Official Statistics

Community Life Survey 2020/21 - Volunteering and Charitable Giving

Analysis of questions from the Community Life Survey 2020/21 related to volunteering and charitable giving

From:
Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
Published
29 July 2021

Applies to England

Documents

Volunteering and Charitable Giving - Community Life Survey 2020/21

HTML

Details

Background

The Community Life Survey collects information about whether adults (16+) have volunteered and given to charitable causes.

This section provides headline data measuring engagement in formal and informal volunteering, reasons for and barriers to volunteering, as well as charitable giving behaviours and views. The data looks at engagement over time, and differences in engagement between demographic groups.

Headline measures – 2020/21

  • 62% of respondents (approximately 28 million people in England) have volunteered in any way in the last 12 months, and 41% (approximately 19 million people in England) at least once a month.

  • 63% (approximately 29 million people in England) of respondents said they had given to charitable causes in the last 4 weeks. This is a decrease from 2019/20 where it was measured at 75% and the lowest proportion recorded in the CLS.

  • Formal volunteering at least once a month in the past 12 months decreased in 2020/21 (17%) from 2019/20 (23%), the lowest that it has been recorded in the CLS.

  • Informal volunteering at least once a month in the past 12 months increased in 2020/21 (33%) from 2019/20 (28%), the highest that it has been recorded in the CLS.

Further data

  • Information about volunteering in DCMS sectors, as well as charitable giving has historically been collected in the DCMS ‘Taking Part Survey’. Volunteering and charitable giving results will vary between Taking Part and Community Life Survey. This is likely due to differences in the methods of collection and question phrasing.

  • In May 2019, DCMS published ‘Community Life Survey and Taking Part Survey 2017-18: Focus on volunteering by age and gender’. This report combines data from the Taking Part and Community Life surveys to explore experiences of volunteering by gender and age.

  • In December 2020, DCMS published ‘Community Life COVID-19 Re-contact Survey 2020- Main Report’. This report covered public beliefs and behaviours relating to social cohesion, charitable giving, volunteering, wellbeing and loneliness for adults in England during March to July 2020, and how these have changed compared with a period before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Published 29 July 2021

Related content