Serving as a Charitable Trustee in England and Wales: Trends in Volunteering by Birth Cohort

This article examines trends over time in the propensity to volunteer as a charitable trustee in England and Wales. It makes use of unique, newly available administrative data. The results show sizeable, progressive and extensive declines in trusteeship by birth cohort: compared to the 1945 birth cohort, more recent cohorts through to 1980 show successively lower propensities to volunteer. These results represent the strongest empirical evidence to date in support of sociological theory which argues that the nature of volunteering is changing, with a reduction in a ‘collective’ style of volunteering characterised by long-term, regular and intensive commitment. The results also highlight a key challenge for policy: to sustain the voluntary work of trustee boards – which lies at the ‘heart’ of what it means to be a charity – in the context of sizeable cohort declines in the propensity to serve.