GoVolunteer User Research Report (2005)

GoVolunteer is the recruitment website of Volunteering Australia and is run in partnership with SEEK, an Internet employment website. From the 9th to the 31st of May 2005, a survey was placed on the website with the intention to collect data from people visiting the site. Analysing this data would enable a comparison of online tools for recruitment with more traditional methods, and help Volunteering Australia target its activities.

The survey gathered 1,413 responses out of a total number of 49,291 site visits. As sample sizes go, this ought to tell us a great deal about people using online volunteer matching sites.   What we do not know is whether the respondents are representative of users. For example, as we shall see below, the responses came overwhelmingly from women. Is that because more women use the site, or that women were more likely to answer the survey?

Happily the report also includes its own ‘applications of findings’ section to draw out the lessons of the research. This Research to Practice looks at the report and the findings.