Volunteering, Community Action and Future Planning – Highlights from the May VCSE Network Meeting

The May VCSE Network meeting brought together organisations from across Hull and East Riding to share updates, celebrate successes, discuss challenges and explore opportunities for collaboration.

The full meeting minutes are now available on the VCSE website (click here) and include updates from a range of organisations, including exciting redevelopment plans at the RSPCA Hull and East Riding centre, progress with the Bridlington Community Car Scheme, developments at the Crown Building in Bridlington and discussions around future public health engagement work in Goole.

While there was plenty of positive news to share, one topic generated particularly rich discussion and has continued to resonate since the meeting – volunteering.

Volunteering remains one of the sector's greatest strengths

Every day, thousands of volunteers across Hull and East Riding give their time, skills, knowledge and lived experience to support communities, reduce isolation, improve health and wellbeing, protect local environments, run community activities and strengthen organisations.

However, the conversation during the network meeting highlighted something many organisations are experiencing:

Volunteering is changing.

The challenges facing organisations are no longer simply about recruiting more volunteers. Instead, organisations are increasingly reporting barriers around time, cost of living, transport, onboarding processes, capacity to support volunteers and the changing realities of modern life.

To explore these issues further, we launched a short volunteering survey and have already received a number of responses

What are the early findings telling us?

The responses paint a consistent picture.

Many organisations describe the current volunteering landscape as:

• Challenging
• Stretched
• Over-reliant on a small number of people
• Lacking capacity
• Struggling to meet demand

One respondent simply described the picture as "bleak".

Perhaps most significantly, the emerging evidence suggests that people have not lost the desire to help their communities.

Instead, volunteering is increasingly being constrained by practical barriers.

The most common challenges identified include:

• Lack of time
• Cost-of-living pressures
• The need to prioritise paid work
• Transport costs and access
• Confidence and self-belief
• Family and caring responsibilities

Many organisations also reflected on their own processes, recognising that lengthy onboarding procedures, complex policies, unclear role descriptions and professionalised recruitment practices can unintentionally create barriers for potential volunteers.

At the same time, organisations consistently reported that volunteers stay when they:

• Feel valued
• See the impact of their contribution
• Feel part of a team
• Develop new skills
• Have opportunities to grow and progress

The message is clear.

Volunteering is not suffering from a lack of goodwill.

People still want to contribute to their communities. The challenge is creating opportunities that fit around modern lives and removing barriers that prevent people from getting involved.

A wider conversation is needed

The early survey findings have generated more questions than answers, which is exactly why we want to continue the conversation.

Over the coming months, HEY Smile Foundation will be working with partners to develop a volunteering workshop in September. The aim is to bring together organisations, volunteers, infrastructure partners, public sector colleagues and businesses to explore:

• What volunteering looks like today
• What barriers people are facing
• How organisations can make volunteering more accessible
• How statutory partners can better support volunteering infrastructure
• What good practice already exists across Hull and East Riding
• How we build a stronger volunteering ecosystem for the future

For this discussion to be meaningful, we need as many voices as possible around the table.

The survey explores:

Recruitment challenges

• Volunteer retention
• Cost-of-living impacts
• Barriers to participation
• Organisational processes
• Support needed from partners and the wider system

Most importantly, it gives organisations an opportunity to shape the future conversation.

Together, we can build a clearer picture of volunteering across Hull and East Riding and ensure that future support, investment and development is informed by the experiences of those delivering services and supporting communities every day.

We look forward to continuing the conversation.