The Almanac: A Seasonal Guide to 2023: THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

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Medium charities pay the least on average at all experience levels, even when compared to micro and small charities, although there has been a slight decrease in salaries for micro and small charities since 2019. Income and spending had increased consistently since 2000/01, but the rate of growth had slowed by 2019/20, and both fell in 2020/21, the first full year of the pandemic: income fell by 6% with spend decreasing by 8%. Those living in the least deprived areas are twice as likely to have volunteered formally at least monthly than those in the most deprived areas, reflected in higher levels of regular volunteering in the more affluent south of England.

Charity closures during the pandemic years were lower than predicted, although the number of newly registered charities fell below average in 2021. An estimated 14.2m people (27% of people) volunteered through a group, club or organisation in 2021/22. This is down from 16.3 (30%) million in 2020/21, and 20m (37%) in 2019/20.

Almost half of voluntary sector income is from the public (the largest source) followed by close to a third from the government. These calendars have the traditional horse race design with a modern twist. They contain information like public holidays, school holidays and important festivals. The dates also include Hijri dates for the Muslims, Chinese Lunar dates for the Chinese and Tamil dates. Other than that, Chinese Zodiacs are also available at the bottom portion of each calendar. The pandemic appears to have encouraged the growth of micro organisations in 2020/21, but with a decline in the number of small and medium organisations. Voluntary organisations carry out a range of different types of work. Social services – a relatively broad category – is the largest voluntary subsector, representing just under a fifth of the sector by size. In 2020/21 there were 163,959 voluntary organisations, a very small decrease since 2019/2020. The vast majority of voluntary organisations are micro and small.

The voluntary sector workforce is distributed around the UK in a pattern relatively close to the population distribution, although London and the south, and Scotland are slightly over-represented. As this report only covers the first full year of the covid-19 pandemic period, the next Almanac edition will provide further evidence of the ongoing impact. The voluntary sector is less ethnically diverse than the private and public sectors, with 90% of its staff identifying as white, compared to 86% for the public and 87% for the private.

People aged over 65 have maintained their levels of formal volunteering since 2020/21, while participation in all other age groups has dropped. Just under half of all voluntary organisations rely on the public for the majority of their income.