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Research Publications

Latest Volunteering Statistics
Laptop keyboard with someone taking notes  Woman in labrary  Graph on a computer screen showing trends  Crowd of people on escalator

The Scottish Government’s National Statistics Department has recently published their findings on Volunteering. It reveals that volunteering is as popular as ever and that generally the same number and type of people are volunteering.

Key Findings:

  • 31% of adults in Scotland volunteered last year
  • This equates to 1.3 million adults (16+)
  • In total these volunteers give over 142 million hours per annum
  • We estimate an economic value of £2.2 billion

Scottish Household Survey - Extract of Volunteering Data 

Latest Research Outputs
What is Being Young in Scotland?
Being Young in Scotland (BYIS) is a biennial survey that aims to illustrate what it is like to be a young person (aged 11 to 25 years) living in Scotland. 2009 represented the fourth sweep of BYIS.

How was VDS involved?
BYIS is a collaborative project with partners who buy into the survey. Volunteer Development Scotland (VDS) was one of six organisations who bought into the 2009 BYIS. This provided an exciting opportunity to influence the content of existing volunteering questions in the core survey, and to contribute our own volunteering questions.

Key Findings from the Survey

Who is a volunteer?
The participation rate for 17-25 year olds (19%) is significantly lower than the Scottish Household Survey estimate for this age-group (31%). This is likely to be due to differences in the way that the questions are asked, as the SHS prompts respondents to identify activities that the individual may not initially think of as volunteering. This highlights that people may not always use the term volunteering to describe their activities;

Children don’t know about their parents’ volunteering
The BYiS findings show that only 1 – 2% of school pupils are aware of their parents’ volunteering. This may be because parents don’t talk to their children about volunteering, or because the parents don’t think of themselves as volunteers. This suggests that more could be done to encourage volunteers to tell others (family and friends) about their volunteering;

Volunteering and Citizenship
Volunteering was identified as one of the most important things that make someone a good citizen by 28% of school pupils. This compares to 21% in 2003 and 13% in 2007, suggesting that volunteering has become more important for this age group. Only 9% of 17-25 years said the same, compared to 19% in 2003 and 12% in 2007, and so continuing the decline. Although the situation has been improving for school pupils, this suggests that in the senior phase the majority are still not engaging with the citizenship agenda, and that the links between volunteering and citizenship should be made more explicit throughout Curriculum for Excellence.

Volunteering is important for gaining skills
The majority of both school pupils and 17-25 year olds identified skills that they had gained from volunteering. These were ‘soft’ core skills, such as working with others and communication. This supports the development of VDS’s VSkills project, identifying key employability skills gained through volunteering.
Latest Research Outputs
Volunteer Development Scotland (VDS) ran a themed panel session on environmental volunteering at the NCVO Researching the Voluntary Sector Conference 2009, in partnership with the Institute for Volunteering Research (IVR) and British Trust Conservation Volunteers (BTCV). 

The session examined environmental volunteering across the UK in detail, drawing across the evidence base to build comprehensive understanding which can better inform volunteer development in the sector. 

BTCV provided input on the policy context, IVR on the volunteer experience, and VDS on volunteer management in the environment sector across the UK.

Papers                                                    
The policy context       
The volunteer experience                           
Volunteer management                           

Presentations
The policy context 
The volunteer experience
Volunteer management
The Scottish Biodiversity Strategy (SBS) published in 2004 describes how Scotland’s biodiversity will be protected and enhanced over 25 years.

The progress of the strategy’s implementation is being measured through a set of indicators, first developed in 2007. In 2005, 204 volunteer involving organisations in the environmental sector participated in a survey which set out to determine the scope of natural heritage volunteering in Scotland.

The findings of that survey in relation to levels of volunteering were used to form Scottish Biodiversity Indicator E4: Indicator of involvement in biodiversity conservation. The scope of this research was to re-survey organisations who had taken part in the 2005 survey in order to update indicator E4.

Involvement in biodiversity conservation

The Volunteer Development Scotland research team were commissioned by Paths to Health to undertake an evaluation of the impact of volunteering on health and wellbeing for volunteer walk leaders.

Part of this work involved a survey which aimed to capture basic information (numbers, hours, demographics, activities) about volunteer walk leaders in Paths to Health supported/funded projects. We drew on VDS’ experience of gathering information on volunteer involvement and on Paths to Health’s experience of the projects they fund and/or support to design the survey questions.

Summary Report

In June 2008, Volunteer Development Scotland (VDS) was commissioned by the Historic Environment Advisory Council for Scotland (HEACS) to undertake research into volunteering in the historic environment. The research aimed to identify the scope and quantify the scale of volunteering in the historic environment and examine where additional support might help to facilitate its sustainability and development.

From the 233 organisations who participated in the research it is reported that 12,449 volunteers give a total of 167,721 hours in the average month which equates to an economic value of over £28 million per annum.

Full Report

Volunteer Development Scotland

Volunteer Development Scotland has been commissioned by Time Banking UK to investigate the impact of Time Banking in Scotland. The research engaged with five Scottish Time Banks using the Volunteering Impact Assessment Toolkit.

