​Participation in 2023 annual survey grew 4% over previous year.​​​

Many thanks to the more than 3,350 volunteers who took time to provide feedback by participating in the 2023 Volunteer Engagement survey, which is issued to a select group of committed volunteers each fall.

“Survey participation increased by 4% year-over-year (YOY) and we hope that continues to grow,” said Ashley Merritt, senior director, Volunteer Experience. “We are committed to sharing these key learnings with our surveyed volunteers and building action plans to help address areas of opportunity to strengthen volunteer engagement across ACS and ACS CAN.” 

For overall audience, some of the key findings include:

• “Clarity of ACS priorities,” a key engagement driver, continues to increase (+4% YOY)
• “Proud to work at ACS” (95%) and “Support ACS values” (93%) are the most agreed upon statements among volunteer leaders.
• “I feel my voice is heard” remains flat at 82% for total volunteer leadership, pointing to an area of opportunity to strengthen and grow our engagement.
• However, “I feel my voice is heard” increased 4% points among Event Leadership Team volunteers (78%), indicating that progress is being made for this segment of leaders. 

For ACS CAN volunteer leaders, we saw positive movement across three important metrics:

• “I feel my voice is heard” (83%)
• “I can be successful” (88%)
• “I am motivated by ACS priorities” (93%)

Area board ranking improved for “I feel my voice is heard” but declined in other key drivers like “I feel recognized” and “I am making a difference” (both down 3% points), which are drivers the organization will focus on at the region level.

As a next step, ACS leaders will take a deeper dive into role and geography specific survey data to glean additional insights that can help inform action plans to support and address our greatest opportunities. Consider this survey as part of an ongoing conversation between ACS and our volunteer leaders. If you have additional suggestions, feedback, or ideas we would love to hear from you. Please feel free to reach out to our volunteer engagement team via a secure inbox at VolunteerEngagement@cancer.org.