This found that, when a business invests £ in employability-related employee volunteering, the social return is over £ for society. 27 Of course, the precise social multipliers are likely to vary, charity by charity. To give you some idea of scale, the lowest multiplier we have found from one of PBE’s studies to date is around 2.5, while the highest runs into double-figures. And while the number of studies conducted by PBE is too small to constitute a representative sample – there are around 161,000 UK charities 28 – these studies demonstrate clearly two things. First, that evaluating these social benefits is usually possible, if sometimes with difficultly and imperfectly. And second, at least in the cases we have considered so far, the social returns from the voluntary sector, and hence from volunteering, can be significant multiples of the labour input cost. Social multipliers are typically well in excess of one. Despite this, the number of charities who have actually undertaken social cost-benefit analyses is depressingly small. Research by New Philanthropy Capital in 2012 found that 25% of charities surveyed, and nearly half of those with income below £ do not measure their impact at all. Given that charities with income below £ make up roughly 80% of all general charities, this means there is a huge number whose activities are not evaluated. 29 This has all the classic symptoms of a market failure: social welfare externalities which are not being understood, much less tackled. The reason is not difficult to fathom.
Andrew G Haldane: In giving, how much do we receive? The social value of volunteering Speech by Mr Andrew G Haldane, Executive Director and Chief Economist of the Bank of England, at a Pro Bono Economics lecture to the Society of Business Economists, London, 9 September 2014. *  *  *  Accompanying figures can be found at the end of the speech. The views are not necessarily those of the Bank of England or the Monetary Policy Committee. I would like to thank Lynne Berry, Martin Brookes, Karen Hancock, Sue Holloway, Jane Walsh (Pro Bono Economics), Stephen Burgess, Jeremy Franklin, Charlotte Hogg, Joanna Konings, Lee Robinson (Bank of England), Daniel Fujiwara (SImetrica and London School of Economics), Matt Hill (Institute for Volunteering Research) and Valerie Fender (ONS). I am delighted to be giving this joint Society of Business Economists (SBE) and Pro Bono Economics (PBE) lecture. The issue I want to discuss is volunteering and its contribution to the economy and wider society. This issue provides a natural link between the work of SBE with its interest in promoting the economy, and PBE with its interest in promoting volunteering by economists. And, indeed, the work of both in improving societal welfare. Let me start with a word on PBE, for those unfamiliar with our work. PBE is a charity, which I co-founded around five years ago with Martin Brookes.