October 15, 2025

Are you a volunteer in Cumbria? Do you manage or work with volunteers across Cumbria? If so, we want to hear from you!

Volunteers are pivotal to the work of many of our local organisations and volunteering is a powerful force for change on both a local and national level, but we know that currently it isn’t equally accessible or enjoyable for everyone. Over recent years we have seen many changes to the way in which people volunteer because of the pandemic, cost of living crisis and a rise in loneliness and as a result volunteering needs to adapt to remain relevant, strong and attractive for both existing and future volunteers.

Cumbria CVS is committed to future-proofing volunteering activity across the county and over the next few months will be running two surveys and a series of six engagement workshops with local community groups, third sector organisations, key stakeholders and partners and volunteers from local communities to develop a Cumbria Volunteering Strategy.

We have funding to seek the views of volunteers and volunteer leads to help us to shape the future of volunteering across Cumbria. We would love to hear your views – what is good, could be improved and any big ideas you have.

There are two ways to get involved:

1. Fill in our survey
2. Attend one of our workshops

Please fill in our surveys (it only takes 6-8 minutes):

Survey for volunteers

Survey for people who work with volunteers

Also, please attend one of our face-to-face workshops across the county to help us to shape the Vision for the Future of Volunteering in Cumbria. There are events in Kendal, Carlisle, Barrow, Allerdale, Penrith and Copeland.