Our essential evidence
Explore Helpforce's unique data bank about the impact of volunteering on people's experience and wellbeing, and on staff, the wider organisation and on volunteers themselves.
Robust, independent data to make the case
To make the case, innovate and build understanding about how we can accelerate the growth of volunteering in health and care, Helpforce has always focused on establishing robust, independent data about volunteers’ contribution – what works and what needs to change to make that contribution as effective as possible.
Our unique bank of evidence now includes aggregated data, from 1000s of evaluation subjects. This data has to be consistent across at least three organisations, and must draw on at least 500 evaluation subjects.
Our aggregated data
82%
of people agree volunteer support reduced their anxiety(n = 796, 14 organisations)
90%
of volunteers report that volunteering gives them a sense of purpose(n = 651, 28 organisations)
87%
of staff agree volunteers improve the quality of service they can provide(n = 662, 42 organisations)
Featured Helpforce evaluation projects
North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust Volunteer Drivers service has saved the trust £200,000 on taxi costs
Lighthouse community support, where we found 96% of people using the service felt more connected to their community
85% of patients said the support from volunteers in the Maternity Bay meant they felt more positive about the hospital (Liverpool Women’s NHS FT)
Through our Back to Health campaign, we have so far supported
449,283
patients and service users
111,472
health and care staff
63,019
volunteersYou might be interested in
Evaluating volunteering services
We build robust assessment into all our partnership projects and can evaluate other volunteering services. We have built up a unique bank of over 230 evidence findings.
Our services
Helpforce works with organisations across health, care and the community to develop and evaluate services that optimise the difference volunteers can make.Here we explain how we can help you meet key challenges and the specialist services that allow us to do this.
Volunteering resources
Our Network members get access to a bank of specialist resources, templates, role descriptions and case studies from fellow members and Helpforce.
Discover insights about health and care volunteering – sign up to our monthly newsletter
Subscribe