Volunteers: we all love them, we all want them, but are there enough to go round? In our recent Sector Forecast, 61% of respondents told us they were planning to recruit more volunteers in 2017. One in three small charities and two in three larger charities hoped to see their volunteer numbers increase. 72% of our respondents expected demand for their services to increase and many hope to recruit new volunteers to help deliver their much-needed services. _“The demand for our services is growing beyond our capacity to respond and certainly beyond our current and potential volunteer capacity.”_ That’s great, but given that volunteering rates in Scotland have remained stubbornly flat for years, where exactly will this army of new volunteers come from? [![](https://storage.googleapis.com/scvo-cms/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Volunteering-Rates-Scottish-Household-Survey-300x183.png)](https://storage.googleapis.com/scvo-cms/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Volunteering-Rates-Scottish-Household-Survey.png)Does recruiting new volunteers simply mean your organisation has to poach them from a charity that isn’t able to offer such a good volunteering experience? Will higher profile, larger charities attract new volunteers at the expense of smaller ones? And what about all the public services such as hospitals competing with the third sector for volunteers? What’s also a bit worrying is that as organisations find their funding cut, volunteers will be seen as cheap stop-gap solution to funding cuts. As well as being unrealistic, that also does both volunteering and the volunteers themselves a huge disservice. Luckily our members also highlighted some really positive ways in which they are trying to reach out to connect with new volunteers. Some spoke of using social media and better communications to raise their profile and bring in new volunteers. Some spoke of recruiting volunteer co-ordinators to support, train and motivate volunteers. Others spoke of successes with youth volunteering programmes such as Project Scotland and the Saltire Awards helping them reach out to a new generation of volunteers, and some have focussed on building better links with local schools and colleges. At the other end of the age spectrum, some organisations such as food banks have had great success recruiting older people as volunteers by using connections such as working with church congregations.  A number of organisations have been working with initiatives to involve more private sector staff on boards and as volunteers. The demand is there, so let’s hope the third sector can increase its capacity to support volunteers and develop interesting and rewarding volunteering experiences to a larger and wider range of people from more walks of life, and get some more wonderful volunteers engaged in the sector’s activities. **[Click here to read our new briefing on Volunteers and Boards.](http://www.scvo.scot/news-campaigns-and-policy/briefings-consultation-responses/insights-for-2017-volunteers-and-boards/)** --- ## About SCVO SCVO (Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations) is the national membership organisation for Scotland's voluntary sector. Our role is to champion the role of voluntary organisations in Scotland and to support them to do work that has a positive impact. SCVO supports members and the wider voluntary sector with all aspects of setting up and running a voluntary organisation. SCVO represents the needs and concerns of the voluntary sector to the Scottish government in Holyrood and UK government and Westminster. Through our learning and events programme SCVO offers training and development opportunities to the sector. Members access an extensive membership benefits package including specialist, in-depth, 1-to-1 guidance from our Information Services team and from professional service partners. Access to exclusive membership networks (including comms, employers, governance and policy) supports members to grow their connections, stay up to date, exchange ideas and views with peers, and learn through tailored, learning opportunities. SCVO members enjoy free access to Funding Scotland Premium to stay on top of funding opportunities to support their organisation’s financial resilience. Discounts and savings savings on SCVO products and services (including our HR service, managed IT support, payroll service and events and training) and partner offers provide members with support to allow them to focus on delivering their organisation’s goals. Further SCVO products and services include [extensive digital support](https://scvo.scot/support/digital), a climate action resource [Growing Climate Confidence](https://climateconfident.scot), a voluntary sector publication [Third Force News](https://tfn.scot) and a voluntary sector jobs and recruitment service [Goodmoves](https://goodmoves.org). For more information on SCVO membership, visit [SCVO membership](https://scvo.scot/membership)