Volunteering

NNCO_VOLTaking part in the voluntary sector

Volunteering

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Contents

  • 3. Volunteering
  • 3.1 The role of volunteers
  • 3.2 Recruitment of volunteers
  • 3.3 Good practice in supporting and managing volunteers
  • 3.4 Section 3 summary
  • 3.5 Section 3 quiz
  • Glossary
  • References
  • Acknowledgements

3. Volunteering

Introduction

Volunteers are the lifeblood of voluntary organisations. People volunteer in many different roles including being a trustee, helping with operational activities such as assisting in a charity shop, fundraising, organising events, gardening, administration, caring for elderly people or children and so on. The importance of volunteering has long been recognised, particularly by organisations themselves, many of which would not exist without unpaid help causing some vital services to even collapse.

Section 3 is divided into three topics:

  1. The role of volunteers explores what volunteering is, what volunteers do, and why people volunteer.
  2. Recruitment of volunteers looks at the importance of volunteers to organisations and the different ways to recruit them.
  3. Good practice in supporting and managing volunteers takes an overview of how to retain and engage with volunteers.

You may be a volunteer yourself or work in an organisation that involves volunteers on an extensive basis. You might have relevant experience to draw on, perhaps of being recruited as a volunteer, or you might even have recruited volunteers yourself. If you are considering applying for a volunteering role, then this section will help prepare you for applications and interviews, and give you a sense of what to expect as a volunteer.

Learning outcomes

By completing this section and the associated quiz, you will:

  • understand the important role of volunteers, why they volunteer and what they do
  • know more about how organisations recruit and retain volunteers
  • be able to outline best practice for supporting volunteers in their role.

3.1 The role of volunteers

Figure 1Volunteers work in many different settings.

View description - Figure 1 Volunteers work in many different settings.

It might seem straightforward to ask, ‘What is volunteering?’ However, the roles that volunteers fulfil are diverse and the amounts of time that people give vary substantially, so it’s not easy to pin down a straightforward answer. Additionally, many volunteers are involved with very small organisations so many volunteers and many acts of volunteering will never be counted or appear in surveys or official statistics.

Volunteers are not confined to the voluntary sector. They have traditionally been involved in other sectors too, for example volunteers in hospitals do fundraising, run cafés and visit patients; and government heritage agencies (e.g. Cadw in Wales or Historic Scotland) involve volunteers as guides in historic homes. Furthermore, many private sector organisations promote and support volunteering with their employees (known as employer-supported volunteering, or ESV).

Defining volunteers

Many definitions of volunteering are used by government and voluntary organisations, but one that probably captures most people’s definitions of volunteering is given by Musick and Wilson (2008, p. 1). They describe volunteering as an altruistic activity, which has the goal of providing ‘help to others, a group, an organisation, a cause, or the community at large, without expectation of material reward’. Furthermore, there should be benefit to someone other than the volunteer or society at large.

There is a difference between formal and informal volunteering. Formal volunteering relates to people giving unpaid help through groups, clubs or organisations. Informal volunteering is giving unpaid help as an individual to other people who are not relatives, such as getting an elderly neighbour’s shopping, clearing snow from the streets and so on. Informal volunteering is less likely to be recorded in surveys as people may not think of it as volunteering.

Given that volunteering covers a wide range of activities, it is useful to know how many people actually volunteer. It’s difficult to get an accurate picture of how many people volunteer on a regular basis and there’s little consistency between surveys of volunteering, even within the UK.

  • In Scotland, 29% of adults said they had volunteered in the past 12 months, with half of those volunteering for 1–5 hours per week (Scottish Government, 2013).
  • In England in 2012–13, 29% of adults had formally volunteered at least once a month in the previous year and 44% had volunteered at least once in the previous year.
  • In Wales, it is estimated that 931,000 people were volunteering in 2013–14 (Wales Council for Voluntary Action (WCVA), 2014).
  • From survey results, the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) (2015) estimate that across the UK 13.8 million people volunteer at least once a month and 21.1 million (around a third of the population) volunteer at least once a year.

