What makes some people more likely to volunteer than others? | Voluntary Sector Network | The Guardian
While the benefits of volunteering are well known – making a difference, giving back to the community, and developing new skills, for example – there is less clarity about what psychological aspects make a volunteer and how charities can use this knowledge to attract more people to their cause.
These insights could prove invaluable. In the last 15 years, the overall number of volunteers has stayed largely the same, with the exception of spikes in 2012 (during the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games), and in 2005, which experts suspect is linked to protests against the Iraq war.
Starting young
Emily Dyson is the evidence and strategy manager for the #iwill campaign, which aims to drive youth participation in volunteering in the UK. The charity publishes an annual report, monitoring social action among 10-20 year olds and providing recommendations to improve engagement with this group.
“We have an ambitious goal to increase the number of young people taking part in social action by 1.5million by 2020,” Dyson says.
The latest findings showed that 70% of the 2021 young people surveyed were likely to participate in social action in the future, but 41% said that they weren’t sure how to get involved – a clear opportunity for organisations to improve communications with this group.
The analysts also classified the respondents into three groups based on their current, previous and intended participation in social action – committed, potential and reluctant – and identified a recommendation for each. The goal for the committed group is to encourage them to do more by celebrating the impact they have; the reluctant group could be engaged by promoting volunteering opportunities to their parents and teachers; and the reluctant group may participate if introduced to social action while they’re still young. The survey found that those in the committed group had their first volunteering experience before they turned 11.
