CSV is the UK's leading volunteering agency. It was founded in 1962 by Alec Dickson, a visionary and innovator in the field of national service, who had previously founded the UK's Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) programme.
CSV pioneers involving citizens of all ages in strengthening and enriching their own and other communities. Its vision is that everyone, whatever their background, has the opportunity to play an active role in this work.
From the leading edge, CSV tackles social exclusion through volunteering, training and community action. It involves over 90,000 volunteers each year, with no volunteer ever rejected. Partnerships are at the heart of its work, with over 300 partner organisations nation-wide, including local authority social service and education departments, National Health Service Trusts, police constabularies, Training and Enterprise Councils, probation services, government departments, and voluntary agencies.
CSV works through seven programmes: CSV Education for Citizenship, CSV Environment, CSV Innovations, CSV Media, CSV Training and Enterprise, CSV Volunteering Partners, and RSVP (Retired and Senior Volunteer Programme), which cover the whole of England, and also include Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
In the field of National Youth Service, CSV has been at the forefront of developments, piloting Citizens' Service for young people (young people volunteering for a sustained period of time in their local community), and, through the experience of this initiative and consultation with young people, helping to create a blueprint for the British Government's Millennium Volunteers scheme. CSV has 12 projects in the scheme - more than 10% of the nation's total.
CSV's work also has a strong international element. It has partnerships with agencies in more than 20 countries world-wide. It raises funds from the European Social Fund, for example, to provide training for unemployed people across the UK. Other European activities include work in developing PAX (Peer Aid against Xenophobia and Racism) to combat racism in schools, and Leonardo European Youth Social Work Training, providing training for staff and volunteers who work with young people in difficulties. Full-time volunteers from Italy, Germany and Austria are on volunteer placements in the UK, thanks to CSV's involvement in European Voluntary Service (the transnational volunteering initiative of the European Commission which encourages young people to take up volunteering placements throughout Europe). In addition, the Japanese Cultural and Education Connection recruits more than 100 volunteers to CSV each year, and Turkish young people contribute to the UK social care system by helping people in need. Each year, CSV also organizes a European-wide workshop on volunteer action - Volonteurope. This workshop is now in its eighth year. Participants come from the member states of the European Union, Central and Eastern Europe, also Russia and the former republics of the USSR, and, increasingly, other parts of the world.
If you would like further information on CSV and its work, please contact:
4th
Global conference on national youth service (1998) 
