The power of volunteering: our impact 2025
As the world grows ever more turbulent, polarised and unequal, charities and grassroots groups are playing an essential role, providing care and support, campaigning for change and experimenting with alternative ways of doing things.
The skills of volunteers and trustees provide vital resource. From strategic direction and budget management to operational, promotional and technical expertise, skills-based volunteers are making significant contributions to a rich diversity of causes and communities across the UK. Our latest Impact Report highlights just a small slice of these incredible organisations and how they're involving volunteers and trustees to accelerate their missions.
The headlines
- Our busiest ever year: We worked with 2,440 organisations who posted a record-breaking 7,097 roles for volunteers and trustees.
- Record volunteer numbers: 16,301 people signed up to volunteer through Reach, our highest ever number and sustaining the huge rises of recent years.
- Incredible return on investment: For every £1 invested, an estimated £80 of skills is contributed by volunteers.
- An impactful year: Charities and groups recruited more volunteers and trustees than ever: 5,996 placements were recorded - up 10% from last year. Over 91% said that their trustee or volunteer had made them more effective.
Stories of impact in action
Strengthening community food banks through trustee recruitment
Bringing biodiversity to overlooked spaces
Building futures through skills, trust, and connection at Breadwinners
Generating over $35 million for education charities
Finding the right expertise to grow
Adding capacity, confidence and direction
How 'human' recruitment helped strengthen a small charity
Building a global climate campaign with skills-based volunteers
Trustee expertise helps establish local community initiative
Enabling growth through specialist expertise
Helping climate education grow through skills-based volunteers
How The OK Foundation found the right skills through Reach
Impact at scale
Our unique and cost-effective model of support for charities and groups delivered impact in 2025 by:
- Growing participation: We encouraged record numbers of people from diverse backgrounds to volunteer their skills.
- Strengthening governance: 1,387 trustees with a younger and more diverse demographic were appointed through Reach.
- Building capacity: 4,609 skills-based volunteers were recruited, delivering projects and strengthening teams on an ongoing basis. 94% of organisations said their volunteer made them more effective.
- Supporting grassroots groups: 49% of organisations had a turnover of under £50,000, and 35% of roles posted were from those which are entirely volunteer-led.
- Increasing equity: Organisations led by and for groups that experience structural inequity posted over 40% of all roles on Reach and achieved higher than average application rates.
Looking ahead
We know that charities and groups have a growing need for access to expertise that is not met elsewhere. The abundance of people willing to help is a huge, largely untapped opportunity. Our ambition is to grow and develop our service significantly, based on our proven track record, deep expertise and our upgraded, digital platform.
With a modest level of investment, we will:
- Scale: Respond to growing demand from charities and groups by doubling placements in three years. We know many more people would volunteer if connected to the right opportunity and our service can accommodate growth at scale.
- Deepen impact: Deepen our relationships with volunteers and organisations, providing more support and inspiration, and building a sense of community to increase engagement and impact.
- Experiment: Develop new forms of volunteering such as bite-sized expert advice. We prototyped this in 2025 and found it is valuable for organisations and enables people with less time to volunteer.
- Support movements: Build on our growing success supporting movements and grassroots groups, providing more tailored support, and build
ing momentum to create a community of volunteers.
Nearly half of the activity we support is for organisations with a turnover of under £50k, and 35% have no paid staff. They cannot pay for our services, so we need funding to continue to deliver.
If you'd like to explore how you could be involved in our work, please email our CEO, Janet Thorne, on [email protected]
Download our Impact Report 2025
Read more about the organisations we worked with during 2025 and find out how our unique model supported good governance, grew capacity in teams and inspired people to volunteer.