Crowdfunding campaign aims to resurrect former vinspired service
21 June 2019 by Liam Kay
The defunct charity's former digital director wants to set up its digital volunteer recruitment network as a social enterprise
A former staff member at the collapsed youth volunteering charity vinspired has set up a crowdfunding page to raise £30,000 to run one of the charity's old services.
Bob Barbour, former digital director at vinspired, said he hoped to raise the money before the end of August so that the charity's digital volunteer recruitment network could be resurrected as a new social enterprise.
The charity closed last year with the loss of 26 jobs because it did not have enough money to run its core services.
The charity was set up by the last Labour government in 2006 and received £100m in public funding, but funding levels dropped dramatically under the coalition and Conservative governments after the creation of the National Citizen Service in 2010.
The GoFundMe page set up by Barbour says that the money raised will help young people and communities benefit from volunteering and would run as a "low-cost, high-quality digital service to the whole voluntary sector".
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Barbour has bought the digital arm of the charity after negotiations with the charity's liquidators.
The £30,000 in funding would keep the services open until longer-term investment could be found, he said.
"For me, personally, this is not only an opportunity to save a great product and all the social value it holds, but to develop a new model for the UK voluntary sector," he said. "A digital product that is sustainable and scalable, funded and shared by the whole sector and built and maintained to the quality and standards of the technology industry.
"On a personal level, this opportunity represents the culmination of more than a decade of work, challenge, frustration and hope; the chance to do social tech properly and deliver real and lasting social value."
Anyone wanting to donate can do so here.
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