Full Research Report    l    Research Summary

Volunteer Development Scotland

This piece of research was undertaken by Deirdre Elrick at the Scottish Council Foundation on behalf of Volunteer Development Scotland.  It examined the vision and reality of volunteering in health, and the aspirations and experience of those involved.

Resources produced from this work include a research summary and a discussion paper on healthy volunteering.

Research Summary    l    Discussion Paper

Volunteer Development Scotland

This piece of research was carried out by the Counselling and Society Research Team at the University of Edinburgh, funded by the ESRC (R000239059).  It examines the contribution of volunteer counsellors to voluntary sector counselling provision in Scotland.

Resources produced from this work include a research summary on Counselling and Society.

Research Summary

Volunteer Development Scotland

This piece of research draws on an omnibus survey of informal volunteering undertaken by NFO System Three Scottish Opinion Survey.

Resources produced from this work include a research summary on informal volunteering.

Research Summary

Volunteer Development Scotland

This article has drawn together some existing research to provide both good practice guidance and a discussion of the issues involved in the recruitment and retention of volunteers.

Research Summary

Volunteer Development Scotland

The research findings presented here are part of a three year ESRC Case studentship entitled Space, place and volunteers: the nature, meaning and impact of volunteering in Scotland. The studentship is based in the Department of Geography at the University of Dundee with Volunteer Development Scotland the non-academic partner organisation. The research found that the percentage of the population currently volunteering is higher in rural communities that urban communities. It also found that affluent individuals are more likely to volunteer than less affluent individuals.However, there is no statistically significant relationship between the affluence or deprivation of an area and the percentage of people within it who volunteer. There is a significant spatial variation in the intensity of volunteering.

Research Summary - The Nature of Volunteering
Research Summary - The Impact of Space and Place
Research Summary - Volunteering and Active Citizenship

Volunteer Development Scotland

This piece of qualitative research was carried out as part of Volunteers Development Scotland's contribution to the Year of the Volunteer 2005. It examined the reasons why 60% of adults in Scotland felt that they had never been asked to volunteer. It also tested attitudes to imagery used to promote volunteering.

Resources produced from this work include a research summary and top tips for 'asking' individuals to volunteer.

Research Summary    l    Top Tips

Volunteer Development Scotland

This is the report of a research project carried out by Volunteer Development Scotland, with funding from Learning Connections, part of the Lifelong Learning Directorate in the Scottish Government in late 2007. It provides a record of the Volunteer Development Scotland (VDS) research team’s findings in terms of the relationship between the outcomes of Volunteer Centres (VCs) and the outcomes of Community Learning and Development (CLD).

Resources produced from this work include a full research report and a research summary.

Research Report    l    Research Summary

Volunteer Development Scotland

This piece of research was carried out in partnership with BEMIS. The full research report, entitled 'A Way of Life: Black and Minority Ethnic Communities as Volunteers' was launched in 2004.

Resources produced from this work include a full research report, a research summary and 'top tips' for engaging black and minority ethnic communities as volunteers.

Research Report    l    Research Summary    l    Top Tips

Additional resources on Volunteering and Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) Communities:

Ethnic Minority Volunteering in Scotland

Volunteer Development Scotland

This piece of research was funded by the Clydesdale Bank and carried out with support from Lead Scotland.  The full research report, entiled 'Volunteering and Disability: Experiences and Perceptions from Disabled People and Organisations' was launched in Disability month of Year of the Volunteer 2005. 

Resources produced from this work include a full research report, a research summary and 'top tips' for engaging disabled people as volunteers.

Research Report    I    Research Summary    l    Top Tips

Additional resources on Volunteering and Disability:

Disabled People and Volunteering    l    Volunteering and Access Panels

Volunteer Development Scotland

This piece of research draws on an omnibus survey of formal volunteering undertaken by NFO System Three Scottish Opinion Survey.  It also examines the reasons for differences in volunteering levels found in surveys across the UK.

Resources produced from this work include a research summary on volunteering and research methodology.

Research Summary

Volunteer Development Scotland

This piece of research draws on a range of quantitative and qualitative research studies undertaken into young people and volunteering across the UK.

Resources produced from this work include a research summary on young people and volunteering.

Research Summary

Additional resources on Young People and Volunteering:

Young People Speak out on Volunteering    l    What Young People Want from Volunteering

Volunteer Development Scotland

The research summary presented here draws on the findings of an evaluation carried out by the VDS research team for the Green Team*. VDS were commissioned to undertake an evaluation to assess whether the environmental opportunities provided by the Green Team change the 'hearts and minds' of young people about environmental issues.

Research Summary

*The Green Team runs one-day and residential opportunities for young people between 14-25 years to participate in environmental activities. Further information on the Green Team is available at Green Team website

Volunteer Development Scotland

Our Annual Statistics papers provide statistical information on the demographic, economic and social characteristics of volunteering in Scotland. 

Annual Statistics 2007   l   Annual Digest 2006   l   Annual Digest 2005   l   Annual Digest 2004

(Annual Digest 2006 includes discussion paper on the data)

The Scottish Government Scottish Household Survey (SHS) has a volunteering suite of questions. The papers below include an Analytical Topic Report in Volunteering, as well as a summary of the findings from 2006.

Scottish Household Survey 2006

Volunteer Development Scotland

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