District cooperates with Landkreistag to strengthen voluntary work

Voluntary work requires full-time support. For this reason, the district of Waldeck-Frankenberg is one of 18 districts nationwide that have collaborated on a handout of the German District Association (Deutscher Landkreistag), which has now been published.

The aim is to unite starting points, ideas and good examples for structures that support voluntary work in a single concept. "Waldeck-Frankenberg has understood that voluntary work needs full-time support," says District Administrator Jürgen van der Horst. "We are less concerned with providing financial support than with listening to people and then specifically strengthening them, qualifying them and offering them a place to go." The district therefore bundles all the offers on the website www.ehrenamt-wafkb.de. It is an information base as well as a marketplace: It is an information base as well as a marketplace and meeting place. In many events, the district also supports the volunteers and gives them the advice and support they need with their questions about association and tax law, membership recruitment, social media and much more. The project is based at the district's village and regional development service.

In the first step, the jointly developed handout deals with an inventory ("Where is there a need for support?") in order to build on this and compile conceptual information for organisational implementation ("In the district administration or outside?", "Staff unit or office?"). A further section is devoted to the definition of target groups, the digital possibilities of actively addressing volunteers and the involvement of external actors. Special target groups are also taken into account, e.g. newcomers with or without a migration background, women in voluntary work or people in transition to retirement age.

"The result is a handout by districts for districts," says Prof. Dr. Hans-Günter Henneke, Managing Director of the German Association of Districts. "Appreciation must not only be reflected in contributions to the political discussion, but must be underpinned by concrete action." In this respect, the German Association of Districts hopes that many other districts and other municipal administrations will follow the example of the 18 districts in the association and tackle the issue of strengthening voluntary work. Main contact points, especially in the districts, which cooperate well with the existing structures and the municipalities, are an essential building block. The joint project has once again shown how important it is to support and relieve the burden of voluntary commitment through the municipal main office. In this way, it can contribute to people in rural areas meeting in joint activities, advancing things together and thus participating in social progress.

The handout was produced as part of the project "Hauptamt stärkt Ehrenamt" (Main Office Strengthens Volunteers) funded by the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) in the Federal Programme Rural Development and Regional Value Creation (BULE+). The three-and-a-half-year nationwide cooperation has borne much fruit and noticeably improved the situation of voluntary work in Waldeck-Frankenberg.

Background:
The Federal Government wants to preserve rural areas as attractive, liveable and vital living spaces and create equal living conditions. For this reason, the BMEL has been promoting innovative approaches to rural development with BULE+ since 2015. The joint project "Hauptamt stärkt Ehrenamt" (Main Office Strengthens Volunteers), funded by the BMEL from the beginning of 2020 to mid-2023 with around €6.5 million, is part of this. The aim of the 18 districts participating in the project was to establish or improve promising and sustainable full-time structures to strengthen and support voluntary work. The German Association of Counties (Deutscher Landkreistag) coordinated the project.

The handout will be published both in print and - in a few months - as an optimised digital version, which is currently being designed for publication on the homepage of the German Foundation for Engagement and Volunteering (DSEE). Free print copies can be requested by emailing presse@landkreistag.de. The PDF version of the brochure is available online.

Keywords:

Voluntary work Village and regional development service Voluntary work is ongoing