From July 2020 to August 2021 I served as a policy analyst in DCMS’ Volunteering Strategy Team, focusing primarily on designing policy interventions fit for the Covid and post-Covid eras.

In that role I commissioned a number of pieces of original, independent research:

Volunteer Passports

Everyone has an opinion on them, but few can tell you comprehensively what they are, what they do and what benefits they offer.

When the Kruger Review was published in August 2020, bringing passports back into the volunteering spotlight, we realised a greater evidence base was needed before a mature consideration of their pros and cons could be entered into.

DCMS commissioned Research Works Ltd. to undertake research into passports, aiming to:

understand the progress that has been made to date in developing them, both in the UK and internationally, and;
identify the perceived demand, opportunities and challenges for passports from volunteers and the voluntary sector.

The research included a review of relevant literature and qualitative research with volunteers, volunteer-involving organisations, digital platform providers and voluntary sector stakeholders, who either had experience in developing passports or were interested in exploring their potential. You can read it in full here.

Those expecting a good/bad judgement on passports from this research will be disappointed. Passports are a complex set of systems and processes to unpack, a deceptively simple umbrella term for what is essentially a way to collectively tackle many pertinent and legitimate volunteer management and engagement issues simultaneously. Whether or not you’re attracted to the idea of volunteer passports, you’ll undoubtedly already be dealing with many of the volunteering challenges they seek to address.

This research will help anyone seeking to explore whether volunteer passports will work for them. It’ll give you a checklist of the main cultural and technical elements you may need to build or assemble in creating your own passport system, a risk register of common pitfalls experienced by those who’ve already travelled down this path and a roadmap for the kinds of passports most likely to work with different audiences.

In putting our tender specification together and reviewing the final product, I believe this piece is easily the most comprehensive and authoritative investigation into passports produced to date. My hope in commissioning it was to give passports the foundations of a proper evidence base, and in doing so make a timely contribution to a debate that seems to polarise so many volunteer managers and leaders.

Drivers in Demand for volunteers & Volunteering

The urgent need for rapid mobilisation of volunteers at the outset of Covid raised planning questions for many: to what extent was volunteering subject to seasonal fluctuations, driven by the needs and motivations of both volunteers and those engaging them? And if seasonal trends in volunteering are identifiable, to what extent did Covid interrupt or change them?

DCMS commissioned the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) to undertake a qualitative study into what drives demand for volunteers across England. The research examined two key questions:

What drives demand for volunteers, and how does this vary over a typical calendar year?
How have restrictions under COVID-19 affected these drivers?

The research focussed on formal volunteering, where individuals had given unpaid help to a group, club or organisation. The study consisted of interviews with voluntary sector stakeholders and focus groups with volunteers from different sectors. The aim was to gather evidence to better understand trends in volunteering, to support both ongoing responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and DCMS’ future volunteering policy. You can read it in full here.

The result is a good overview of the extent to which demand for volunteers and demand to volunteer is driven by seasonality, the types of volunteering most observable within these fluctuations and the ways in which volunteer-involving organisations adapted to the disruption to such drivers as caused by Covid. I hope they prove a useful reference point for any volunteer manager or strategist considering their year ahead and planning key points of engagement with their existing or prospective volunteers.

WANT MORE?

If you’d like to discuss any aspects of this research in more detail, or would welcome some support in considering implications for your own volunteering operation, please get in touch.

You can also read more about my freelance and consultancy work here.