2.10 Current debates and reforms
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Upcoming policy developments
A policy process existed after 2011 to prepare new draft law of the New Act on volunteering, however it failed. The aims of the process were to:
- eliminate legal barriers and support volunteering system development,
- introduce a new definition of volunteering and volunteers, and
- define forms of volunteering (as there is only an insufficient definition in the Act on voluntary service).
The Government accepted it as well and the Ministry of Interior assigned the task of submitting a draft of the Act on Volunteering until 30 June 2016. The Ministry of Interior requested to postpone the deadline until autumn 2016 and stated as a reason the fact that it is necessary to resolve the situation whereby an Act on Public Benefit - that is a follow-up law of the new Civil Code - still did not exist.
In 2016, when the inter-sectorial comment procedure was closed, the Ministry of Interior decided to propose to the Government to withdraw the proposal, because the level of regulation was not favourable to voluntary organisations - so it was against the primary goal.
However, there are specific initiatives of the Ministry of the Interior to support development of volunteering at a local level, especially within the EU Funded project 'Concept of volunteering development in the Czech Republic with an emphasis on ensuring the regional and professional availability of volunteering in the form of volunteer centres' which in the years 2016-2020 focused on supporting regional volunteering centres and creating guidelines for their operation. Part of the project was to create a national Strategy for volunteering development, however mostly in social services and public administration. Youth is not the main target of these initiatives.
Outcomes of the project are publically available on the website of the Ministry of Interior including the draft of the new Draft of the State Concept on the Volunteering development 2019 - 2025. It awaits approval by the Ministry.
Ongoing debates
Longer lasting public and expert debates on volunteering pertain to the question of measuring the financial value of volunteering. It is linked to the practical issue of how to project the value of volunteering into an organization's accounting practices. The aim is to determine the accurate and usable value for, for instance, co-financing projects through in-kind voluntary contributions.
The National Centre for Volunteering together with The College of Polytechnics Jihlava prepared, with the public support from the Technological Agency of the Czech Republic an application called "Dobrometer" ("A Goodwill meter"). The application focuses on the evidence of the value of volunteering and voluntary work. It was presented in 2021 and is freely available to interested NGOs and other parties.
Volunteering in general, and of young people in particular, enjoyed a wide boom during the COVID-19 pandemic and after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Many youth organizations and other NGOs prepared a broad range of voluntary activities and opportunities for young people to help others, some of which continue even in 2025 (such as making candles for Ukraine, organizing training courses etc.).
Due to the nature of the state subsidy system for the youth work for NGOs, a debate has continued about better definitions and criteria for supporting voluntary youth work, in contrast to commercial youth work activities, in order to provide effective support to youth volunteering and voluntary youth work.