About GoldStar 
What is GoldStar? 
The GoldStar Project is designed to encourage and enable voluntary organisations and projects throughout England to realise the potential of volunteers, mentors and befreinders from socially excluded groups.
Our aim is to promote and share good practice used in engaging people from these groups giving them the opportunity to enrich their own and other peoples’ lives.
In the last two years, we have worked towards identifying the barriers to recruiting volunteers from socially excluded groups and offered ways to overcoming them. This has been achieved through a series of live regional and national good practice events and research and guidelines that will help voluntary projects everywhere.
Inspiration can also be taken from existing GoldStar Exemplar projects already recognised by the Office of the Third Sector for their Good Practice.
We have now been awarded continuation funding to March 2009. We intend this year to further develop good practice and resources to reach even more organisations that have an interest in working with volunteers. We also want to ensure that these organisations will be able to carry on learning post 2009.
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 Ahmed Shazad Cheetham Hill Advice Centre, Manchester |
- People with no qualifications
- People from Black and Minority Ethnic groups
- People with disabilities or limiting long term illnesses.
Basically anyone at risk of social exclusion, these people represent a rich and largely untapped volunteer resource in all our towns, cities and local communities.
Some have already become highly successful and fulfilled as volunteers, mentors and befrienders.
GoldStar will support voluntary organisations to make it possible for many more to follow.
Who Benefits? 
