PROFILE CSVnet

CSVnet is the National Coordination of the Voluntary Service Centres.

It was officially opened on January, 11th 2003 with the aim of gathering, providing continuity to and strengthening the experience of the National Association of Service Centres, constituted in 1999.

In the acronym, CSV stands for the family, that of service Centres, while net suggests the idea of network, the organizational network but also the network of communication, of solidarity among members and of the society. E network whose every node is paramount for everybody's development.

Voluntary Service Centres are free to enter CSVnet as ordinary members. A CSV may be included as observer if it shares the overall aims of the Coordination and wants to know in more detail its activities before becoming a member.

ABOUT CSVs

The Voluntary Service Centres were regulated in 1991 with law 266 on voluntary work. Today they can be found in every Italian province with the exception of Bolzano. Overall there are 77 of them, 71 of which are members of the national Coordination.

The growth and diffusion of those Centres represent a success of Italian voluntary work which, through them, has one more instrument available to support its development and planning activity. Service Centres are set up and managed by voluntary organizations, the natural beneficiaries of the services and activities they supply. A network of participation with 8,600 member associations.

During 2005, the CSV network supplied 174,000 performances to more than 70,000 beneficiaries, the large majority of which is composed of Voluntary Organizations and Voluntary Workers. 99,113 consultancies, 64,717 logistic services, 41,350 training hours, 3,366 voluntary work promotion activities, as well as 15,342,281 Euros invested in the support to the projects of voluntary organizations.

ACTIVITIES

The main fields of activity are the following:

• promotion of voluntary work and of the culture of solidarity, e.g. promotion initiatives on youth voluntary work and on the relation between school and voluntary work;
• help desk: to listen, provide information, guidance, counselling and accompanying on legal, tax, administrative, regulatory, management issues and for the relations with institutions and local organizations;
• training: training courses and initiatives for voluntary workers and operators. Counselling for the organization and management of training processes;
• support to planning and access of voluntary work to calls for tenders and funds;
• logistics, through the provision of spaces and equipment for the organizations' activities;
• help to improve communication in all the operating fields;
• economic support to the projects of the organizations.

FUNDING

Service Centres are funded with the economic resources provided to them, in compliance with the law, by bank foundations. Indeed, law No. 266/91 on voluntary work states, I article 15, that such foundations must include, in their articles of association, the donation of at least one fifteenth of their revenues for the creation of special regional funds, aimed at creating Service Centres. So far, the bureaucratic mechanisms have slowed down the flow of funds, cutting in half the actual availability.

CONTROL GUARANTEES

The legitimacy control on the use of economic resources is entrusted to the Management Committees in every region, included and regulated by the October, 8th 1997 Ministerial Decree, which are composed of 15 members.

THE NATIONAL COORDINATION – CSVnet

In 1999 Service Centres decided to set up a National Coordination to represent them. Today it is an instrument for collaboration and consistent debate on the issues on which the Centres work. It provides services to its members in order to improve the quality of the system, spreading training initiatives, the use of the social budget instrument and the charter of services.