According to NCVO, 29% of young people aged 16-24 volunteered at least once in 2021/22. At City St George’s, 23% of our students had volunteered in the 2023/24 academic year. 

In the past decade, volunteer participation rates have been on the decline. In 2014/15, 48% of 16-24 year olds had volunteered at least once; in 2019/20 it had fallen to 40%; by 2021/22 it had dropped to 29%.  

In 2023/24, our survey data found the following: 

Volunteers (23%) 

• 71% volunteered to improve employability 

• 71% volunteered to develop new skills and experiences 

• Almost half (48%) were volunteering for education, healthcare, or law and legal services 

• 61% believed their volunteering gave them new skills and experiences 

Non-volunteers (77%) 

• 66% cite study commitments as a barrier to participation 

• 32% cite paid work commitments as a barrier 

• 20% felt they lacked the confidence to volunteer 

• 63% said they would consider volunteering next year if given the right support (an additional 29% would 'maybe' consider it) 

• 56% wanted their volunteering to link to their career 

• 1 in 5 were most keen to volunteer in healthcare 

At City St George’s, a large part of our role is supporting organisations to recruit our students as volunteers. Today we wanted to create a space for discussion, sharing our perspectives and challenges we have experienced in engaging younger people. 

We have a wide range of perspectives on our panel, ranging from academic, communications and marketing, recruitment, and lived experience as a young person. To introduce our panellists: 

• Dr Angela Ellis Paine, Lecturer in Voluntary Sector Management at the Centre for Charity Effectiveness 

• Fin Wright, Brand, Marketing and Communications at The 93% Club 

• Pippy Stephenson, Volunteer Team Leader at Imperial War Museums 

• Zayden Hipgrave, Youth Councillor at Islington Youth Council 

Our first question is regarding what we have just talked about from our volunteering survey. For all panellists, from your perspectives, do you feel like our findings align with your experiences? 

Angela: I think a common thread that I have found during my research on volunteering is that a lot of people say they would volunteer if they were specifically asked to do so. So, there is a lot that can be done in reaching out to people to say, ‘we think you’d be a great volunteer for X role, would you like to get involved?’  

Angela: As well as this, it is important to try and engage with volunteers and support them through different life stages. For young people, a lot of the time it will be about employability, but we don’t want to sell volunteering short but focusing solely on that, especially once they are older and in the workforce as their motivations may have changed 

Fin: I think a big problem is cause fatigue. There are so many different causes and social problems facing the world today and I think that is tiring for young people to feel like they need to fix in the future. It often feels like big issues like climate change feel impossible to fix and contribute to meaningfully, so it is about showing them how individual contributions do matter and how their work can make a difference

Pippy: from my perspective, it is all about flexibility 

Zayden: a lot of people from my school are volunteering, as they see it as a step to get somewhere else in the future. So young people are engaged and are definitely motivated by developing some real-life experience 

Question for Pippy: the Imperial War Museums has volunteers from across a range of generations, so how do you adapt your engagement strategy to recruit different age groups? 

Pippy: We are definitely aware of this, and I have been putting in a lot of work recently to try and engage younger people. So, for example, we have set up a summer programme, based on research conducted by a group of students, who said that young people are looking for skills-based experience that is long term and fits around their academic timetable. This offers them a chance to develop experience for their CV, but also help them with getting an idea of their future career which I think is really important 

Question for Fin: The 93% Club’s marketing strategy is clearly very targeted at a younger demographic, particularly university students. How did you tailor this content and what are the outcomes? 

Fin: so, as a student-led organisation, it means we have a durable volunteer pool as students are always coming and going in their 93% Club university societies, so this is great in terms of volunteer levels at a national level. We also find that the barriers students face in terms of social mobility continue upwards when they enter the workforce, so a lot of graduates are keen to continue their support once they are working. So, we launched a professional network of 93% Club graduates, who offer things like ad-hoc CV reviewing. They are therefore still volunteering but in a cyclical way and in a way that fits around their work schedule 

Question for Zayden: what inspired you to volunteer as a Youth Councillor? 

I have always been passionate about politics and wanted to take on this amazing opportunity. I knew that if I wanted to go down this path then this was an opportunity to get my foot in the door and make change. It would look amazing for my CV – two years' worth of political campaigning for young people! I’m now motivated to run for the London mayor’s programme. 

Question for Angela: based on your research and professional experiences, do you have any thoughts on best practices for engaging with volunteers across generations? 

Angela: from my recent research, we discovered that volunteering works well when it is really embedded in the organisation and is not just on the side – part of the overall ethos of the organisation. Another thing that is great for cross-generational volunteering is encouraging family volunteering, particularly in areas such as sports or environment. The key to getting it right is to make people connect to your cause across the life course, so that they dip in and out across their lifetime (e.g. they volunteer as a student, and then go away for a bit and return as an older adult, perhaps with their children) 

General question: 64% of Gen Z are unsure if their support makes a difference, how can you convey the impact of their contributions to encourage their participation? 

Fin: I think quantifying contributions really helps and helping them to show this through shareable social media content is really great. A quick infographic that they can repost on LinkedIn or Instagram works well. Also, sometimes a bit of incentivised competition works, in the friendliest way possible! 

Angela: I think it is really important to reflect on what could be learnt from the volunteering experience, rather than having the mindset that volunteering is automatically going to help you. Part of it is about showing the volunteer how their contributions matter 

General question: related to that, Gen Z are also much more likely to say that they want a form of recognition and reward for their contributions. What kind of things do you think are valuable for young people? 

Zayden: for me and my peers, there’s a few things that we really like. It could be a special thanks for help that you can share publicly so that others can see how you were involved. As well as this, sometimes small physical things are great, tote bags are especially popular with my generation (and you can put your logo on them!), as well as other merch like t-shirts and lanyards, or a voucher as a thank you for time.  

Pippy: at IWMs we try to put on parties or regular events for our volunteers to say thanks. This might be afternoon trips to other museums and art institutions around London. We also put on extra trainings, and host talks from professionals such as art curators. As well as this, we try to encourage general volunteers to become more specialised into more niche volunteer roles. 

General question: Gen Z are considered more politically engaged than ever, can this be harnessed to support volunteering? Could it potentially be a barrier? 

Angela: it might be useful to view volunteering as a non-traditional way of engaging in politics for causes that you care about. How can we move from big scary issues like climate change to showing the smaller impact that volunteering makes?  

Fin: I think there is something to be said about the enjoyment of being an activist. For example, with the last general election we got lots of our students to volunteer to get young people registered to vote, regardless of their political affiliation, and this was a really fun and engaging way to get people volunteering in a way that they felt part of an important movement.