Impact of Volunteering Survey Results

Friday 27 March 2015 Hannah Lawrence, CSV

&

David Buck, The King’s Fund

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Background

● Survey part of Department of Health Strategic

Partners programme

● Follow on from 2014 event feedback

● Support to Network of National Volunteer

Involving Agencies (NNVIA)

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The survey

● Circulated Dec 2014 to 88 voluntary sector organisations

● All organisations NNVIA members

● 68% response rate

● Results analysed Jan - Feb 2015 supported by DCLG

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Main findings

● Majority of responders do measure impact of

volunteering

● Qualitative methods

● Main barrier – lack of resources

● Main reason - internal rather than ‘pressure’ from

funders

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Responders

● Range of voluntary sector orgs - 54%

employed over 1000 staff

● Represents estimated 42K staff

● Represents estimated 780K volunteers

● 90% aim to impact on health and wellbeing

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Results

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Results: organisations that do

measure impact of volunteering

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Impact Measurement Tools

90%

59%

10%

68%

0%

20%

15%

Testimoniesand casestudies

Focus groupsand interviews

Social Returnon Investment

tools

Feedbackquestionnaires

RandomisedControl Trials

Change scores('before and

after')

Other

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Reasons organisations measure volunteer impact

98% 95% 95%

93%

76%

For internal purposes For volunteers andbeneficiaries

For the board oftrustees

For externalcommunications

For funders andcommissioners

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Funders and commissioners

54% require impact measurement 46% do not require impact measurement

22%

37%

63%

51%

Centralgovernment

Local authorities Trusts andstatutory bodies

Major donors

Which funders require you to measure impact?

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Results and analysis

Size of organisation (staff): does not appear affect

whether an organisation measures the impact of

volunteering

Number of volunteers engaged per year: does not

appear affect whether an organisation measures the

impact of volunteering

Number of focus areas the organisation has: more

likely to measure impact of volunteering if organisations

have more than one focus area

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Focus area and impact

% organisations

with this as a main

focus

% that measure

impact

No. of

organisations

with this as

focus area

Health & wellbeing 35% 77% 22

Children & young people 30% 74% 19

Disabled people 27% 77% 17

Older people 22% 76% 14

Volunteering 17% 100% 11

Families 14% 100% 9

Environment 8% 100% 5

Housing 5% 100% 3

Other

30% - 19

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Learning points from those who measure impact of

volunteering

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Results: organisations that do

not measure impact of

volunteering

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Does your organisation plan to start measuring

impact of volunteering?

33% 33%

25%

8%

Yes To some extent No Not sure

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What would help you and your organisation to begin measuring

impact?

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Barriers to measuring impact of volunteering

95%

80%

88%

68%

73%

37% 39%

100%

58%

75%

50%

67%

42%

50%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

120%

Lack orresources

Lack of skillsand knowledge

Lack of tools tomeasureimpact

Lack of impactand evaluationculture in theorganisation

Lack of clarityof what isneeded

The voluntarysector context

Funders andcommissionersnot requiring

impactmeasurement

Yes, wemeasure theimpact ofvolunteering

No, we do notmeasure theimpact ofvolunteering

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Conclusion and recommendations

● Less reported ‘pressure’ from commissioners/funders to

measure impact of volunteering

● Clear demand for impact toolkit – what would this look like?

● Key constraint - “resources”

● Recommendation: organisations & commissioners use

findings to support better understanding & joint working

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