Xarxanet.org a good example of public support for volunteering organizations

Catalonia has a web project that is unique in the world due to its particular features. It is launched and funded by the Catalan Government, with the particularity that it is managed by the organizations themselves. A solid project that combines public service with high-quality contents and a constant updating. We are talking about Xarxanet.org, that is to say the network of volunteering and partnership networks (in Catalan “xarxa” means also net!).

It is an ambitious site whose aim is to support volunteering organizations, making them stronger and more efficient so as to make them more useful to society. Local organizations can find there hundreds of web resources that offer them a chance to improve their daily task.

Xarxanet.org is also a good vantage point and, in fact, the voice of the wide spectrum of Catalan organizations, with all its diversity. There they can find a wide-ranging news section, special reports and documentaries as well as a complete agenda concerning events and educational resources for volunteers. On this site it is possible to surf either several thematic sections, each one related to one of various areas concerning volunteering (cultural, social, local, international or environmental) or those transversal sections that refer to the “improvement of the organization”.

The xarxanet.org project is just ten years old and has constantly adjusted itself to technological change. Thus, it has spread out an active presence on social networking websites, especially on facebook and on twitter, that allow to interact actively with the entities and their members. The new needs of the volunteering organizations implied also new sections on the website. There is, for instance, the Library, that contains more than 300 reference documents concerning the voluntary sector, written in Catalan, Spanish and English. Another highlight is the Financing Section that provides the organizations with information about the current public and private calls to raise funds. Finally, we would also like to highlight the 10 Years Special Section, with experts and volunteering leaders giving feedback on the challenges that await the sector in the years to come.

We advise you to have a look at xarxanet.org and check its potential. You can try it either in the Catalan original version or using Google’s automatic translation into English.

There you will see where the Catalan voluntary sector is heading to. And we are sure you will draw some new ideas about public support for organizations which you may want to implement back in your own country. From Catalonia we would like to make xarxanet.org available also for the European volunteering, and it would be great to find other similar projects in your countries that would fit ours. Would you like to help us?

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