The headline figure is stark: volunteering in England has declined by more than a third since 2019. At first glance, this seems like another post-pandemic story of fraying civic life. But the real lesson from recent research is not simply that fewer people are volunteering. It is that our understanding of volunteering – how we define it, measure it, and support it – has failed to keep pace with societal changes.
Volunteering has long been treated as a social bonus: welcome, virtuous, but ultimately peripheral to economic and political decision-making. This complacency is dangerous. According to research commissioned by the Gradel Institute of Charity in 2025, civil society contributes an estimated £119bn to the UK economy, yet it is rarely seen by policymakers as part of the nation’s growth strategy. We argue that volunteering is not simply a “nice to have”; it is core social infrastructure. When it weakens, the effects ripple through communities, public services and local economies.
Survey evidence does point to a decline in traditional forms of volunteering. Data from the Community Life Survey shows significant falls in both formal volunteering (through clubs and organisations) and informal volunteering (helping non-relatives) over the past decade. Regular, long-term commitments have been particularly hard hit, with emerging research from the Gradel Institute suggesting a generational decline in roles such as charity trusteeship – a quiet crisis for governance across the sector.
Uncounted participation
The Gradel Institute’s new report, the Future of Volunteering, came out of a roundtable event and urges caution against a single, simplistic narrative. Volunteering is not a homogenous activity, and treating it as such obscures more than it reveals.
Much participation goes uncounted because people do not describe what they do as “volunteering”. Mutual aid, citizen-led initiatives, skills-based contributions, and crisis-response volunteering often sit awkwardly within survey definitions. If measurement tools lag behind lived reality, decline may be overstated in some areas and misunderstood in others.
This matters because how we define volunteering shapes who is recognised, which activities receive support, and how organisations design roles. Narrow definitions risk excluding people; overly broad ones blur the line between volunteering and paid work. The Future of Volunteering makes a compelling case for a more pragmatic approach: acknowledging data limitations without dismissing the clear signal that action is needed.
Shifting motivations
So why is volunteering becoming harder to sustain? The roundtable discussions point to three interlocking factors: motivation, resources, and opportunity.
Motivations appear to be shifting. Many people still want to help, but are less inclined towards formal, institutional roles. Cause-based, identity-aligned, and time-limited participation is increasingly attractive, especially among younger generations.
Resources are a growing constraint. Volunteering depends on time, health, financial security and social support – all of which are unevenly distributed. Cost-of-living pressures, housing insecurity, poor mental health and caring responsibilities disproportionately affect those who might otherwise volunteer.
Ironically, the people most likely to benefit from being a volunteer are often those least able to afford it. Without addressing these structural barriers, change is unlikely to happen.
Opportunity is the third, and often overlooked, factor. Many charities lack the capacity to recruit, train and manage volunteers effectively, particularly after years of austerity and post-pandemic strain. Volunteering is not free: it requires investment in coordination, safeguarding and support. When organisations retrench, volunteering opportunities shrink, even if public willingness exists.
Overcoming barriers
The outcomes of our roundtable discussions mirror the results of a newly released survey, commissioned by Marie Curie, which suggests that almost half of UK adults are likely to volunteer in 2026 – an encouraging start of the International Volunteer Year! However, the barriers to converting this energy into actual volunteering remain significant: the most frequently cited constraints are lack of time (50%), concerns about commitment (22%), uncertainty about how to get involved (18%), and limited awareness of nearby opportunities (17%).
Encouragingly, the Future of Volunteering highlights forms of volunteering that are thriving and can overcome these barriers. Relational models that prioritise human connection, flexible roles that fit around busy lives, combining volunteering with existing responsibilities, and citizen-led approaches that share power with communities all show promise. Digital platforms such as GoVo and skills-based brokerage models like Reach Volunteering demonstrate how infrastructure can expand access and diversify participation.
But flexibility alone is not enough. A central challenge remains: how to sustain volunteering that requires regular, long-term commitment – mentoring, befriending, trusteeship – without reverting to exclusionary models that rely on a shrinking pool of already-privileged volunteers.
Adapting to change
The report’s answer is not a grand national scheme, but a rebalancing: A move towards an ecosystem approach and an understanding that the responsibility of volunteering is shared between individuals, organisations, and governments. Charities must collaborate more effectively, sharing platforms, data and practice rather than competing for the same volunteers.
Government, meanwhile, must move beyond warm words. Supporting volunteering means investing in social infrastructure: community spaces, stable funding, enabling welfare and employment policies, and possibly mechanisms such as paid volunteering leave. It also means recognising that volunteering policy cannot be isolated from housing, health and labour markets.
There is realism here too. No one pretends that volunteering levels can be rapidly “fixed” from the top down. But failing to act carries its own cost. As pressures on public services intensify, the erosion of voluntary capacity risks deepening inequality and hollowing out community life.
The real danger is not that volunteering is changing – change is inevitable – but that policy fails to adapt. If volunteering is to remain a vital force in social and economic life, it must be understood not as unpaid labour to be extracted, but as a relational, resource-dependent practice that needs care, investment and imagination.
In short, the decline in volunteering is a warning light. Whether it becomes a turning point depends on whether we are willing to rethink what volunteering is for, and what it needs to flourish.
