What’s Happening in the Third Sector?

NCVO: Time Well Spent

Time Well Spent is NCVO’s research programme focusing on volunteers and their experience.

The latest report found that the number of people (UK) who had volunteered at least once a month in 2021/22 was 16%. This was down from about 23% in 2019/20, reflecting the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and suggesting that volunteer participation has not fully recovered since then. This may suggest organisations should focus on volunteer recruitment and retention in the future.

It is also reported that volunteer satisfaction is lower. While the vast majority of volunteers have a positive experience, overall satisfaction levels have decreased slightly compared to previous years:

  • Volunteers are now more likely to think their volunteering is becoming too much like paid work.
  • More volunteers felt their volunteering group or organisation had unreasonable expectations of how much they did.
  • There was an increase in public sector volunteers since 2018, who are less likely to be satisfied with their experience compared with third sector volunteers.

Keeping volunteers happy is a key factor in volunteer management. It can be done through a range of different methods, such as recognition, and leads back to aiding retention levels.

Practical barriers are another key part of the report – organisations need to do more to ease concerns about barriers, such as expenses, flexibility, and time commitments. Offering more flexible volunteering opportunities, such as virtual volunteering, can help attract new volunteers. Whereas within your current cohort of volunteers, continued support with these factors will be key.

Read more from the NCVO report here.

Maximising the Benefits of Volunteering

New research from the British Heart Foundation (BHF) highlights the benefits of volunteering. Volunteers play a vital role in raising funds and delivering charitable activities, and volunteering also benefits volunteers in many different ways.

Key Findings

  • Giving back and making a difference was a strong outcome that volunteers noted. 98% of BHF volunteers agreed that volunteering enabled them to help their local community.
  • 94% of BHF volunteers agreed that volunteering helped them feel less isolated or lonely. This has risen from 52% in BHF’s 2019 data.
  • 92% of BHF volunteers agreed that volunteering had helped their mental health. This rose to 98% of those who volunteered over 30 hours per week.
  • 80% agreed that volunteering had helped their physical health. This rose to 86% of those volunteering in home stores.
  • 91% told the BHF that volunteering had improved their employability skills. This rose to 98% of 16-17 and 97% of 18-24-year-olds.

Find out more here and download the full report here.

Sport England: Uniting the Movement impact report published

‘Uniting the Movement’ is Sport England’s 10-year vision to transform lives and communities through sport and physical activity. This report details the impact of their work so far as they head into year two.

Key Stats

  • Record high physical activity levels – 1.02 million more active adults.
  • Decreasing inactivity levels – 535,500 fewer inactive adults.
  • Improving children’s experience – 1.4% increase in children in Years 3-6 reporting three or more positive attitudes to sport and physical activity.
  • Return on investment – every £1 spent on sport and physical activity in England returns £3.91 of social and economic value.
  • Tackling inequalities – 90% of the funding from their open funds that’s gone to football or multi-sport projects has gone to engaging under-represented groups.

Take a look at the full report here.

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