‘Volunteers are not paid – not because they are worthless, but because they are priceless.’

With our Better results program, we help non-profit organizations to better measure results and the impact of their work. The non-profit sector is facing increased scrutiny when carrying out their work and they need to better demonstrate results and impact in order to secure future funding. We can play an important role in this work by helping the non-profit sector to apply tools and methodologies used within our industry to get more accurate and reliable results.

Last fall we were approached by the European Centre for Volunteering, CEV, asking us if we could help them carry out a research study to measure the impact and effectiveness of volunteer work in the European Union.

More than 100 million Europeans engage in voluntary activities and through this make a difference to society. Volunteering plays an important role in finding innovative solutions to societal issues and is a significant economic factor. The voluntary sector contributes an estimated 5% to the GDP of national economies and many voluntary sector organizations depend heavily on the work of volunteers to carry out their activities.

Volunteering is freely given, but not cost free. While the EU has increasingly paid attention to volunteering in all its forms over recent years, there is still a risk of funds being cut entirely unless real positive impact of volunteering can be demonstrated. Currently the methods to measure the impact of volunteering are under-developed. Measurement of the Impact of volunteering is complex and multi-faceted. Therefore, market research skills should be able to add considerable value.

ESOMAR Foundation will support the CEV with appropriate methodologies and tools to develop an impact study on EU level. More specifically we are supporting CEV to organize knowledge, macro measurement and to create case studies for promotion of understanding of the benefits of volunteering.

We are currently at the final stage of this study and are looking for volunteers to help us analyze and summarize existing research papers on volunteering. Are you interested in helping us? Please contact info@esomarfoundation.org