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News Release

Date	Description
13.09.2006	Ed Miliband pledges £1.1 million to promote volunteering among hard-to-reach groups

Ed Milliband, Minister for the Third Sector, today pledged over £1million of funding to spread the best ideas for recruiting and retaining volunteers from hard-to-reach groups.

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Mr Miliband announced that £1.1m has been awarded through the Office of the Third Sector’s flagship GoldStar programme – aimed at organisations who work to increase the number of volunteers among people with disabilities or long-term illnesses, black and minority ethnic groups and those at risk of social exclusion.

The GoldStar programme, run by the OTS in the Cabinet Office, provides funding for third sector organisations to spread good practice around recruiting, managing and retaining volunteers and mentors from groups at risk of social exclusion.

Speaking at a national conference for volunteers, Ed Milliband said: “Voluntary organisations are fizzing with ideas to overcome social exclusion – to help people who might otherwise have felt on the margins to use their experiences to empower others. Too often ideas are trapped in one organisation or one town, but with funding from the government these projects will be able to carry on their own valuable work and spread good practice around the country.

”The GoldStar projects are exemplars of good practice to the whole third sector, and are pathbeaters to a society where volunteering is a part of life."

Phase 2 of the GoldStar programme sees 22 organisations receiving awards that amount to £1.1m in funding. A third of the grants will be spent on sharing this experience with other voluntary organisations with the remaining two-thirds to be spent on the projects themselves.

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