International Volunteer Day – December 2025
International Volunteer Day falls on 5th December 2025 and this year, as well as encouraging volunteering for the day, International Volunteer Day will be used to launch the UN International Volunteer year for 2026. The theme for the event will be solidarity through volunteering and will encourage people to participate in community, national and global volunteering initiatives.
Volunteering has a long and varied tradition in the United Kingdom, with records dating back to the 12th century. Typically UK volunteers tend to engage in supporting individuals, communities, charities and even the NHS. Volunteers also play vital roles in supporting conservation and environmental projects as well as education and the arts. Thus ensuring that important social benefits continue to be available. In England alone the total economic benefit from volunteering is approximately £25bn. With the estimated cost of wellbeing benefits per volunteer being around £673 per volunteer or £8.6bn in total(1).
Volunteering has been proven to improve mental and physical wellbeing with the Time Well Spent: A national survey on the volunteer experience recording:
Over three-quarters (77%) of volunteers agreed that volunteering had improved their mental health and wellbeing; this compares with just over half (53%) who agreed their physical health had improved (note, these were separate statements, so respondents could agree with both).(2)
As well the benefits to both mental and physical health, the Royal Volunteer Service states that following feedback the benefits to the volunteer have a huge impact on their lives and include:
- Building new skills
- Getting valuable work experience
- Making new friends
- Improving their physical & mental health and wellbeing
- Giving something back
- Improving their confidence
- Connecting with others in their community
- Improving how things work for the better (3)
So, how can your workplace benefit from volunteering?
Over the past two decades it has become increasingly popular for organisations to offer volunteering opportunities to their employees. This can take a couple of different forms, such as:
Offering a volunteer time allowance
A volunteer time allowance works on the principle that an employee has 1 or 2 days a year which they can use to volunteer for an organisation, whilst still receiving pay. The benefit of this is that you may have staff who already volunteer or who want to volunteer for a particular project. Offering volunteer time as an employee benefit, allows them to get on with it without worrying about losing a days wages.
Workplace Group Volunteering
Alternatively, you may consider workplace group volunteering. Many organisations and charities that rely on volunteering now offer group volunteering for workplaces. This allows for small work groups from businesses to work together on a specific project and is organised directly via the business. Forming part of an employee benefit package, it is a good opportunity for team building away from the workplace. Staff are paid as usual and the company benefits from improved staff welfare, stronger teams and, can record it against their corporate responsibility and social value index.
Consider which approach would be most appropriate for your business and make an informed choice about what you want your business to gain from volunteering. Think about how you could incorporate volunteering into your own social value index.
Volunteering and Sustainability
You might be wondering how sustainability and volunteering are linked excluding the obvious exceptions of volunteering for environmental or sustainability charities and organisations.
Committing to long term volunteering whether that is as a regular weekly volunteer or a regular corporate project volunteer creates ongoing positive, lasting and measurable impact. Strengthening communities and social bonds, and improving the lived environment for many. Working together in a voluntary capacity increases the desire to make improvements, creating a sort of beneficial feedback loop as more benefit from these acts of kindness. Repeated volunteering allows growth in skills and confidence which can also then be passed on to new volunteers or shared amongst friends and family.
Why not take advantage of some of the volunteering opportunities in Suffolk. Canvas staff opinion, you may find that some of your staff are already volunteering, why not ask them to share their experiences?
Above all, think about what skills and time your organisation could offer, maybe this is just offering to man a stall for a couple of hours. All of these volunteer actions added together help to make a big change!
Volunteer Organisations in Suffolk
Welcome to RSPCA Suffolk Central
Stowmarket & Area Foodbank – LivingIt
References
3 Benefits of Volunteering | Royal Voluntary Service