Volunteers no longer happy to 'do what they are told', says report

24 Oct 2014 News

Volunteers now expect more from their experience and charities must do more to recruit and retain them, according to a report published today by nfpSynergy.

nfp Synergy

Volunteers now expect more from their experience and charities must do more to recruit and retain them, according to a report published today by nfpSynergy.

Volunteers are no longer happy to ‘do what they are told’ and most take on volunteer placements to develop new and existing skills, the New Alchemy report says.

“The age of volunteers simply doing as they’re told are long gone,” said Joe Saxton, founder of nfpSynergy. “Volunteers now have a choice of how they spend their time, whether they are 16 or 60, so charities have to respond to these needs if they are to build and maintain a vibrant army of volunteers.“

Fewer of today’s volunteers are happy to take on traditional roles like “envelope stuffing and money-counting”, the report says. Instead they look for a personalised and flexible experience and chance to ‘test out’ roles before investing in training.

The research is based on in-depth interviews and surveys with 22 volunteer managers. Nearly half of those polled said they felt that young people volunteer to develop new or existing skills, while over a third said the same about the middle aged people.

The report said that older people volunteer for “friendship and company” with skills being a less important factor. The older the volunteers, the more likely they were to want to ‘give something back’, the poll said.

“The needs and motivations of a young volunteer are completely different from a recently retired person. Any organisation that wants to successfully find and keep their volunteers must understand what they want,” said Saxton.  

Between 19 and 25 per cent of the volunteer managers surveyed thought volunteers from across the ages gave their time because they believed in the cause, while around 3 per cent attributed it to religion.

Eighty per cent of volunteer managers said that today’s volunteers are more aware of what they want to gain from their experience.

The report claims that charities must treat volunteers more like employees with one-to-ones and tailored roles if they want to recruit and retain quality people.