Future plans

YouthNet has big plans for the future and we're working on some exciting projects to help get us there.

Our future

As an organisation, we're not standing still. We aim to build on our achievements and make sure all young people are supported when they need it, and are able to influence and participate in the changing world. We want to inspire even more young people to follow their passions and play an active role in society, through volunteering and community action.

To achieve all this, we will increase our reach to young people, expand our services, and spread our influence further. We will actively harness new technologies to develop the most relevant and up-to-date services for young people; talk to and partner with individuals and organisations in the private, public and voluntary sectors; and introduce new ways of raising money to fund this work.

"We will increase our reach to young people, expand our services, and spread our influence further."

What will all this look like?

Here are some of the highlight projects coming out of YouthNet in the next year or two:

• Putting young people at the centre of what we do by encouraging them – and our volunteers – to create their own user-generated content for our websites.
• Reaching more young people through the prevalence of broadband usage. YouthNet will develop multimedia content on video, audio and podcasts so that even more young people can benefit from our information and support.
• Reaching more young people through new technologies. By developing our mobile and idTV services, YouthNet will be able to reach more young people who are looking for information and support.
• Introducing online chat with experts to support young people and offer them yet another way to reach us when they need support.
• Developing a consortium with other organisations under the 'Choose Action' banner which will play a key role in enabling innovative young person-led community action and volunteering, online and on the ground.
• Developing our social business so that we are able to deliver a sustainable public service and provide our partners with the right products and services.
• Building on our partnership with Volunteering England to make do-it.org.uk the public facing website for volunteering as part of the Volunteering Hub in England.
• Launching an upgraded system that gives national organisations greater flexibility when they input their volunteering opportunities directly into do-it.org.uk.
• Bring Sport England V-Base and generic V-Base together in V-Base 3 so that all our partners are using the same version.
• Increasing our influence, so that we build on our knowledge and understanding to champion young people's issues in the social policy arena.
• Releasing V-Base 3 in 2008. This enhanced version of our special volunteer management software is being developed with the help of feedback from our volunteer centre partners and other voluntary and community organisations.
• Building links with key people in the European Commission, as we did at the eHealth conference in Norway in May 2005.
• Discussing with the Department for Education and Skills how we might play a key role in shaping the future of information, advice and guidance online as part of the Youth Matters agenda.
• Looking at how we can raise income from international trusts, mainly in America and Europe.
• Developing YouthNet's network of potential funders so that we raise all the funds we need to support the 7.2 million 16-24 year-olds in the UK.
• Developing a Careers Q&A service on askTheSite