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NCVO Time Well Spent – Scottish Analysis

In May 2023, the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) published the results from the second wave of ‘Time Well Spent: A national survey on the volunteering experience’.

Their research was based on an online survey of 7,000 adults aged 18+ across Great Britain. Volunteer Scotland was granted access to the Scottish dataset to enable it to produce volunteering statistics for Scotland. We have deep mined this excellent data-source to explore the Scottish volunteer experience in detail.

Volunteer Scotland’s analysis has focused on the results from the 2023 ‘Time Well Spent’ survey, and a comparison to 2019 to provide analysis and insights on how the volunteer experience has changed for Scottish volunteers.

View 2023 Scottish findings here

Time Well Spent - Scottish Analysis 2019

View 2019 Summary Presentation here

Presentation Topics 2019

Volunteer Context

  • What activities do volunteers do?
  • Where do volunteers volunteer?
  • When do volunteers volunteer?
  • Who do volunteers volunteer for?
  • How do volunteers volunteer?
  • Why do volunteers volunteer?
View PDF here

Volunteer Experience

  • Overall volunteer satisfaction.
  • Volunteers’ experience of volunteer organisations and volunteer management.
  • Volunteers’ perception of the volunteer organisation and their relationship with others.
  • What matters most for overall volunteer satisfaction.
View PDF here

Volunteer Impacts

  • Volunteers’ perceptions about the beneficial impacts of volunteering on themselves.
  • Any negative experiences of volunteering that volunteers have.
View PDF here

Volunteer Retention

  • How likely recent volunteers are to continue volunteering with their main organisation over the next year and their reasons for continuing or not.
  • The experience of lapsed volunteers and the reasons they stopped volunteering.
View PDF here

Looking Ahead

  • Adults who have not volunteered recently to understand what stops people getting involved in volunteering.
  • Factors which may encourage non-volunteers to get involved in volunteering in the future.
  • People’s interest in future volunteering opportunities, among both volunteers and non-volunteers.
View PDF here

Volunteer Scotland would like to thank NCVO for providing access to their anonymised dataset and their support in reviewing our analysis.

Related research

Time Well Spent: A national survey on the volunteering experience

(External Link)

Scottish Household Survey - Cross Sectional Analysis

(Related Research)

Volunteering Trends in Scotland - A changing landscape

(Related Research)

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