There’s no doubt that how charities recruit, engage and retain volunteers is changing significantly. When looking to attract volunteers, the charities I speak to have noticed a reduction in the availability people can commit due to competing demands on time and factors such as the cost-of-living crisis.

Strained household incomes are one factor which has affected people’s spare time, as peoples spend increases overtime, reduce childcare costs, and cut back on travel expenditure.

The increasing state pension age, which is predicted to rise to 67 by 2028 and possibly even 71 years old in the future, has also had a huge impact on the number of older people that are now volunteering. Many over 65s are finding themselves staying in their jobs for longer and helping relatives with childcare to make ends meet.

According to the NCVO’s Time Well Spent Index, another common barrier stopping people from volunteering was thinking it involved more time than they could commit. This is why more charities are exploring smaller and more flexible volunteering opportunities, enabling these people to pursue opportunities and support causes close to them, without having to give up a huge amount of their time.

At Sustrans, we’ve noticed a shift in people wanting to have greater flexibility in their volunteering opportunities for many reasons, having a knock-on effect on our work and fundraising efforts. To combat this, we introduced some quick ways to volunteer - offering smaller and shorter tasks for multiple volunteers to undertake.

With these flexible opportunities we’ve seen first-hand how effectively they can attract time-restrained volunteers. We’ve also seen that, for volunteer managers, there is an emphasises on the need for volunteer groups to be correctly managed, ensuring the tasks are being done to stay in line with the charity’s ethos.

Bitesize volunteering

The concept of small action or micro volunteering has grown in popularity over the past two decades but only in the last few years we have seen a big rise in the number of charities offering more flexible and smaller opportunities.

There are many different bitesize volunteering opportunities that we have already launched at Sustrans which volunteers can easily introduce into their day-to-day lives, including clearing vegetation, recording wildlife, removing graffiti and litter picking - which can even be done on their commute to or from work!

There are also opportunities that come in the form of ‘home’ or ‘virtual’ volunteering that can be undertaken remotely. These opportunities have attracted those who aren’t able to physically attend an event or office or want to help at a time convenient to them and allows them to still put their skills and knowledge to good use.

These remote opportunities could be in the form of a social media creator - a role that we also offer at Sustrans – as a designer to help produce leaflets and posters or to provide ad hoc advice on issues facing a charity’s service users. These can all be done from home, at a time that suits them.

Something for everyone

It must be said that micro-volunteers are no different to long-term volunteers who can dedicate more of their time. However, there may be less contact with them and therefore less ability to properly manage their activities. This is why clear planning, communication and a smooth application process is key when offering these opportunities and a positive and consistent volunteer experience.

At Sustrans, we have more than 3,000 volunteers across and want to make it as easy as possible for everyone to get involved get what they want out of the opportunity. We recently worked with the not-for-profit division of The Access Group to make sure our volunteer management system was streamlined and we could maintain our volunteers easily.

As the majority of our volunteers are outside and on the move, we also use the specially designed mobile app. This way, our volunteers can receive news updates, new volunteer opportunities and log their time while completing the tasks.

Before we started working with this system, we used a series of different, antiquated systems that were very inefficient. This meant our colleagues spent a lot of time doing tasks manually, or it was difficult to easily manage volunteer schedules and the recruitment processes.

After introducing the Assemble software, we were able to create new, informal volunteering opportunities and easily get volunteers on board for smaller opportunities. This has meant we have a more diverse range of people volunteering from students and full-time workers who can help at weekends and in the evenings, to retirees who are helping us in their spare time and involved in their local community.

As we’ve seen, building an understanding of the opportunities that people want has helped us adapt our processes and make sure we’re getting the most out of it, as well as ensuring our volunteers are content and looked after.

Small action volunteering opens a world of opportunities for charities such as ours. Not everyone can dedicate lots of time to helping and we don’t want people to be discouraged because of this. If charities open themselves up to these lighter touch opportunities, we can be certain that they’ll see an improvement in the diversity of those they attract, and the impact of the activities carried out through volunteering.

---