Increasing Volunteer Diversity at Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice

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15 May 2026

Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice (NACH) have partnered with University College London (UCL) to undertake a research project focused on increasing diversity within our 200-strong volunteer community. 

The collaboration was initiated by our Volunteering Development Manager, Dan Smith, who identified a lack of diversity among our volunteers. Recognising the need for meaningful change, he commissioned this research to better understand existing gaps and to develop clear, actionable recommendations for improvement.  

Dan initially had the idea of collating data on our volunteers in January 2025. Dan says: “I decided we needed some solid data on our volunteer demographics. Firstly, to understand what they were and to identify gaps. We wanted to create an action plan on how to engage with those communities, so our volunteer community is representative of the children and families that we support. I'd also heard from some of our volunteers that being at Noah’s Ark has helped them expand their understanding of different cultures, so it makes sense for us to have volunteers from the communities that we support to share knowledge and educate us on best practice.” 

Dan attended a Research Clinic at UCL in March 2025, where he proposed the partnership. Dan says: “I thought UCL would be a good place to start as they already have a volunteering platform and a social impact initiative called CRIS (Community Research Initiative for Students). CRIS recruit students to undertake research projects for charities, utilising their skills as students while putting their work into practice in the real world.” 

UCL accepted the challenge and five students applied to work on the research project, Diego Lacheze-Beer, Izzy Kerrison, Ramandeep Mungur, Vikas Vyas and Nicolas Reiss. Dan supplied the newly formed team with anonymised data on our demographics, our volunteer applications and processes, and the team got to work. Throughout the project Dan met with the team regularly and they also came to visit us at The Ark.  

UCL 2

The report was delivered in September 2025. It showed that: 

  • The majority of volunteers at Noah’s Ark come from lower deprivation areas (i.e. more affluent areas) 

  • The volunteers live closer to The Ark in Barnet  

  • 68% of the volunteers were 55 years and over, with no volunteers being 18-24 years old 

  • 83% of volunteers were from a White background which is an over representation of the white ethnic group compared to UK 2021 census data 

  • Black/Black British, Arabic and Muslim volunteers are the most under-represented minority groups in NACH volunteer base 

The report also outlined a series of recommendations to address diversity gaps within our volunteer community. Noah’s Ark will be implementing the following initiatives in response to these findings: 

  • Developing Local Community Partnerships 

  • Organising Open Days & Community Events 

  • Undertaking Cultural Competency Training 

  • Supporting Disability Volunteering  

  • Expenses Reimbursement Process Reform 

  • Establishing Faith Centre Partnerships 

UCL 1

The partnership with CRIS marked Noah’s Ark’s first collaboration with a university. It was so successful that we have since commissioned two additional research projects with them, both of which are currently in the recruitment phase: 

  • How to engage younger audiences in fundraising  

  • A master’s dissertation project to evaluate our Home Support Volunteer Service 

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