adoption of a new logo for VCI and a shared one for the volunteer centres to adopt

Publication of the first five of the VCI ‘Step by Step Guides to Volunteering’

Co-ordinated development by the individual volunteer centres of complementary websites

Design and implementation of the VCI /Salesforce.com database system to facilitate the daily work of volunteer centres and produce accurate up-to-the-minute reports on volunteering as it occurs through the volunteer centres
During 2006, the membership of VCI increased to include the following centres:

Galway Volunteer Centre

Sligo Volunteer Centre

Carlow Volunteer Centre
Responding to the development of the volunteering infrastructure in Ireland, VCI recruited a second member of staff in September 2006. On International Volunteer Day – December 5th – we were delighted to launch our updated website, www.volunteer.ie, to serve as the national portal for volunteering in Ireland. Minister of State Noel Ahern visited VCI on December 5th to officially open our new offices and launch our updated website.

During 2007, the membership of VCI again increased to include the following centres:

Donegal Volunteer Centre
Dun Laoghaire Rathdown Volunteer Centre
Fingal Volunteer Centre
Longford Volunteer Centre
South Tipperary Volunteer Centre
Westmeath Volunteer Centre

A further four centres joined VCIi n 2008:

Mayo Volunteer Centre
Meath Volunteer Centre
Clare Volunteer Centre
Monaghan Volunteer Centre.
Volunteer Centres Ireland is now made up of 20 member volunteer centres.