The Institute for Volunteering Research interviewed 1,248 people who manage volunteers within voluntary and community sector and NHS organisations around the country. The author explores the findings
At a time when government interest in volunteering is at an all time high, the low level of resources dedicated to supporting volunteering within organisations stands in stark contrast.
Nearly one-third of the interviewees said their organisations had no funding for the support of volunteers. Less than half had core funding specifically dedicated to supporting volunteers.
Volunteer management was rarely a full time position. Just 9 per cent of those who manage volunteers spent all their time doing so. The people who manage volunteers within organisations often undertook the role as an addition to other often already demanding jobs. Lines of accountability were often blurred with many people not having volunteer management responsibilities detailed in their job descriptions (if indeed they had job descriptions at all). Approximately one-quarter were in specific Volunteer Coordinator/Manager type positions, most of them on a paid basis but some on an unpaid basis.
Despite one-third having been managing volunteers for ten years or more, half of the respondents were not trained in volunteer management and many earned less than the national average income. On the whole, volunteer managers would find additional opportunities for professional development useful. There was a particular demand for short training courses and more informal forms of professional development.
Recruiting enough or the right volunteers had been an issue for organisations over the past year, but less than one-quarter identified volunteer recruitment as something that they had ‘a lot’ of difficulties with. Equally, there is a demand for more volunteers, although that demand is limited. Overall, 72 per cent of respondents said their organisation wanted more volunteers. A majority, however, wanted less than 10 more. Indeed, 29 per cent of organisations said that they have enough volunteers already. Even with additional resources, 28 per cent would not involve more.
Keeping volunteers was felt to be less of an issue. More than half said that their organisation had no difficulties with volunteer retention. Most said they were implementing what is generally recognised as good practice in volunteer management, although a considerable proportion did not. Nearly one-quarter, for example, did not have a written policy on volunteer involvement and a similar proportion did not arrange training for their volunteers.
In general, however, getting and keeping volunteers was perceived to be increasingly problematic for organisations. While 41 per cent felt that volunteer recruitment and retention had held back their organisation in the past three years, 53 per cent felt it would hold back their organisation in the future.
There were considerable differences between organisations. Large organisations were more likely to have financial resources for volunteer management. While 14 per cent of organisations with incomes of £1million or over had no funding for volunteer management, this increased to 49 per cent of organisations with incomes of less than £10,000. Large organisations were also more likely to have dedicated human resources. Paid Volunteer Coordinator type posts, for example, were far more common in large organisations than in smaller ones. Small organisations, where these resources were particularly lacking, were most likely to experience difficulties in recruiting and retaining volunteers.
There were also differences between sectors. Organisations in the sports and arts and cultural fields were less likely to have structured volunteer management practices in place. Organisations in the voluntary and community sector tended to dedicated less resources to volunteer management than did organisations in the NHS. These differences may of course be exacerbated by the relative sizes of these organisations.
If more resources are not dedicated to ensuring the quality of volunteering opportunities, and the support provided to volunteers, then the hundreds of thousands of new volunteers that the government hopes to attract may all be left feeling rather dissatisfied. Some may not find appropriate opportunities. Others may find opportunities but may not get the support they need and deserve. Including volunteering in Local Area Agreements has been an important step forward in many areas. All too often, however, false assumptions about the resources needed to involve volunteers well seem to prevail. Volunteering may be freely given but it is certainly not cost free.
A full report of this study, Management matters: a national survey of volunteer management capacity, written by Joanna Machin and Angela Ellis Paine and published by the Institute for Volunteering Research, is now available to download from www.ivr.org.uk
