Final volunteering in scottish charities 2012

Volunteering in Scottish Charities

Kathleen Doyle

kathleen.doyle@vds.org.uk

Volunteer Scotland: February 2013

The Charity Survey 2012: An Overview

• What? The first research of its kind in Scotland; a representative survey of charities exploring volunteering.

• Who? Charities delivering services and operating at local authority level or in local communities.

• When? The survey was carried out between December 2011 and February 2012; 592 out of possible 1000 responded (59% response rate).

• Why? Results will inform strategic policy debates and will help improve the services available to support volunteering.

Why is the Charity Survey 2012 important?

• The landscape in which charities (and third sector generally) operate has been changing rapidly:

• Economic - low or negative growth and public sector cuts – where charities are doing more with less.

• Policy – reform of public services and increasing demand for charities to provide public services.

• Legislative - proposed Community Empowerment Bill to encourage local people to do things for themselves, in part by transferring ownership of public-sector assets to local communities.

• Economic, policy and legislative changes assume that local people and charities can do more; but is this a sound assumption?

Summary

Volunteers are key to driving and sustaining all local charitable activity

•

45% of all local

charities were supported by volunteers.

55% of all local

charities were supported and run entirely by volunteers. That is, they had no paid staff

Summary

Levels of volunteering remained stable for most charities...

...but larger charities and charities with paid staff were more likely to report a decline in the number of people approaching to volunteer

Summary

Demand for volunteers was high

61% of charities aspired to involve more volunteers...

...but this aspiration was not something that many charities thought would happen

Summary

The majority of charities said their volunteers did generic activities; larger charities were more likely to have more defined roles for their volunteers

Word of mouth was the most popular method used to involve volunteers; it’s also thought to be the most effective method to find suitable volunteers

THE RESULTS

Volunteers are key in driving and sustaining local charitable activity

Over half of all charities are run and supported entirely by volunteers. That is, there is no paid staff.

Most of these were small charities, with 80% having less than £25,000 turnover a year.

These charities tend to rely on membership (39%) or fundraising (35%) as their main source of income, and less on local authority funding (7%).

These charities were more likely to be based in rural areas; two thirds of charities in rural areas had no paid staff, compared to 50% in urban areas

55%

45%

No paid staff Paid staff

There was little change in levels of volunteering in charities: over two thirds of charities said the number of volunteers they involved had stayed the same as the year before

Similarly, the proportion of people volunteering in Scotland has held steady

for the last 5 years (Scottish Household

Survey, 2012)

18%

69%

13%

Number of volunteers involved has...

Decreased No change Increase

The majority of charities (72%) reported that the number of people approaching the organisation to volunteer had stayed the same, in comparison to the previous year

Over 7 in 10 charities reported that the number of people approaching their organisation to volunteer had stayed the same as the year before

21%

72%

7%

Number of people approaching to volunteer has…

Decrease No Change Increase

But, some local charities were more likely than others to report a decrease...

Larger charities were more likely to report a decline in the number of people approaching the organisation to volunteer

29% of larger charities, compared to

14% of small charities

No paid staff

Paid staff

14%

28%

81%

63%

5%

9%

Decrease No change Increase

Almost 3 in 10 charities with paid staff reported a decrease

Charities with paid staff were also more likely to report a decline in the number of people approaching the organisation to volunteer...

While 14% of charities with no paid staff reported a decrease

Demand for volunteers was high among all charities

Decrease No change Increase

39% NO CHANGE 61% INCREASE

More than 6 in 10 charities would like to see an increase in the number of volunteers involved

But....

...charities were not optimistic about this actually happening

6%68 %

No change

26% In-

crease

Decrease No change Increase

Only 26% of charities think they will involve more volunteers in the next year

Why? Well we asked charities about the volunteer challenges they felt they would face in the next year...

48% said ‘finding suitable volunteers’ would also be a challenge

51% said ‘keeping suitable volunteers involved with us’ would be a challenge, and...

Other survey research also suggests that

recruiting volunteers is an important issue

Finding and keeping suitable volunteers were the top two challenges for all charities over the next year

When considering all the issues facing charities in Scotland today, including funding or running costs, recruitment and sustaining membership levels...

Source: External Stakeholder Research (2011) OSCR

...one third of all charities felt that recruitment of volunteers was the most or second most important issue they faced.

Some charities also felt they would experience challenges in attracting Board Members in the next year

22% of all charities felt ‘attracting new Board Members’ would be a challenge

19% of all charities felt ‘attracting new Board Members with the right skills’ would be a challenge

Larger charities and charities with paid staff were more likely to report this:

One third of charities with paid staff, compared to 12% with no paid staff; and

27% of larger charities, compared to 14% of small charities

Funding cuts affecting support for volunteering

8%

27%

Above £25k Below £25k

27% of larger charities felt that funding cuts would

affect support for volunteering, in comparison

to 8% of small charities

Larger charities were also more likely to identify supporting volunteers as a key challenge in the coming year.

For example...