Data also shows that rates of regular formal volunteering do not vary significantly between men and women, and likewise people of all ages volunteer. People aged 16–25 and 65–74 are the only age groups to have sustained or increased their rates of volunteering since 2012/2013. While the Community Life Survey does not provide data for people under the age of 16, a recent survey by Ipsos Mori in 2013/2014 found that 40% of people aged 10–20 were involved in ‘social action’.

Overall, levels of formal volunteering are generally static and the amount of time that people are giving is decreasing. This starts to illustrate that there are some challenges to recruiting volunteers.

Activity 1

Allow around 5 minutes.

What experience do you have of formal and/or informal volunteering – either you personally or what you know about your friends’ or relatives’ experience? If you volunteer, what are people’s reactions to this when (if) you tell them?

View discussion - Activity 1

What are volunteers doing?

As you might expect, formal voluntary work is diverse: in terms of skills, it can range from simple, repetitive jobs to highly skilled tasks requiring decision making (as in the case of trustees). In other words, formal voluntary work is very similar to paid work, with the same variety of jobs and subject to the same ‘hierarchies’ between skilled and unskilled workers (Musick and Wilson, 2008).

  • In England, the top activities are:
  • fundraising
  • handling money
  • organising or helping at events
  • leading or managing a group
  • giving advice
  • information and counselling
  • other practical help.

(Cabinet Office, 2013; NCVO, 2014)

  • In Scotland, ‘generally helping out’ is the main volunteer activity, followed by raising money, organising events and ‘doing whatever is required’ (Scottish Government, 2013).
  • In Northern Ireland, a survey of a sample of households found that fundraising and events are the most popular, together with volunteering for church or other religious organisations (Department for Social Development, 2015).
  • There is no clear picture of volunteering in Wales, and many volunteers fulfil several roles within the same organisation.

Some types of organisation attract more volunteers than others: in England, sports organisations have the most volunteers (55% of volunteers) and in Scotland, health, disability and social welfare groups have the most (22%).

Activity 2

Allow around 5 minutes.

Thinking about the volunteers in an organisation, club or group you are familiar with, what activities do they carry out? The list of activities below, which are in order of the most common activities (based on figures for England), will help you. You can either answer below or draw your own table in a separate document.

Using the space given below the list, add in any other activities you have identified that are not included in this list. Alternatively, you could apply the list to yourself if you are a volunteer.

If you don’t have an example of an organisation, you could choose a local museum and look on its website: there is usually a section called ‘get involved’ that will give an indication of what its volunteers do.

[Editor: Below multipart activity will require wrong answers]

Fundraising

Helping to organise an event

Offering other practical help

Leading, steering, managing

Giving advice, information, counselling

Visiting people

Providing transport, driving

Befriending or mentoring people

Representing

Secretarial, administration, clerical

Campaigning

Any other help

Provide your answer...

View discussion - Untitled part

Why people volunteer

Understanding why people volunteer is one of the biggest topics of interest to policy makers, organisations and researchers. If politicians and policy-makers want more people to volunteer, then they need to know what motivates people to give their time for free. Equally, organisations may use this information in terms of their own recruitment and retention policies.

Increasingly organisations target their adverts at volunteers, for example highlighting how volunteering can be useful for work experience and CVs, or perhaps for making friends or for gaining health benefits. These aspects are based on an understanding of why people volunteer and the differences between different age groups or different ethnic groups.

Much discussion on people’s motivation at work has traditionally focused on paid staff (viewing pay as an important incentive to work), which may not be that helpful in understanding volunteers’ motivations. Is there something different about volunteers’ motivations and does this mean that working with, and managing them also needs to be different?

Activity 3

Allow around 15 minutes.

Watch the following video and make notes on the volunteers’ reasons for volunteering. Highlight whether they are similar to your own (if you volunteer or are thinking about doing so).

