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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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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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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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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