State of Volunteering Report

The Centre for Volunteering, in partnership with the Department of Communities and Justice, has launched the inaugural New South Wales State of Volunteering Report.

This in-depth analysis showcases the value of the nearly 4.9 million residents across NSW who gave more than 1.5 billion hours as volunteers in 2020; the benefit of which is approximately $127 billion.

The study showed that volunteers are a frontline workforce, delivering services to communities in a wide variety of contexts in not-for-profit organisations (2.6 million volunteers in 2020), in private sector organisations (0.7 million volunteers in 2020), and for governments (0.6 million volunteers in 2020), as well as undertaking informal volunteering.

The Report also showcases the characteristics of volunteers, volunteering and volunteer-involving organisations. Importantly, the Report contains a detailed cost-benefit analysis of the social, cultural and economic impacts of volunteering on communities in NSW.

The research presented in this report is a great reminder of how important the volunteer sector is and that government, business and the broader community continue to value, engage and invest in volunteering.

Read the State of Volunteering report to discover the value of the nearly 4.9 million residents across NSW who gave more than 1.5 billion hours of volunteering in 2020; the benefit of which is approximately $127 billion.

Infographic explaining the key findings

Key findings

• 4.4 million NSW residents also gave of their time informally to other non-household or non-family members in 2020, through acts such as domestic work, transport and child-care.
• Volunteers donated at least 1.5 billion volunteer hours to the community in 2020.
• 87.6% of NSW residents aged 18-24 volunteered in 2020 – over 640,000 youth in total.
• 82.4% of volunteer-involving organisations relied on volunteers aged over 65 years old.
• 49.6%of volunteer-involving organisations included skilled professionals among the ranks of their volunteers.
• 30.3% of volunteers donated their time through informal volunteering (without organisational support) with 59.5% of volunteers stating they volunteered both formally and informally.
• 47.5% of volunteering occurred on the ground in local communities
• 33.4% of volunteering was undertaken either from home or online.
• The volunteering sector is nearly four times larger than the New South Wales Government (public) sector workforce and almost exactly the same size as the private sector.

The research was undertaken by the Institute of Project Management which surveyed more than 1,100 volunteers and received more than 1,000 responses from volunteer-involving organisations.

To find out more, about this exciting initiative, visit Centre for Volunteering website