Our goal is to encourage 'active citizenship'. In a nutshell, this means helping students & staff to get involved with and make a positive difference in the Sheffield community.

Why? Students often tell us that they got involved to 'do something', 'give something back', 'feel more involved' etc. It's about escaping that student bubble. For our part, our main hope is that having got the bug, our volunteers will carry on throughout University & beyond. We often hear back from graduates who are doing just that!

Of course, there are great spin-off's too like encouraging enterprise, improving student employability, community cohesion & so on but the big one is playing an active role in our city. Most of our volunteering is targeted in areas of social & economic deprivation but we also organise activities in areas where students live and study.

How we encourage volunteering:

• Supporting individual students, clubs & societies to lead projects.
• Raising aspirations in local schools through trained mentors.
• Facilitating academic outreach – sharing skills & expertise in the community.
• Promoting volunteer vacancies on behalf of charities & voluntary groups.
• Co-ordinating 'alternative' team-building activities for staff.

Who are we?

A diverse bunch! Last year, 1659 students & staff from 57 departments got involved in 63 different areas of our city and beyond – benefiting 143 local charities and voluntary groups. In all, volunteering hours totalled 26,269.

Students are involved in the running of SheffieldVolunteering at every level from our management board to leading projects. Regular promotions and events are overseen by the Volunteering Committee - a student team dedicated to getting the volunteering message out to as many students and staff as possible.