Decline in Volunteering: calls to action

What We Heard at Our AGM & Conference – 25 March 2025

At our recent AGM and conference, we invited members and stakeholders to talk about the decline in volunteering. We discussed the challenges people are facing and explored ideas that could help.

Decline? What decline?

The Scottish Household Survey data suggests that 335,000 fewer people were volunteering in Scotland in 2023 compared to 2019 (Volunteer Scotland, 2025).  There has also been a significant decline in young people’s formal volunteering between 2019 and 2022 – down 14% (Volunteer Scotland analysis of Ipsos Omnibus Survey data, 2023).  And in Glasgow, the Health & Wellbeing Survey reports around 10,000 fewer people volunteering in 2022/23 than in 2017/18 (NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde, 2024).

What We Heard from members and stakeholders:

While a few volunteer-involving organisations (VIOs) in the public and third sectors are successfully recruiting new volunteers, most said they’re seeing a drop in volunteer numbers.

Even where there hasn’t been a decline, most organisations said it’s harder to recruit and keep volunteers. Three main challenges came up:

1. People have less time, money, and energy to volunteer.
2. Governments and other funders have less money to support volunteer-run services.
3. VIOs are struggling to invest in volunteer support, inclusion and management.

These challenges make it harder to keep up with the changing needs and offers from volunteers. This affects the quality of people’s volunteering experience and makes it harder to attract and retain people.

As fewer people volunteer, organisations have less capacity to deliver their services—putting even more pressure on already stretched resources:

• Undermining the delivery of virtually every area of the National Performance Framework that needs people’s volunteering contributions.
• Making it more difficult to deliver key policy priorities such as tackling child poverty, growing an economy that works for people and planet, sustaining public and third sector services which prevent negative outcomes from arising (public service reform).
• Reducing the number of people that are benefiting from improved mental health & wellbeing through their own volunteering (NHSGGC, 2024; Scottish Volunteering Forum/Volunteer Scotland, 2022)

Click here to view/download everyone’s experiences of the decline. It includes details of some of the challenges and the things that are working to mitigate them (opens in new tab).  

Ideas, Solutions and Calls to Action

Each break-out group shared and discussed their insights, ideas and suggestions to tackle the decline in volunteering. Here are the key points:

• Recognise the value of volunteering—both for the volunteers themselves and for the people and communities they support. Link this better to current policy priorities, such as tackling child poverty, the climate/nature emergencies and the mental health crisis, to help promote volunteering opportunities.
• Make volunteering more visible—and challenge the myths and stereotypes. 
• Match people to roles more quickly and thoughtfully. People increasingly want flexibility, impact, and roles that fit their lives. Shorter-term and online roles are increasingly popular.
• Make volunteering more inclusive. There was a number of specific suggestions such as including more New Scots in volunteering, with guidance and resources to support this. UK Government rules should change and messaging should make it clear – to reassure people that you can still volunteer while receiving social security benefits.
• Build stronger links between volunteering and employment. Participants called for joint action from local and central Governments, VIOs, and businesses. And a pilot for employer-supported volunteering (ESV) was suggested. 

To make these changes happen, it is clear that there are actions that can be taken by multiple partners including Scottish Government.

Click on these links to see what was discussed by everyone in attendance as their calls for action from... (links open in new tabs):

• UK Government
• Scottish Government
• Glasgow and National Partners
• Volunteer Glasgow

How can Volunteer Glasgow help?

First, if your group or organisation needs people to volunteer, these are our existing services:

• Use our free advertising service for volunteering opportunities (it works)!
• Contact us for free individual support to find the volunteers you need.
• Subscribe to our email newsletters – to ensure you hear about:
  • Our next Free Networking and peer support events
  • Free opportunity advertising workshops (how best to use the digital service etc)
  • Smarter Volunteer Manager training (includes opportunity/role design)!
  • Offers from Teams to support your VIO with one-off (and sometimes ongoing) support (often from Business/Larger employers). 
• Read our most recent news.

And, secondly, on the basis of members’ and stakeholders’ ideas and suggestions at the AGM/conference, we will:

• Seek to work with local, national partners and with Government to share everyone’s experiences and insights and to pursue your calls for action.
• Raise the calls for action specifically with elected members and partners at the next Glasgow Volunteering Strategy Board meeting.
• Develop our plans to co-facilitate a design process for improving both our digital and offline services with the aim of making it easier to best match offers of employer-supported volunteering to the needs of VIOs.
• Consider how we can facilitate further learning opportunities for VIOs by better showcasing and exploring what is already working to mitigate the decline in volunteering.
• Work with Glasgow Futures to embed the option of volunteering across the city’s employability services’ offers.

Thank you so much to everyone that attended the AGM & conference.  Your insights, expertise and calls for action will help us to collaborate ever more effectively to meet the city’s needs. 

References:

Links to the survey data evidencing the decline in (and impact of) volunteering are as follows:

1. Volunteering in Scotland today: putting the puzzle pieces in place – includes Scottish Household Survey – additional analysis (Volunteer Scotland, 2025)
2. Young People’s Volunteering – analysis of the Ipsos Omnibus Survey (Volunteer Scotland, 2023)
3. Health & Wellbeing Survey – analysis of volunteering trends (NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde, 2024)
4. Mental health of the Greater Glasgow and Clyde adult population 2022/23 (key findings, p6) (NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde, 2024)
5. The Contribution of Volunteering to a Healthier and Happier Scotland (Scottish Volunteering Forum/Volunteer Scotland, 2022)