collecting data - lessons from volunteer counts

Volunteers Count

Benchmarks for Volunteers and Volunteer Management

Wednesday 23 October 2013

Roger Parry, Director

Introduction

Partnership between Agenda Consulting and Association of Volunteer Managers (AVM)

Shaped by a Steering Group 34 organisations completed questionnaires. In aggregate:

– respondents had 431,346 volunteers over the year– respondents’ volunteers delivered a total of 54 million

volunteer hours in the last year, an increase of 20 million from 2011.

All statistics are based on 2012-2013 data.

Participants by number of volunteers

21%

18%

21%

41% Under 200200-10001001-5000Over 5000

Profile of volunteers

At median: Participants had an average of 3,394 volunteers Volunteers contributed a total of 120,558 hours 68% of volunteers were female 5% of volunteers were from an ethnic minority 6% of volunteers considered themselves to be disabled The average age of volunteers was 53

Annual change in volunteer numbers (Headcount)

Do you wish to increase your volunteer base?

Are there other sources of volunteers, or types of volunteers who you could attract?

Lower Quartile (25%) Median (50%) Upper Quartile (75%) 2011 Median (50%)0%

2%

4%

6%

8%

10%

12%

14%

16%

18%

20%

1%

10%

18%

9%

Average volunteer hours per month

Are there ways in which existing volunteers could be encouraged to contribute more time?

Lower Quartile (25%) Median (50%) Upper Quartile (75%) 2011 Median (50%)0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

5

8

14

10

Percentage of volunteers recruited per annum

Are there ways in which your recruitment approaches could be developed to ensure that your organisation is able to attract sufficient good quality volunteers?


5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

17%

31%

39%

35%

Cost of recruitment advertising per 1,000 volunteers

Lower Quartile (25%) Median (50%) Upper Quartile (75%) 2011 Median (50%)£0

£500

£1,000

£1,500

£2,000

£2,500

£3,000

£3,500

£4,000

£-

£1,075

£3,571

£255

Is your volunteer recruitment cost efficient?

Turnover rate

Are you content with your level of volunteer turnover? If not, have you analysed your volunteer turnover in detail, and do you have a view as to the underlying causes?


5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

12%

25%

32%

23%

4%

16%

25%

13%

Overall Volunteer decided to stop volunteering for the organisation

Average length of service (months)


10

20

30

40

50

60

70

3539

61

20

Spend on learning and development per 1,000 volunteers

Are you investing sufficiently in volunteer learning and development, and is your L&D approach creating the skills and competencies your organisation needs?

Lower Quartile (25%) Median (50%) Upper Quartile (75%) 2011 Median (50%) £-

£5,000

£10,000

£15,000

£20,000

£25,000

£30,000

£35,000

£2,433

£9,367

£29,385

£7,336

Support and Supervision - % of volunteers who received an annual review/appraisal or at least two 1 to 1s in the last year

Are you happy with the level and type of support and supervision you offer to volunteers?


5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

0% 0%

10%

2%3%

15%

35%

40%

Annual Review/Appraisal At least two 1-1s

Volunteer surveys71% of participants have undertaken a formal volunteer survey in the last three years.

Could your organisation benefit from a formal volunteer survey?

71%

23%

YesNo

What percentage of volunteers claim expenses?


5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

50%

12%

25%

45%

39%

Ratio of volunteers (Headcount) per Strategic Volunteering Development Function employees and volunteers (FTE) (whole sample)


200

400

600

800

1000

1200

108

450

1094

488

Ratio of volunteers (Headcount) per Strategic Volunteering Development Function employees and volunteers (FTE) (by size)

Under 200 200-1000 1001-5000 Over 50000

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

36 86

458544

102 95

638

1263

140 122

718

2594

Lower Quartile (25%)Median (50%)Upper Quartile (75%)

Is the most senior Strategic Volunteering Development Function person a member of the Senior Management Team?

35%

12%

53%

YesNo, but attends regularlyNo

Staff costs of the Strategic Volunteering Development Function per 1,000 volunteer hours (£)


£500

£1,000

£1,500

£2,000

£2,500

£285

£795

£2,219

£439

Total cost of volunteering over the year


£500

£1,000

£1,500

£2,000

£2,500

£3,000

£3,500

£4,000

£4,500

£5,000

£640

£2,164

£4,498

£1,935

Ratio of volunteer contribution (based on national minimum wage) to total cost of volunteers

Are you getting a good financial return on investment from volunteer involvement?

Lower Quartile (25%)

Median (50%) Upper Quartile (75%)

1001-5000 Over 5000 2011 Median (50%)0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

1.4

2.9

10.4

5.4

13.2

3.2

How you can get involvedParticipate Complete the questionnaire online Organisational scorecard highlights your performance v peers and whole sector Attributed good practice and direct contact with other participants Online drill down reports Sector wide and detailed statistic reports Online access to database for 12 months 1-1 Telephone consultation with consultant Invitation to results/product training session

Obtain a publication 2.1 Profile of Volunteers 2.2 Recruitment, Selection and Retention 2.3 Learning and Development; Support and Supervision 2.4 Communication and Recognition; Expenses 2.5 The Strategic Volunteering Development Function; Return on Investment

Please see www.agendaconsulting.co.uk/publications/volunteer-benchmark-reports/

Do please get in touch…..

Roger Parry, Director

Agenda Consultingwww.agendaconsulting.co.uk

[email protected] 263720

collecting data - lessons from volunteer counts

Documents

lower quartile

volunteers fte

percentage of volunteers

types of volunteers

profile of volunteers

sources of volunteers

existing volunteers

total cost of volunteers