Office of the Third Sector Homepage
Last updated: 23 November 2008
11 April 2008
The Office of the Third Sector has appointed Consolidated to provide communications support for the prestigious Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service.
The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service recognises excellence in volunteering carried out in local communities throughout the UK, it is the most prestigious award in its field and is equivalent in status to the MBE.
The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service was introduced in 2002 to mark the occasion of Her Majesty The Queen’s Golden Jubilee. To date nearly 600 groups have received the award. At the time of its introduction it was recommended that the award be reviewed after 3 years. This review was carried out by consultancy firm Get2thepoint.
As part of the implementation of the recommendations of the review, Consolidated was appointed through the Central Office of Information (COI) following a three-way pitch involving agencies on the COI PR framework. Consolidated will take the lead in promoting and administering the award and they began this work on 1st April 2008 as part of three year contract, taking over from Volunteering England and Geronimo Communications, who previously managed the award.
Phil Hope, Minister for the Third Sector, said:
“Recognising and rewarding volunteers is incredibly important to Government as part of our work to create a culture of volunteering in this country. The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service remains the highest honour specifically for volunteering groups in the United Kingdom."
Consolidated board director Anthony Moore, who leads the agency team, said:
“We’re delighted to be working with Office of the Third Sector off the back of our experience of local community outreach and targeting of hard to reach groups. On an agency level we’re also getting right behind the scheme by committing to developing our own volunteer scheme, ‘Give, further’."