The Royal Volunteer Service to launch new volunteering platform in light of new research
Carina Ralfs · Posted on: July 15th 2025 · read
Data published by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) back in December 2024 suggested that rates of participation in formal volunteering at least once a month had declined almost 10% over 10 years from 27% in 2013/14 to 16% in 2023/24. The survey also highlighted variation in the age groups of volunteers, with older age groups more likely to volunteer, but these rates are decreasing as well. Typical barriers to participating in formal volunteering have generally remained the same:
- ‘I have work commitments’ – 51%
- ‘I do other things in my spare time’ – 33%
- ‘I have to look after my children’ – 22%
Early June 2025 saw the annual Volunteers’ Week take place, an initiative which has been running for over 40 years, campaigning for and celebrating the achievements of volunteers. During this week, the Royal Volunteer Service (RVS) published its Untapped impact: unlocking the 140 million hour opportunity research in collaboration with the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR).
The research echoed the 2024 DCMS findings, noting that despite many UK employers having Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) responsibilities firmly on their agenda, over 140 million hours of employer-supported volunteering time went unused in the past year.
Similar to the barriers identified by the DCMS, the RVS research found that businesses face common barriers with employee volunteering:
- Lack of flexible opportunities – 25%
- Difficulties finding the right volunteering roles – 20%
- Slow processes/too much red tape – 20%
- Not enough team opportunities – 18%
In light of these and other findings, such as that, maximising employee volunteering time could produce massive gains for the UK economy, and in acknowledgment that many challenges currently faced by charities could be overcome through more volunteering, the RVS has announced that they are developing a new platform to ‘supercharge’ volunteering in Great Britain. The platform will widen access and remove barriers to volunteering, making it easier for people to give their time and for charities to recruit and retain volunteers.
It will be free of charge to use and is expected to launch by the end of this year. The platform is expected to:
- Open up volunteering to all
- Provide users with the ability to search and ‘click and connect’ with causes they care about
- Reduce the time and admin costs for charities associated with recruiting volunteers
- Develop an ‘on board once’ process for volunteers
- Provide users with the ability to move seamlessly between volunteering opportunities
- Provide charities with data insights
Charities can register their interest in the platform here.
This insight was previously published in our Not for Profit July 2025 eNews
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