Volunteering Matters

About Volunteering Matters

At Volunteering Matters we bring people together to overcome some of society’s most complex issues through the power of volunteering. This builds stronger communities and enables everyone to thrive.

We work with local partners, turning local knowledge and energy into action and progress. And because we are a national charity, we do this at scale.

Volunteers are at the heart of our work. They make a real difference on the issues they care about, from immediate responses to fostering long term change. We enable volunteers to use their local knowledge and life experiences and collectively we tackle complex issues.

Our focus in Perth and Kinross, Grandmentors, is an award-winning, inter-generational mentoring project for care experienced young people. The project operates in 15+ locations across the UK and launched for the first time in Perth and Kinross in 2022.

It is widely recognised that care-experienced young people are some of the most disadvantaged in society. Many are in care because they have experienced, or are at risk of, neglect and/or abuse. Security and stability are often missing from their lives.
We recruit, train and support volunteer mentors (normally but not exclusively aged 50+) who draw on their wealth of professional and personal life experience and skills to support young people (aged 16-25) through life transitions on their pathway to independence.