What if everyone stopped volunteering?

Volunteers are a vital part of society, often offering help to those who fall through the cracks in government support. Across health, justice, social care, the environment, and education, thousands of people across the country provide help for free, daily, and where it is most needed.

But can you imagine a world without volunteers? What would society look like?

These questions were asked in research published in 2025 by social enterprise Works4U, involving volunteering experts and charities, including the Royal Voluntary Service (RVS), Carers UK, and the Scouts. Also contributing were bodies from other sectors, including the Local Government Association and the Metropolitan Police.

Their findings prove grim reading. The study, ‘What if Everyone Stopped Volunteering?’ looks at the social and economic impact of UK life without volunteers. Here we look in detail at its findings and latest evidence around a worrying decline in volunteering numbers.  

Envisioning a world with no volunteers

Worryingly, the research found that the UK “would quickly descend into a dystopian state” without volunteers. It warns that “cripplingly expensive corrective action from the government” would be needed to avert disaster for the UK if no one gave up their time for good causes.

Without volunteers there would be an increase in social isolation, reduced health and wellbeing, decreased social cohesion, lower community resilience, a more unequal and unjust society, and an increase in social disorder, the report warns. The increase in social isolation is a particular concern, as this places higher demands on health, social care, and policing services due to physical and mental health issues such as depression and cardiovascular problems.

Economically, the lost productivity and workdays of no volunteers to help tackle loneliness could cost UK employers £2.5bn a year, claims the report. It cites figures from the UK government’s 2020 Loneliness Monetisation Report, which estimates the wellbeing cost of severe loneliness to be the equivalent to £9,537 per person a year.

Response to emergencies such as COVID-19 would also be hit hard with no volunteers. Cliff Fleming, Resilience Manager at emergency response organisation London Resilience says: “Volunteering and mutual aid support has been a backbone of society’s, and Londoners’, reaction to emergencies.

“For a community to be resilient, then it needs to have already established social connections and trusted networks.

“If all volunteers stopped volunteering, then community resilience could practically disappear as these social connections and trust between people and organisations would no longer exist.”

Meanwhile the report details how “support and education of young people would drop significantly”. Police representatives involved are particularly concerned about the impact on society without volunteers.

“Volunteering is not a ‘nice to have’ it is part of the backbone of policing in London,” says Metropolitan Police Head of Volunteering Rebecca Pritchard, who adds, “without it, the Met, and the communities we serve, would feel the loss instantly.” 

How the charity sector would be impacted if there were no volunteers

The charity sector itself would collapse, warns the report, as there would be no trustees to oversee their work. Currently 170,000 people give up their time to sit on charity boards, offering an estimated £33.17bn free support a year.

The environment would also suffer, with no volunteers to carry out work involving animal welfare, conservation, and wildlife protection. Around one in 50 UK charities are involved in such work.

Lindsay Cordery-Bruce, Chief Executive of another charity sector group involved, Wales Council for Voluntary Action, added: “In a world of increasing political uncertainty and division, volunteering and voluntary organisations are the glue that holds Welsh communities together.

“From people helping recover from floods and disasters, through to the promotion of positive masculinity through grassroots sport. If all volunteering stopped, our Nation would fail.”

Overall volunteering is worth “in the range of £25-400 billion per year” found the report.

“Even using the most conservative of these estimates would result in a huge social and economic loss if everyone stopped volunteering.” 

The decline of volunteering today

The ‘What if Everyone Stopped Volunteering?’ report was published amid a raft of recent evidence showing that the number of people giving up their time for good causes is in decline in recent years.

For example, analysis by The Centre for Ageing Better, published in October 2025, found  that although people aged 65 to 74 are most likely of any age group to volunteer regularly, overall volunteering rates in this group have not recovered since the end of the pandemic.

Charities are advised to tackle the barriers to volunteering facing older people including offering flexible and remote options to consider trends such as older people working more hours and taking on caring duties for grandchildren.

Also, in March 2025, the Charities Aid Foundation published its annual UK Giving Report, which found that the number of people volunteering fell from 7.1m to 5.6m between 2023 and 2024.

To help, the RVS launched the GoVo platform in 2025 where charities can promote volunteering opportunities. As of November 2025, more than 3,000 charities were signed up.