Clinical Trial Reimbursements
2026 Trial Regulations
Is expense transparency costing you volunteers?
Your volunteer recruitment and retention is linked to how you reimburse volunteer expenses.
27% → 17%
Formal volunteering in England, 2013/14 to 2023/24
Community Life Survey, DCMS
5% → 14%
Cited financial worry as a reason not to volunteer, 2019 to 2023
NCVO, Time Well Spent 2023
16%
Of volunteers don't know if their expenses would be reimbursed at all
NCVO, Time Well Spent 2023
The self-check
Ask your organisation these four questions
1
Are new volunteers embarrassed to ask about expenses?
2
Can volunteers easily find your expenses policy, or do they have to ask?
3
How is the cost of living affecting who can afford to keep volunteering?
4
Are you excluding people from less advantaged backgrounds who can't afford to be out of pocket?
The cost of showing up has never been higher
Travel is the single biggest out-of-pocket cost for volunteers. When reimbursement is slow, volunteers are effectively lending your charity money they can't afford to lend.
£660+
A year in mileage for a volunteer driving 6 miles each way, twice a week, at HMRC's new 55p rate
20%
Of 18 to 24 year olds cite fear of being out of pocket as a reason not to volunteer
17% vs 10%
Non-volunteers citing cost as a barrier, most vs least deprived areas
How to fix it
Six changes that remove the barrier
✓
Publish your expenses policy where volunteers can find it
✓
Make claiming expenses private and easy
✓
Pay expenses fast, within days, not weeks
✓
Pay directly to the volunteer's bank account
✓
Cut the admin burden on both sides, volunteer and organisation
✓
Track who isn't claiming, and follow up to find out why
Read the full white paper
Why Volunteers Quit: The Hidden Role of Expense Reimbursement in Retention, with the full evidence, sector data and what good practice looks like in detail.
Read the white paper See the new 55p mileage rate
vHelp pays volunteer expenses directly to their bank account within 24 hours · hello@vhelp.co.uk
