The latest annual survey of the sector from Volunteer Scotland blames the cost-of-living crisis for preventing more people from volunteering. The decline is in all age and income groups.
“This is a pivotal time for volunteering in Scotland”, it declares. “The challenges facing volunteers and third sector organisations are many and complex”. Even so, it is optimistic that there is “also an opportunity in some to change, innovate and turn the time of declining volunteer participation”.
The report reveals that only 18% of adults volunteered with a group or organisation in 2023, a steep fall from 31% in 2019. Between 2019 and 2023, the fall in formal participation equated to a drop of over 335,000 volunteers, including a sharp decline of 138,000 formal volunteers between 2022 and 2023, when participation rates fell 4 percentage points from 22%.
The overall time spent volunteering with a group or organisation declined by 28 million hours between 2018 and 2022, equivalent to 79,000 fewer volunteer weeks or 18,000 fewer full-time equivalent jobs annually.
The cost-of-living crisis has made it “harder for people in Scotland to volunteer”.
Less people coming forward
In autumn 2024, an overwhelming majority of third-sector organisations reported issues with volunteer recruitment while 69% said they had issues with retaining volunteers, the report says.
The biggest challenge to recruiting new volunteers was fewer people coming forward to volunteer followed by people having less time to volunteer and volunteer fatigue and burnout.
Big demographic changes
The report finds that there have been “multiple shifts” in the demographic profile of Scotland’s volunteers.
Retired adults have the highest volunteering participation rates by economic status for the first time while rates among employed adults have declined partly due to “the pressures of the cost-of-living crisis”.
Between 2022-23, volunteering in small remote towns and among people earning over £30,001 dropped by 7 percentage points, while it fell by five points among ethnic minority groups and employed people.
The report notes that the decline in volunteering among Scotland’s ethnic minority populations might be linked to the cost-of-living crisis.
Among people aged 16-34, men, non-disabled individuals and those living in areas of moderate deprivation, volunteering fell by 4%. Adults living in deprived areas volunteer on average 12.4 hours in four weeks compared with 8.66 hours for adults in the least deprived areas.
An action plan
Volunteer Scotland sets out a programme of training to turn the situation round.
Organisations should look harder at leisure activities, including sport, culture and hobbies to see what can be done to protect these “important pathways” into volunteering against the cost-of-living crisis.
It urges them to broaden volunteer participation in health and wellbeing activities, primarily among those with poor physical and mental health, so they can benefit from the wellbeing benefits of being volunteers.
The report also calls for more research into volunteer motivation, behaviour and patterns.
Organisations need to address the barriers to working adults volunteering including how it can be part of the transition from employment to retirement.They must also adapt their recruitment and retention strategies to ensure that volunteering remains inclusive, “especially in the light of the uneven impacts of the cost-of-living crisis on various demographic groups”.
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