Councils for Voluntary Service in West Sussex

 There are eight Councils for Voluntary Service (CVS) in West Sussex covering a mixture of urban and rural towns based on the local authority districts and neighbourhoods of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Crawley, East Grinstead, Horsham, Mid Sussex and Worthing. This is a population of approximately 760,000 people and between 5,000 to 8,000 voluntary organisations (eg; there are 900+ in Worthing alone) ranging from the very small groups run by volunteers to the larger charities which can have in excess of 100 paid staff. The Voluntary and Community sector in the county is very varied covering sports, homelessness, the arts, health, social care, family support, welfare rights advice, older people, education, crime and community safety, youth and children, animal welfare, social and leisure groups.

Whilst West Sussex may not be known for it's cultural and ethnic diversity there are significant Black and minority ethnic communities in various areas and some new organisations are becoming established within those communities to provide specific appropriate support and development.

The CVS' are part of the wider national network of over 350 Councils for Voluntary Service and similar infrastructure organisations and a core function of all of these is to support, strengthen and build the capacity of the voluntary and community sector by working with local groups and individuals who wish to start groups to meet need in the community. CVS' are also membership organisations and accountable to their members who are voluntary and community organisations. The Board of Trustees of each CVS is democratically elected annually by the membership.

The CVS' meet together regularly, share information and are increasingly working to shape services in the county which can be delivered across district boundaries such as training and development.

Many of the CVS' have integral volunteer centres which offer specialised volunteering support services and publicity helping a large number of local voluntary organisations to recruit volunteers, provide policy and good practice advice on volunteering and raise the profile of volunteering as an important contributor to social well being and quality of life. There is also an independent volunteer centre in Horsham which works alongside the CVS