A Renewed Call for Fair Funding for Volunteering

With just a few weeks to go until the Scottish Parliament returns from recess and the upcoming work to develop a Third Sector Partnership Agreement between the voluntary sector and Scottish Government, this new Fair Funding campaign couldn’t come at a better time. Since the elections in May, we have been busy meeting with new and returning MSPs to discuss the most pressing issues facing Scotland’s volunteers and the voluntary sector – and Fair Funding is always part of that conversation. So, we are pleased to have partnered with SCVO’s campaign to make the case for Fair Funding and volunteering.

Volunteers are at the heart of communities across Scotland, providing vital support and services. Behind this pillar of Scottish society is an infrastructure that supports volunteering. This includes dedicated and passionate volunteer managers and coordinators, in both paid and volunteer roles. It also includes local Third Sector Interfaces and umbrella bodies (like Volunteer Scotland and SCVO) who support the sector.

This infrastructure helps make volunteering happen – it ensures that volunteers have an enjoyable, rewarding, and fulfilling experience, and keeps volunteers safe and protected in delivering their volunteering roles.

Fair Funding is required to ensure that volunteering is sustainable and inclusive; that we understand who volunteers and why, the difference they make, and remove the barriers to wider participation. 

Volunteer recruitment and retention remain a significant problem for the sector: 42% of organisations say that volunteer shortages are the top challenge they are facing. 62% report challenges in recruiting volunteers and 41% that they struggle to retain volunteers. Indeed, 1 in 4 volunteers say that they are considering leaving their role in the next 1-2 years.

Research shows us that financial constraints and lack of certainty about the future of their service provision are the main reasons volunteer involving organisations are unable to take action to improve their volunteer recruitment and retention.

Volunteers are often unaware of the funding situation of their organisation, and volunteer managers go out of their way to shield volunteers from the challenges they are facing from short-term, uncertain and project-specific funding.

This situation is untenable.

We need fair and sustainable funding for third sector organisations to ensure that anyone who considers volunteering can volunteer and have supported, meaningful, and appropriate experiences. And that we can demonstrate the impact of volunteering, so our policymakers and funders continue to invest in it.

We are cautiously optimistic that volunteer participation in Scotland is showing early signs of recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic and cost-of-living crisis. However, without Fair Funding this recovery will stall, and inclusion gaps will widen, excluding the very people who have the most to gain from volunteering.

Fair Funding for the third sector is crucial for our work to create a nation of volunteers strengthening Scotland’s communities. Without volunteers, there is no community.