Volunteering in East Sussex – Winter 2006 survey

Consultation part 1

Over November and December 2006 we asked for your views about volunteering, to find out how we could best encourage volunteering in the county. The findings were:

• The top four words that you used to describe a volunteer were:
  caring, public-spirited, enthusiastic, and motivated.
• The top three reasons for not becoming a volunteer were lack of time, lack of information, and the need to do paid work.
• Respondents felt that women were more than twice as likely to volunteer as men.

Gender of people giving their views:

• 67.8% women
• 32.2% men.

Age of people giving their views:

• 0.8% were 16 – 24 years of age
• 17.4% were 25 – 44 years of age
• 29.0% were 45 – 60 years of age
• 36.1% were 61 – 74 years of age
• 16.6% were over 75 years of age.

Consultation part 2

During February and March 2007 we also asked the East Sussex residents panel for their views about volunteering. The findings were:

• The top four words they would use to describe a person who is a volunteer were: public spirited, caring, motivated, enthusiastic (Identical to the Winter 2006 survey results).
• The top three reasons that stopped people volunteering were: lack of time, the need to do paid work, lack of information (identical to the Winter 2006 survey results).

Overall conclusions

• Volunteers were felt to be public spirited, caring, motivated and enthusiastic people, with some suggesting that anybody could be a volunteer.
• The biggest barriers to volunteering were seen as a lack of time and the need to do paid work. Again it’s apparent that today’s busy lifestyle has an impact on our opportunities and ability to get involved in the community.