Since 2013/14 the Government has published an annual Community Life Survey, reporting on trends in volunteering and charitable giving by the general public. The 2021/22 survey shows some worrying trends that all charities need to address if they are to sustain volunteering and public donations into the medium and long term. The headline statistics are:

• Both formal and informal volunteering have fallen to their lowest levels since the survey began. Formal volunteering has fallen by 40% and informal volunteering by 20-30% since 2013/14. This trend seems to have accelerated since the Covid-19 pandemic, despite a small spike in informal volunteering in 2020/21.

• The most common reasons why people volunteer are:

  • “I wanted to improve things/help people” - 48%

  • “The cause was really important to me” - 33%

  • “I had spare time to do it” - 30%

• The most common barriers to formal volunteering are:

  • “I have work commitments” - 49%

  • “I do other things in my spare time” - 31%

  • “I have to look after children” - 23%

• There was a slight up turn in the percentage of people giving to charities in 2021/22 compared tp the previous year (which would have been badly affected by the pandemic), but at 66%, this remains at a historically low level and still markedly down on pre-pandemic levels.

• Older people are far for likely to give than young people , with less than half of under 25s now giving to charitable causes - the only group that showed a downturn compared to 2020/21. Baby Boomers (aged 65+) are significantly more likely to give than other groups.

• People are still giving through a wide variety of methods/channels with digital methods moving up the rankings along with transactional giving (such as buying from a charity shop).

• The most popular causes remain medical research (21%), overseas aid/disaster relief (19%), hospitals/hospices (18%), animals (16%), religion/places of worship (14%), children/young people (12%) and health/disability (10%).

• The most important factor that would encourage people to give more money is “having more money” (34%), followed by having confidence that the organisation would use the money effectively (24%) and knowing the money would be used locally (16%).

What conclusions can we draw from this?

Most obviously, it’s tough to engage and sustain volunteers and charitable giving is being squeezed, and likely to be more so with the current cost of living pressures.

These survey findings reinforce the conclusions in our recent blog on fundraising trends and top tips, in particular the need to demonstrate impact, and where possible local impact, the importance of nurturing existing donors and the continued rise of digital giving across all demographics.

The findings equally back up the views expressed by our guest blogger of a few months ago, Ashely Staines, co-founder of Volunteero, who highlighted the trend away from formal volunteering (particularly for time poor volunteers), changing demographics of volunteering and the need to invest in nurturing and developing volunteers (even irregular and micro volunteers).

If you would like to know more about the services we offer or to discuss your fundraising needs further please contact us at julian@almondtreeconsulting.co.uk.