• About this study

Helping out

A national survey of volunteering and charitable giving

About this study

This report explores the views and experiences of people who have taken part in voluntary activity or donated money to charity.

You can use the the red buttons on the right to download the full report or read a summary of the findings.

One of our key findings was that over half the people we surveyed not only participated in voluntary work, but also gave money to charity.

Our other findings included the most common reason people gave for volunteering, which was to improve things or help people. Just over half of donors were motivated by the importance of the work done by the charity they were giving to.

How we worked

Our collaborator on this study was the Institute for Volunteering Research. The study was commissioned by the Office of the Third Sector and managed by Communities and Local Government.

Potential policy impact

This study was conducted during a time of increasing government interest in volunteering and charitable giving, with new initiatives launched to promote and encourage these.

This report provided an up-to-date picture of volunteer and donor experiences, to help practitioners, policy makers and funders improve the targeting and management of programmes that support volunteering and giving.

Methods

We interviewed over 2,700 adults (aged 16 and over) in households in England, who had previously been interviewed for the 2005 Citizenship Survey, including 549 people from ethnic minority groups.

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