Valuing Volunteering
Nearly 1 billion people throughout the world volunteer time to support their community, their neighbours or more generally to give their time freely to contribute to the common good. A study has identified that in the European Union around 92 to 94 million adults are involved in volunteering.
Although volunteering is a central activity of our society, there is still a lack of a common legal framework and coherent legislation across the member states. An environment that facilitates and enables volunteering demands secure and sustainable funding for volunteering infrastructure, as well as a common understanding of the key principles and components of quality volunteering.
Volonteurope and its partners established a European working group on measuring the impact of volunteering. This working group is tasked with sharing best practice, developing universal indicators and raising the profile of impact measurement across Europe, focusing particularly on social impact.
The campaign
To make the case for volunteering and improve the quality of the provision it is necessary to estimate and calculate its value, economically but also in terms of the impact and contribution that it has in society.
The volunteer effort produces a wide array of impacts – on the volunteers themselves, on the beneficiaries of their activities, on the organisations through which the activity is organised, and on the quality of life more generally in the societies in which the volunteers operate. Unfortunately, however, few of these impacts are being captured in any systematic form. With the exception of a few countries, volunteering is not covered in official statistics and, volunteering organisations lack the knowledge for making the case for the social value of volunteering.
To contribute to creating an enabling and facilitating environment for volunteering, Volonteurope has proposed as one of its working strands to raise the standards of measuring the impact of volunteering in terms of social value.
We recognise that a lot of work has been carried out both in Europe and globally on measuring the economic value of volunteering. Volonteurope propose to complement this work and focus on developing a range of standards for measuring the impact of volunteering, specifically in terms of the social value to volunteers, beneficiaries, civil society organisations and communities.
Volonteurope working group on measuring the impact of volunteering
The work strand has initially focused on creating a European working group, which includes Volonteurope members, partners and experts across the EU and beyond.The working group is mapping existing practices with the support of members and partners, determining current levels of impact measurement (processes, standards, tools, trends).
The working group is also tasked with sharing best practice and raising the profile of social impact measurement across Europe. Throughout the project the working group will meet in various locations across Europe as well as work collectively remotely.
The working group will host a webinar to raise awareness on the importance of measuring the social impact of volunteering, and work collectively on a policy paper that will be presented at a capacity building conference in Edinburgh in March 2018.
Latest news

Measuring the Impact of Volunteering launch event
Measuring the Impact of Volunteering #ValuingVolunteering The Secretariat were in windy Edinburgh last week for the Measuring the Impact of Volunteering event, which was graciously hosted by Per Johansson of the Edinburgh European Parliament Liaison Office. The event...
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EUROVIP publishes a guide to support recruiters in valuing volunteering
Have you ever received a rejection for a job application for lack of experience? Why not gain that missing experience through volunteering? Volunteering not only provides a platform for helping others and contributing to the common good, it also supports you to...
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Flying visit to Bucharest…
On Wednesday last week I travelled to Bucharest to attend the Roma Youth Forum conference, and to co-convene a workshop on volunteering with Romanian Volonteurope member Chance for Life. The conference was organised by the Romanian Youth and Sports Ministry, in...
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SPOTLIGHT ON VOLUNTEERS – Emily Denmade
Towards the start of 2016, I was approached by Piotr Sadowski - Volonteurope’s Secretary General and one of my relatives - who offered me the chance to volunteer at their annual conference in Nantes later that year. It was an invaluable opportunity which would allow...
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‘What Next?’ Returned Volunteers from the Global South tackle further challenges
At the beginning of October, nearly 30 people who had previously volunteered in the Global South found themselves trekking through the forests of the Czech Republic to come together and discuss their experiences. Fortunately, the trekking was just the journey to our...
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