Volunteers’ Week 2025

By Emily Wilkins | 04 June 2025 | TAGS: Volunteering, Inclusion, Coaching

The first week in June (2 June - 8 June) is National Volunteers’ Week. The aim of the week is to acknowledge the volunteers that support sport and activity throughout Greater Manchester. From organising group to hosting events, volunteers are key to helping others to take part in physical activity. It’s also UK Coaching Week so we can’t forget the huge impact coaches have on our enjoyment of sport and physical activity.  

Volunteering can also boost the wellbeing of the volunteers themselves. Volunteers have a better well being than those who don't volunteer. Volunteers have improved self-worth, socialise more and love the feeling of doing something useful (NCVO, 2023; GM Moving, 2021). Volunteering also offers valuable opportunities to gain new skills and experience.    

Volunteers make a huge impact in helping others take part in sport, physical activity and movement. Despite this, we’ve seen a drop in the number of volunteers since 2016 (from 27% to 22% of the population). There’s been a steady 8% increase in the number of volunteers since 2021 but more needs to change (Sport England, 2025). It's important to get this number back to pre-pandemic levels. In Greater Manchester we have seen lower numbers of people volunteering than the national average. From November 2023 - November 2024, 22.3% of people volunteered nationally. However, the Greater Manchester number stood at a lower percentage of 21% (Sport England, 2025).   

Identity and background also impacts someone's ability to volunteer. Sport England’s Active Lives survey recently showed these barriers. From November 2023-2024, 10.5 million adults volunteered in sport and physical activity. Out of these, 61% of this number were men and 38% were women. You’re also less likely to volunteer if you’re from a poorer background. Despite making up 30% of the population, only 10% of people from lower socio-economic backgrounds (NS-SEC 6-8) volunteer regularly. Having more than one marginalised identity also makes volunteering harder to get involved in. 8.1% of people with no marginalised identities volunteered weekly compared to 6.6% of people with one and 4.6% of people with two or more.  

These statistics show that more needs to change to make volunteering accessible to all. This is particularly true for marginalised communities who face the biggest barriers to getting and staying involved in volunteering.    

Over the last 2 years, we have been working with partners and the Sports Volunteering Community of Practice. This work has tackled inequalities in volunteering by applying the eight recommendations from our Volunteering Research. If you want to read more about this work, check out last year's news piece for volunteers week and our webpage on volunteering.  

Community of Practice members have been testing out new ways to support volunteers and increase accessibility and diversity in volunteering. This funding helps explore new ways to get more people involved in volunteering by testing different approaches to how they can join in. We are excited to share more details about this work in the coming months. 

We’re looking forward to taking the energy from this Volunteers’ Week into the rest of 2025. We are going to continue the work we’re doing and explore new ways to act on recommendations from our volunteering research. If you would like to help us improve volunteering opportunities, join our Community of Practice to share your insights and experiences. Together, we can create a more inclusive volunteer environment for all.

References  

GM Moving (2021): https://www.gmmoving.co.uk/data-and-learning/the-impact-of-volunteering-on-happiness-health-and-wellbeing/  

NCVO (2023): https://www.ncvo.org.uk/news-and-insights/news-index/time-well-spent-2023/volunteer-experience-impact/ 

Sport England (2025): https://sportengland-production-files.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/2025-04/ActiveLivesAdult-Nov23-24_V9-23-04-25-10-03-03-02.pdf?VersionId=aZVjaW4MK37mqMAWm_Th9un7WRjSeF7u