Jenny Raschbauer has undertaken masters research into learning and development in the charity sector in England and Wales, interviewing 68 people at different levels across the sector. This summary presents her impactful findings.
Part I- The Headlines
Let’s talk about learning in the charity sector. My recent research shows employees rate their learning experiences at 93%, but volunteers score their experiences at 77%.
The Good
Whilst operating in what can only be described as perpetual crisis mode 19% of charities had spent nothing on training, and nearly half don’t have a dedicated training budget, social sector organisations are doing something right with learning. The 93% rating from employees for their learning is impressive. And it’s important- because learning directly impacts engagement, retention, and organisational performance. It can also improve personal resilience – vital as social sector leaders report high levels of stress and burnout from their work.
The Bad
However, this research across employees, volunteers, and trustees has uncovered some difficult truths about who’s learning in our organisations. The separation between service users, volunteers, employees, and trustees often parallel societal power dynamics.
However, most charities are created as a response to power imbalances within society and seek to restore power, agency, and capacity to those who are marginalised. Therefore, the primary purpose of many charities is to address these dynamics, making the differences between the learning experiences of volunteers, employees and trustees of vital significance. That’s where the issues start to become apparent as:
Your Trustees think everything’s brilliant. They gave the highest learning scores of all groups, which is reflected in parallel research, where they give consistently high and positive scores for their experiences as trustees. In this research they reported participating in formal learning more consistently than the other groups, with 10% participating in learning activities 24 or more times a year, which seems at odds with the average amount of time committed to trustee roles. Perhaps their experience is genuinely incredibly positive, or perhaps they are victims of the ‘MUM effect’ – where senior leaders only hear positive news. What do you think?
Your Employees and volunteers are on different planets. Staff think volunteers get a worse learning experience than they do. Volunteers think the opposite. This may show how neither group fully understands the others experiences. Both groups are probably right – but perhaps they’re experiencing completely different types of learning, as there is evidence to show that most volunteer learning is informal and from peers. This raises questions about whether organisations could benefit from more formal volunteer learning.
When asked about working collaboratively with funders, 60% of volunteers said, “don’t know.” This could be a benefit as volunteers focus on what they do best, or it shows that volunteers are unaware about the inner workings of their organisation, which could be a learning opportunity. Only you know which it is for your organisation.
Part II- The Context
The Research
This research used the Dimensions of Learning Organisation Questionnaire – a tool that looks at whether organisations “facilitate the learning of all members and continuously transform themselves to meet strategic goals.” Additional questions were asked about organisational size, income and resilience. It’s particularly relevant for charities trying to do participatory decision-making and work with service users, volunteers, and staff as genuine partners.
This research had 68 participants, but ideally double this number is needed for proper statistical confidence. 80% of participants came from larger organisations, which is not reflective of the sector, which, in the UK, 90% of social sector organisations are small and 47% have an income of under £25,000.
The Money Question
You might expect that charities with stable funding and training budgets would score better on learning, and although there is evidence to support this, this research found… not much correlation at all. However, given that many organisations don’t have a budget for learning, and there are free learning opportunities for charities, perhaps the relationship between learning opportunities and budgets is more complex than expected.
What Else Can We Learn?
70% of volunteers reported attending annual learning activities and sometimes more frequently and 50% of employees engaged in formal learning opportunities 1-6 times a year. These results seem to support the differences in learning experiences by role, but correlation between learning frequency and Learning Organisation scores was limited.
Generally, there was no correlation between size of organisation and learning frequency, with both large and small organisations participating in both formal and informal learning opportunities. The size of organisation had a marginal effect on learning organisation scores – with smaller organisations reporting slightly higher scores, potentially due to greater collaboration and involvement in different tasks.
What did correlate? Confidence. 72% of participants who felt confident about their organisation’s future also gave positive learning scores. Organisations scoring high on learning also scored high on participatory decision-making. The two go hand in hand. So learning helps to drive participatory decision making and confidence in the future, which tallies with existing research showing that learning promotes employee engagement and retention.
Part III- The Key Takeaways
What You Can Actually Do
For everyone:
- Prioritise sharing information and create routines that make sharing what you know the normal thing to do, not the special thing.
- Discuss the different learning experiences across your organisation, what do the team say about your organisation? Acknowledging the differences is the first step to learning from each other and strengthening your organisation Learn about the MUM effect, what do you share with others? Do you share only good news?
For trustees:
- Learn about the MUM effect and actively create ways to hear bad news, not just good news. Consider how you receive bad news, can you be more welcoming?
- Your role may be a learning experience. But don’t assume that means everyone else is learning too.
- Consider who else needs to be involved in organisational decisions.
For staff:
- Think about what volunteers actually learn in your organisation and whether they could be more engaged or bring the organisation greater benefits if they had opportunities to learn other things.
- Consider why your volunteers aren’t engaged with funding conversations – and whether that matters for your organisation.
- Reflect on whether you can provide opportunities for volunteers to work more closely with your Trustees.
Ultimately…
“learning” is a massive concept, and one that is open to interpretation. Attending a formal training course? Learning from a colleague? Picking things up through volunteering? They’re all learning, but they’re very different experiences. This research doesn’t make it clear what people mean when they say they’re learning.
The sector is doing surprisingly well at learning despite not having systematic approaches or consistent budgets. But different groups are having wildly different experiences, and we’re not talking about it enough. Especially as these groups often mirror social inequalities, and diversity is sector-wide issue. This is a missed opportunity as learning can help participatory decision making and create opportunities on both an individual and organisational level.
Learning isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s how we build resilience, improve retention, and deliver on our missions. How can we ensure everyone involved in our organisations has the opportunity to learn?
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