Built Environment Forum Scotland (BEFS) welcomes new research findings on the state of volunteering in Scotland’s historic environment sector in ‘Volunteering and the Historic Environment’, published on 1 June.
BEFS writes:
The report sheds new light on the scale and range of voluntary work being carried out across the sector in Scotland. The research was commissioned by Historic Environment Scotland and managed in partnership with BEFS. Volunteer Scotland, the national centre for volunteering, carried out the research – the first of its kind since 2008.
The new study revealed that last year alone over 17,000 volunteers, throughout the country, clocked up more than 121,000 days’ worth of voluntary work in contributing to Scotland’s historic environment. It found that the efforts and contributions volunteers made towards helping to better understand, protect and value Scotland’s heritage and history in 2015 had an estimated economic worth of around £14.7 million. Researchers also discovered that 45% of participating organisations had increased their volunteer numbers in the last year, with 83% believing that volunteers helped realise improvements with community engagement.
The Executive Summary states:
- The historic environment involved 17,099 volunteers in 2015 – collectively these volunteers spent 121,175 days volunteering in the sector. Each volunteer contributed an average of 7 days per annum.
- The economic value of volunteering in the historic environment sector was estimated at £14.7 million in 2015.
- Almost half of responding organisations (46%) were entirely run by volunteers. Where organisations involved both paid staff and volunteers, there was an overall staff to volunteer ratio of 1 to 1.6.
- The top reasons given for involving volunteers were that volunteers improved the organisation’s community engagement, volunteers helped to increase the capacity of the organisation, and volunteers brought attributes, skills and expertise that the organisation did not have.
- Nearly half (40%) of responding organisations had increased their number of volunteers between 2014 and 2015, and more than half (54%) hoped to increase their number
Read more… including the full report, executive summary and details on the case studies
