Evaluation of vinspired students

The National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE) was funded by v, the national young volunteers service, to run the vinspired students project to provide compelling evidence of the impact of volunteering on students, communities and institutions and to galvanise a step change in the quantity, quality and diversity of student volunteering in the English Higher Education (HE) sector. The project began in October 2008 and finished at the end of March 2011. Find out more about the project aims.

We commissioned Laura Grant Associates, in partnership with Edge Hill University, to carry out a formative evaluation of the project. The evaluation was both participatory and reflexive, with considerable engagement with project stakeholders throughout. The evaluation methodology included:

• Participatory workshops involving the project team and key stakeholders
• E-surveys of people involved in the project (55 stakeholders and 274 students) 
• In-depth stakeholder interviews (14 in December 2009, 19 in May 2010, 27 in December 2010/January 2011) 
• Student-led evaluations of the pilot projects

Download the evaluation report (PDF 1.2MB).

Metrics

vinspired students created 2116 new volunteering opportunities for students. The project worked directly with 50 HEIs through the different project elements, and a further 53 HEIs were engaged or consulted. A total of 173 volunteer involving organisations (VIOs) were involved, and it is estimated that the project had over 4,400 community beneficiaries.

Summary of project outcomes

The evaluation yielded strong evidence for a range of project outcomes from vinspired students. These were grouped into four themes:

vinspired students enabled meaningful local impacts (i.e. for those that had been directly involved in the project)

The funding opportunities and reflective spaces that the project offered gave HEIs a starting point for change that may not have happened, or would have taken longer to happen, otherwise. Once activities were underway, the project provided support for different ways of working to maximise organisational learning for the HEIs and VIOs involved. This learning has also been captured in the project tools so that it might be shared with other institutions. This evaluation provided significant evidence that participation in vinspired students had led to lasting changes at HEIs. These included new ways of involving students, new ways of working that had become embedded and a more community-focused approach to student volunteering.

vinspired students built new relationships and enhanced existing ones

The project provided opportunities for relationships and networks at local and national level, through funding calls such as the pilots; brokerage in the case of the national campaigns; and conferences, workshops and events that were open to all. These opportunities for networking and partnership working were a strength of the project: they were seen as a way to enhance the activities that were initiated by the project, reflect on learning, and share lessons and good practice more widely.

The national campaigns brought together national VIO partners and universities, providing an innovative development for student volunteering and a valuable learning experience. Some participants in the national campaigns appreciated the sense of ‘being part of something bigger’.

Participants in the evaluation were realistic about opportunities and threats to student volunteering. They hoped that partnerships (at both local and sector levels) would continue (indeed for some they were the most valuable lasting outcome from the work), and some felt that working in an intelligent and networked way would be crucial to the sector’s survival.

vinspired students added credible research to the evidence base

The project did this by providing up-to-date credible research about student volunteering through two pieces of commissioned research. Volunteering managers felt that senior managers in universities saw the NCCPE as a credible source of information. Bursting the Bubble was seen as particularly useful as a baseline for measuring future levels of student volunteering and as a means of articulating the value for student volunteering within HEIs.

vinspired students revitalised conversations about the value of student volunteering

The evaluation points to two main ways that vinspired students has revitalised the conversation about student volunteering. Firstly, linking student volunteering with the public engagement agenda has helped initiate conversations between staff in areas of HEIs that may not have joined up before. Secondly, vinspired students and the NCCPE have provided mechanisms through which volunteering managers and others can start conversations in their own HEIs. The Manifesto for Public Engagement and culture change tools are examples of this.

The changing environment and sector-wide outcomes

The project outcomes were helping some student volunteering managers to better articulate the value of student volunteering in their institutions. However, the evaluation also explored the changing environments for universities and for the community and voluntary sector. Some felt that the new environment might undermine a positive culture change with respect to student volunteering, while others felt that they would help make the work more resilient and sustainable.