Supporting could mean many things like advising, mentoring, listening to volunteers

What did all charities say their volunteers do? The top 5 activities were:

1: Generally helping out (78%)

2: Helping to organise or run events and activities (74%)

3: Doing whatever is required (61%)

4: Raising money (56%)

5: Committee work (52%) This also reflects the

top 5 activities identified by

volunteers in the Scottish Household

Survey (2012)

5%

17%

Above £25k Below £25k

17% of larger charities said their volunteers provide ‘direct services (e.g. meals on wheels, doing odd jobs)’, compared to 5% of smaller charities

Larger charities were more likely to report that their volunteers carried out more defined activities For example....

12%

34%

Above £25k Below £25k

Another example of larger charities involving volunteers in more defined activities is....

One third of larger charities said their volunteers did

‘visiting, buddying or befriending’, compared to

12% of small charities

Note: All volunteer activities and differences by annual income can be found in Table ****

Few charities said their volunteers were involved in volunteer management...

18% of all charities said their volunteers helped in ‘managing, organising or coordinating other unpaid helpers’...

We asked charities what channels they had used to attract new volunteers, and ‘word of mouth’ was by far the most popular...

82%

of all charities used it in the previous year

OSCR’s External Stakeholder Survey

(2011) also suggests that word of mouth was used extensively to address

issues of recruiting volunteers

‘Directly asking people to help’ was also a popular method, with

of charities having used it to attract new volunteers in the last year

70%

3% used social media

Fewer charities used online methods to attract new volunteers....

22% used a website

Online methods could mean many things like their own or others websites, or social media like facebook and twitter...

But some charities were less likely to use TSIs than others: charities with no paid staff; small charities; and rural based charities. For example...

19%of all charities used Third Sector Interfaces to attract new volunteers

...10% of charities with no paid staff used TSIs, compared to 30% of charities with paid staff

No Paid Staff

Paid Staff

10%

30%

...13% of smaller charities used TSIs to attract new volunteers, compared to over a quarter of larger charities

And...

Below £25k

Above £25k

13%

27%

...just over one in ten rural based charities used TSIs to attract new volunteers, compared to one quarter of urban based charities

Urban

Rural

24%

8%

38% said ‘directly asking people’

42% said ‘word of mouth’ was the most effective channel to find suitable volunteers

Which channels did charities think were most effective in helping to find suitable volunteers?

Key questions for policy•The survey found that over half of local charities are supported and run entirely by volunteers.

Are these charities providing services to meet unmet local need? And should they?

Is there sufficient support (e.g. advice, learning, resources, funding) available to these

volunteers?

Key questions for policy

•This survey and other evidence suggests that participating in formal volunteering is not increasing...

Are assumptions of increased participation underlying Public Service Reform and the proposed Community Empowerment Bill sound?

Is it likely that people can and will step forward to volunteer locally?

Key questions for practice •There is very much a traditional, formal approach to volunteer support and management in Scotland; focusing on recruiting and retaining volunteers in defined roles...Yet we found:

• Charities aspire to involve more volunteers, but are not optimistic this will happen - perhaps because they faced challenges in finding and keeping suitable volunteers; and

• The majority of charities reported their volunteers did generic activities; with larger charities tending to have more defined roles

Is it time to challenge this approach to volunteer management?

Should we focus more on volunteers’ motivations and interests first, then take the opportunity to build more defined roles?

Key questions for practice •We found that word of mouth was the most popular method used to involve volunteers; and was also thought to be the most effective method to find suitable volunteers

Can online or digital services help?

What can VDS and others do to support and improve ‘word of mouth’ as a method to involve volunteers?

• Learning Services Review: in April 2013, VDS will launch its new Learning Services for volunteers and volunteer involving organisations, providing generic and tailored learning packages in a variety of formats.

• We are currently developing our new VDS Research Strategy for April 2013 and beyond: VDS will be talking to individuals and organisations to feed into its development, ensuring its research is relevant, timely and useful in order to have an impact on current policy and practice.

• We will develop a new Volunteer Charter in order to recognise the significant contribution of volunteering towards a wealthier, healthier, safer and stronger, smarter, and greener Scotland.

What next for Volunteer Scotland?

• These slides present the top-line results • Results are based on a paper survey of 592 local charities;

a random stratified sample of 1000 local charities, operating in up to two local authority areas and undertaking activities, was selected from the OSCR database

• Sample is representative based on income and location• Respondents completed the survey between December

2011 and February 2012.• Where results do not sum to 100%, this may be due to

computer rounding, multiple response, or the exclusion of don’t know or other categories

• Results are based on all respondents unless otherwise stated

• Full technical note and all data tables can be found @ www.vds.org.uk

Technical Details

References

•Jura Consultants. 2011. Scottish Charities 2011. Dundee: Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator• •TNS-BRMB. 2011. External Stakeholder Research 2011. Dundee: Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator

•Scottish Government. 2012. Scotland's People Annual Report: Results from 2011 Scottish Household Survey. Edinburgh: Scottish Government.