[PDF] What have we learned so far about COVID-19 volunteering in the UK? A rapid review of the literature | Semantic Scholar (2024)

FAQs

Why is volunteering important during COVID? ›

At the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic, volunteers have demonstrated an exceptional display of solidarity across the world. Responding to calls for help from their local communities, they are everyday heroes.

Summary. The pandemic caused a severe recession, with an unprecedented drop in GDP during the first national lockdown in 2020. As businesses and consumers adapted, subsequent lockdowns in autumn 2020 and winter 2020/21 did not lead to as severe a decline in economic activity.

Most countries have implemented full or partial lockdown measures to slow the spread of disease. The lockdown has slowed global economic activity substantially, many companies have reduced operations or closed down, and people are losing their jobs at an increasing rate.

Unpaid volunteers are often the glue that holds a community together. Volunteering allows you to connect to your community and make it a better place. Even helping out with the smallest tasks can make a real difference to the lives of people, animals, and organizations in need.

Volunteering allows you to connect to your community and make it a better place. Even helping out with the smallest tasks can make a real difference to the lives of people, animals, and organizations in need.

Health services across the UK entered the pandemic with a significant backlog of care. Waiting times for diagnostics and elective care were increasing, while access to emergency care was worsening. Across the health services, targets were being missed with growing frequency.

- Cases of high/very high social, emotional and behavioural difficulties increased 7.9% in the pandemic cohort vs 3.5% in the pre-pandemic cohort. - Cases of possible/probable mental health difficulties increased 12.8% in the pandemic group versus 4.5% in the pre-pandemic group.

The COVID-19 pandemic killed nearly 16 million people worldwide in 2020 and 2021 and caused global life expectancy to decline by 1.6 years between 2019 and 2020.

Due to the reproductive rate of the virus and high globalization, COVID-19 has affected millions of people around the world. The social, economic, and health of people have been affected negatively the world's livelihood and well-being have been endangered [43].

The COVID-19 pandemic precipitated a devastatingly sharp contraction of economic activity and huge job losses in early 2020, as government restrictions and fear of the virus kept people at home and businesses shut.

How has COVID impacted the nonprofit sector? ›

As a result, the financial stability of most NPOs was threatened. In fact, 75% of NPOs reported their revenue streams and ability to fundraise were negatively impacted by the COVID‐19 pandemic, forcing reductions to their budgets (Nonprofit Leadership Center, 2020).

Volunteers are a tremendous resource for charitable nonprofits. Absent volunteers, many charitable nonprofits would not be able to conduct programs, raise funds, or serve clients. The vast majority of board members who serve on charitable nonprofit boards are volunteers.

Volunteer rates declined from 2012 (5.8 percent) to 2022 (4.2 percent). Rates fell for both men and women over the decade, though the volunteer rate for women increased in the most recent period, from 4.1 percent in 2021 to 5.1 percent in 2022. These data are from the American Time Use Survey.