Trends in Volunteering NI A changing environment for volunteering - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Trends in Volunteering NI

A changing environment for volunteering

Volunteer Now

Volunteer Now is the lead organisation which works to promote, develop and support volunteering across Northern Ireland by:

 supporting volunteers to find volunteering opportunities;  influencing policy in relation to volunteering including the Volunteering Strategy for NI;  providing training and information to organisations to help them develop good practice in involving volunteers and safeguarding those they work with;  engaging in promotional campaigns to increase awareness of volunteering in particular among older people, young people and those involved in sport;  supporting organisations to access national standards such as Investing in Volunteers National Standard for Volunteer Management.

Nyree Tubritt

• War On Want Fair Trade Manager
• NI Hospice Asst Area Manager
• AgeNI Area Manager
• Oxfam Ireland District Retail Manager
• Concern Retail Development Manager
• Volunteer Now Social Prescribing Project

Officer

• Sources
• Mapping Volunteer Involving Organisations 2011 –

Volunteer Now

• Volunteering in Northern Ireland – Dept for

Communities June 2017

• Workforce Report – CRA 2017
• Shopping for good: the social benefits of charity

retail – Demos commissioned by the CRA and Carnegie UK - 2016

• Volunteering and society in the 21st century – Colin

Rochester 2009

• Rediscovering voluntary action – the beat of a

different drum – Colin Rochester 2013

The Issue for Charity Retailers

• Overall rates of volunteering in NI
• 27% of adults in NI indicated they had

volunteered in the previous 12 months

• The rate has remained stable since 2012
• UK rates (census) have remained stable for
• ver 40 years.
• The rate is comparable with Scottish figures

but slightly below England and Wales (Community Life Survey)

• NI volunteering the detail
• 46% with a church or faith group, 21% with a sports
• rganization
• Protestants volunteer slightly more than Catholics (but it’s

thought it is in churches)

• 47% have had an AccessNI check carried out
• 18% of the disabled volunteer
• 17% of the ‘most deprived’ and 36% of the ‘least deprived’

volunteer.

• 31% of the employed and 22% of the unemployed volunteer
• 28% of women and 26% of men volunteer
• Most volunteering opportunities are in Belfast, Derry and Newry

District Council areas

• How many hours?

• Where do people volunteer in NI?

• The Volunteer Experience

• How do people come to volunteering?

• Overall rates of volunteering have remained

stable for over 40 years

• Little opportunity to increase overall rates
• How, where and when people choose to

volunteer is changing……

• The way we live today
• Weakening of social ties
• Growing social isolation
• An ageing population who are working longer
• Pressure on public services
• Digital revolution
• Generation X and Y
• GIG economy

• New models of volunteering
• Episodic volunteering
• Digital volunteering
• Changes in the kind of activity volunteers are

involved in

• Supporting the shrinking state
• Likely to be fewer committed long term

volunteers or ‘stalwarts’

• Implications for Policy and Practice
• Where to site shops?
• Retention of volunteers - £18.79 per vol. per annum?
• Volunteer Coordinators/ Managers
• Training for staff
• Investing in Volunteer standard.
• Recognition of volunteers – Queens/Millenium

awards

• Cover the basics/ensure you have the basics
• Recruitment – currently and in the future
• ‘Stalwarts’ declining in numbers – how to respond to

more episodic and short term volunteering

• Don’t mention the ‘B’ word!