Local and Regional - Contents
National starting points
- Action with Communities in Rural England Somerfield Court, Somerfield Road, Cirencester, Glos, GL7 1TW, phone 01285 653477.
- National Association for Voluntary and Community Action (NAVCA). The network for local sector support bodies in England. From July 2016 at Floor 2 Churchill House, 6-8 Meetinghouse Lane, Sheffield, S1 2DP, phone 0114 278 6636. Website includes directory of local CVS, and there is also a regional list of training contacts.
- Voluntary Action Scotland advocates for, co-ordinates and supports the work of Scotland’s local third sector support organisations.
Local Resources
Websites from local infrastructure bodies which offer information relevant to organisations based or working in their areas and/or a directory of local voluntary and community groups. Dates given in brackets are the most recent times we checked what they were up to. We can’t list every site here, so aim to have a spread across the UK, particularly those with a good range of accessible material or voluntary sector contacts info.
You may also want to try out external search engines to locate local facilities and groups as they are easier to find than when this page was started.
England
Birmingham Birmingham VSC (24/2/18).
Bradford DIVA (3/6/05). Voluntary organisations database for Bradford District.
Brighton Sussex Community Internet Project (15/1/01) Covers the whole county and loads of link lists, but a definite Brighton flavour. Also check: Resource Centre (11/10/01) – equipment and information for Brighton and Hove community groups; Brighton and Hove – Community Works.
Bristol Voscur – has a lot of useful resources on its Support Resources from Voscur (May’14).
Devon Voluntary Action (Jan’15).
Dorset Community Action (4/9/02).
Durham Durham Voice.
East Sussex ESCIS Community Information Service from the local authority.
Essex A system from the county council allows community groups to set up their own web pages at essexinfo.net (23/1/06).
Hertfordshire Community Development Action Hertfordshire (22/11/13).
Leeds Doing Good Leeds (March ’14).
London Community Action Southwark (Oct. ’14) – website has a good resources section.
Norfolk Voluntary Norfolk (22/3/10).
North Tyneside VODA (1/6/05).
Nottingham CVS (12/6/02).
Oxfordshire: Oxfordshire CVA (June 2015).
Sheffield: Sheffield Directory (18/1/11).
Staffordshire Support Staffordshire.
Surrey Community Action (15/9/03).
Wirral Community Action Wirral (22/6/10)
York CVS (11/6/03). Some useful reference material on this site.
Northern Ireland
North West Community Network (22/3/10).
Scotland
Caithness.org (31/8/01).
Dundee Voluntary Action (26/8/03).
East Lothian Strive.
Edinburgh Edinburgh Compact aims to improve communication across the 1800 or so local organisations (27/3/06), Edinburgh Voluntary Organisations’ Council (27/3/06).
Orkney Voluntary Action Orkney (15/1/07) or Orkney Communities (Nov 03).
Skye & Lochalsh Council for Voluntary Organisations (3/11/03). Their community toolkit looks very good.
Wales
Cardiff Third Sector Council (19/3/12).
InfoEngine (being developed 2015) is an online directory of services (provided by community organisations etc.) covering Powys, Ceredigion, Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire.
Pembrokeshire Association of Voluntary Services (PAVS) (19/12/03).
Powys Powys Association of Voluntary Organisations (11/11/11), phone 0845 009 3288.
Swansea SCVS (13/9/04).
County and District
A trend of local council sites creating directories of voluntary organisations operating in their area appears to have reversed. There are probably some still out there – do let us know of live sites, or those in development.
Regional
Sector Networks/Forums
Often set up in response to the Labour government’s ‘regional agenda’, and with less financial support since then. Our Lobbying page has any remaining regional government links.
These initiatives are primarily about improving communications between voluntary and community organisations in their region (who are encouraged to be members), providing information on issues which effect them and encouraging the development and dissemination of good practice. Also often doing regionally based lobbying.
North East England Voluntary Organisations Network North East.
North Yorkshire and York Forum.
East of England East of England BME Network.
East Midlands One East Midlands.
West Midlands Regional Action West Midlands.
Technology/media focus
Manchester People’s Voice Media.
Local Mixed Bag
Many cities and larger towns have their own sites, run commercially, by the local council, individuals or community groups. These will often have something about local voluntary activity, but quality and focus vary hugely. Some will not get past listing the next car boot sale in aid of the Scouts. However, they are worth a try.
Also check local newspaper websites.
Other local sites worth a look
We haven’t checked these sites fully, or they don’t quite make the grade to be in the sections above.
Bassetlaw CVS (9/2/01)
Community News Coventry and Warwickshire.
LondonVoices (10/1/02) A network for community and neighbourhood websites in London.
Merseyworld (9/2/01).
Greater Manchester Centre for Voluntary Organisation St Thomas Centre, Ardwick Green North, Manchester M12 6FZ, phone 0161 273 7451.
Voluntary Action East Renfrewshire.
Community Accountancy Self Help (west London). Features some local projects as well as very useful community accountancy stuff.
