Volunteers: The future force of fundraising

Today's blog explores volunteering trends in the UK and how these compare to global volunteering trends to help you frame your contribution, personal or organisational, to the world of volunteering.

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Half of the adult population in England volunteered in some capacity in the past 12 months

The Government publishes an annual survey on Community Life which gives great insight into volunteering and charitable giving in England:

• An estimated 24.8 million adults in England (about 54% of the adult population) volunteered—formally or informally—at least once in the past 12 months
  
• Roughly 15.1 million (around 33%) volunteered at least once a month
  
• There were no differences in participation in formal volunteering (at least once a month) between male and female adults.
  
• There was a lot of variation in the level of engagement in formal volunteering across the age groups.
  • Adults aged 25 to 34 (11%) were less likely to have participated in formal volunteering at least once a month compared with adults from all other age groups (15% to 23%).
    
  • Adults aged 65 to 74 (23%) were more likely to have participated in formal volunteering at least once a month than adults from all other age groups (11% to 21%).

The graph shows the percentage of adults (16+) engaged in formal volunteering at least once a month, and at least once in the last year, England: 2013/14 to 2023/24

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So how does this compare to global volunteering trends?

‍Around the world, more than 860 million people volunteer at least once a month, accounting for approximately 15% of the global population. The UN’s Portal on Volunteerism is a great source of information on global trends. We like the most recent State of the World’s Volunteerism report which focussed on the ways in which volunteers and state authorities interact, with 4 key findings:

• Volunteerism can promote a culture of collaborative decision-making. Volunteers contribute to shaping and prioritising issues that are important to them, by working collaboratively with state authorities.
  
• Volunteerism can alter unequal power relations. Volunteers have the capacity, through collaboration with state authorities, to reconfigure unequal power relations between ordinary citizens and state authorities.
  
• Volunteerism offers diverse pathways to civic participation but remains unequal. Volunteers have diverse causes to engage in and use various channels for, and approaches to, volunteering.
  
• Volunteers build bridges. Volunteers are often in the unique position of brokering relationships between service providers and beneficiaries.

Every month, approximately 862 million people aged 15 and over volunteer worldwide:

We look forward to their next report which will be published later this year and which looks at the development of a Volunteer Index and a toolbox for measuring volunteerism.