View discussion - Activity 3

As well as considering why people volunteer, it’s useful to think about why people stop volunteering as this has implications for organisations’ retention of volunteers. Around a fifth (22%) of those who had not formally volunteered in the last 12 months had done so at some point within the last five years. By far the most commonly cited reason for respondents to stop volunteering was lack of time due to changing home/work circumstances (48%). The least frequently mentioned were issues relating to volunteer management, including not feeling that their efforts were always appreciated, over-bureaucracy of volunteering, bad organisation of the group/club/organisation and not getting asked to do the things they’d like to do (NCVO, 2015).

Volunteering in order to gain experience

Many people volunteer because they want direct experience of the sector in order to boost their CVs when searching for paid work. This could be to help them see whether they want to work in the sector, to try out a particular role or to experience what it is like working for a particular organisation that they support. In some areas of the voluntary sector, for example heritage or international development, volunteering is often a prerequisite for getting paid work.

Many organisations offer internships or placements. Committing to a few days a week for a few months can allow volunteers to get involved in a substantial project and they might still be able to do another paid job around it. However, many people do not have the resources to take on these roles and ethical concerns have arisen around the use of interns, particularly if the roles do not offer any formal training, expenses or a basic stipend. There are calls for organisations to improve in this area so that good opportunities are available to all people, regardless of background and income.

If you are working or studying in the day time then many voluntary organisations involve volunteers in the evenings and weekends as well as in doing one-off fundraising or helping events (for example street clean-up). Other organisations engage volunteers to do activities from home, perhaps helping via social media or looking after a website. Becoming a trustee would also be very rewarding and a relevant experience. Although it is a big commitment and there are legal responsibilities, it can be organised flexibly to fit around other work or family roles.

If you are looking for a volunteering role, one of the best websites is Organisations’ own websites will also advertise volunteering opportunities, or you could approach organisations directly with a statement about what you could offer in terms of your skills, experience and time commitment.

3.2 Recruitment of volunteers

Figure 2Many organisations use formal recruitment processes for volunteers.

View description - Figure 2 Many organisations use formal recruitment processes for volunteers.

Some voluntary organisations are largely staffed by volunteers, others operate with a mixture of voluntary and paid staff, in which case the roles and jobs are usually distinct and different: it can be confusing for both paid and unpaid groups if they are doing the same or similar role, and can also lead to resentment. It is important for organisations to encourage interaction between the groups so that everyone feels part of the team. This means several factors have to be taken into consideration, such as:

  • which jobs volunteers are being asked to do, and how they are supported and trained for them
  • how volunteers work with paid staff and vice versa
  • the level of resources invested in volunteers
  • the relationship of volunteers with the decision-making processes of the organisation
  • how volunteers are recruited and selected.

There are a number of challenges to recruiting and retaining a volunteer, and there is often a gap between what people want from volunteering and what organisations are offering. Increasingly, organisations are struggling to compete against all the other pressures on people’s time and interests, which mean they have less time to offer as volunteers. Organisations need therefore to think about innovative ways to involve volunteers – perhaps micro-volunteering (offering small amounts of time for specific tasks), family volunteering, or involving school or college students.

How organisations benefit from volunteers

Knowhow Nonprofit (2016) highlight how involving volunteers adds value to organisations and helps them to achieve their objectives. They say that involving volunteers can help organisations to:

  • Engage a more diverse range of skills, experience and knowledge
  • Reach more beneficiaries
  • Raise awareness about the organisation’s cause, its profile and what it does
  • Build relationships within the community and contribute to supporting others in the community. Providing volunteering opportunities provides opportunities for social inclusion, skills development and potential routes to employment. There is also evidence that volunteering can help to improve health and wellbeing for individuals
  • Inform the development and delivery of activities, projects or services by bringing in new opinions, ideas or approaches. This can help organisations to adapt, stay relevant to what their beneficiaries and community need as well as identifying opportunities to improve what they do
  • Deliver service or projects in a more effective and efficient way which can help to save money and resources. However organisations do have to invest in supporting volunteering for this to work effectively.

(adapted from Knowhow Nonprofit, [Editor: shorten link here?]2016)