[8] In 1958, Dr Alec Dickson founded Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) which focused on international volunteering projects.

Both brands would continue their existing programmes and current volunteers and the people they support would not be directly affected by the proposed merger.

[18] Volunteering Matters pioneered the idea of teaching citizenship in schools – it became part of the National Curriculum in England in 2002.

[20] The programme has continued and now involves fifty UK-based companies participating in activities that include one-off team building days through to long-term partnerships with local charities and schools.

[citation needed] The IAVM[22] was a training event held each year from 1998 to 2012 by Volunteering Matter's predecessor CSV.

Core faculty included Arlene Schindler, Susan J Ellis, Rick Lynch, Steve McCurley and later Linda Graff and Martin J Cowling.

[23][better source needed] It also served as a model for other similar training intensives including IAVMs in Battle Creek, Michigan, USA in 2000 and 2001[23] and the Australasian Retreat for Advanced Volunteer Management conducted in Australia and New Zealand from 2005 to 2013.