Provide the number of people the charity employs in an average week. Include permanent employees and contractors/casual workers:
Paid full time
Paid part time
In an average week, how many paid hours of work are worked in total by all employees?
Analysis focused on the second question, hours worked, as it provided a more detailed picture than the first question.
Tier 3 are 3.5x more likely to have staff than Tier 4 and have, on average, 6x more paid staff hours.
Paid hours since 2018
Analysis:
Paid hours remained remarkably stable throughout the pandemic years.
A small boost through 2021, 2022, and 2023 reflects narratives about extra government support available during this time.
While using average figures for 2024, Tier 3 charities had 6x more paid hours than Tier 4, looking at the median case, this is closer to 4x.
Paid hours by age of charity
Notes:
7 years of returns have been included here.
Years on the Charities Register is used as a proxy for age. Organisation age is not readily available in the data set.
Year 18 includes most of the organisations in existence when the Charities Register was introduced.
Analysis:
There is no readily identifiable trend overall. A trend towards increased staff hours for tier 3 charities from the age of 10 onwards could be argued.
Tier 3 charities seem to vary a lot more than Tier 4. Their 4 charities are very consistent around the 20 hours per week mark, no matter the age of the organisation.
One outlier is that tier 4 charities in their first year have only ten paid hours, or roughly half the general average of tier 4. Tier 4 also appears to rise in year 18 and 19.
How many volunteer hours do charities receive?
And how has this changed over time?
Charities also report each year on the:
Provide the number of people that volunteered for your charity over the financial year covered by this annual return.
Provide the total number of hours volunteers contributed over the financial year covered by this annual return.
Analysis focused on the second question, hours worked, as it provided a more detailed picture than the first question.
Note: the reporting requirement introduces confusion, with paid employees estimated weekly but volunteers estimated annually. This is a key limitation in consistency and reliability of the data.
Tier 3 charities receive, on average, more volunteer hours than Tier 4.
However, this difference is much smaller at 2.2x, than for paid hours at 5x.
Volunteer hours since 2018
Median:
Average:
Analysis:
The difference between median and average warranted including both, telling quite dramatically different stories of the years from 2018 to 2024.
For both Tier 4 and 3, the difference between median and average tells us that a small number of charities receive an outsized number of volunteer hours.
A small number of charities significantly increased their volunteer hours over the pandemic. But most charities retained or lost volunteer hours.
Both median and average show a reduction in volunteer hours into 2024.
Volunteer hours by age of charity
Notes:
7 years of returns have been included here.
Years on the Charities Register is used as a proxy for age. Organisation age is not readily available in the data set.
Year 18 includes most of the organisations in existence when the Charities Register was introduced.
The apparent outlier at year 10 for tier 3 charities was investigated and is unlikely to be an error.
Analysis:
There is not a strong trend here. However, it could be observed that number of volunteer hours received seems to peak around the 10-year mark in both tier 4 and 3 charities.
Paid and Volunteer hours - take away thoughts
On average, people in Aotearoa contribute the equivalent of 21,000 full time staff to our tier 4 and 3 charities as volunteers. Thats huge!
Tier 3 charities are 3.5x more likely to pay people, and have 4x more paid hours than Tier 4 charities that pay people.
However, Tier 3 charities only have 2.2x more volunteer hours than Tier 4 charities.
While the number of paid staff hours for charities didn’t appear to be affected by the pandemic, there appears to be a strong correlation for increased volunteer hours for some Tier 3 charities over that period.
Volunteer hours appear to have dropped in 2023 and 2024, reflecting findings from Volunteering NZ noting the pandemic has reduced availability and required increased flexibility of volunteering arrangements (TĹ«ao Aotearoa Volunteering NZ, State of the Decade of Volunteering 2025).
There doesn't appear to be a strong correlation between age of an organisation and the number of paid hours it has or volunteer hours that it receives.
Having looked at trends over time, we next explored what factors correlate most strongly with paid and volunteer time.
How does income relate to paid and volunteer hours?
Heads up: Median vs Average
Generally, the Good Data Series uses the median to report and analyse data from the sector. This is because median represents the “middle of the pack”:
50% of charities will be equal to or below the figure
50% will be equal to or above it
For many types of data, median provides a better picture of the charities you are actually likely to encounter than using an “average”.
An average is calculated by adding everything together and dividing it by the number of charities.
Where the average differs greatly from the median, it usually tells us that a small number of charities have a much larger amount of whatever is being analysed — for example, income, assets, paid staff hours, or volunteer hours. These larger charities can pull the average upwards, even if most charities are much smaller.
In some parts of this report, the difference between median and average revealed interesting patterns in the sector. Where this occurred, we have included average figures alongside the median to help show the spread and concentration within the data.
Paid hours by income decile (2024)
Tier 4: 17.6% have staff, with an average of 30 hours per week.
Tier 3: 61.7% have staff, with an average of 192 hours per week.
Analysis:
More income appears to correlate to paid employee hours worked each week.
However, the lowest income Tier 4 charities show an interesting exception. Bringing in $2,777 and less per year, they report more paid hours than some larger charities.
Paid hours by income source (2024)
Tier 4: 17.6% have staff, with an average of 30 hours per week.
Tier 3: 61.7% have staff, with an average of 192 hours per week.
Analysis:
There is no one dominant source of income for Tier 4 charities with staff.
For Tier 3 charities, the picture is quite different. They are likely to have more paid hours when their largest source of income is service contracts or commercial income.
The trend for average paid hours was consistent with the median. A notable outlier was membership fees for Tier 3 charities. This means there are a small number of charities with a large paying membership base supporting staff.
Volunteer hours by income decile (2024)
Tier 4: have an average of 24 hours per week each.
Tier 3: have an average of 52 hours per week.
Analysis:
Tier 4 and 3 display very different patterns.
Increasing volunteer hours correlates to increases in income for Tier 4.
However, for Tier 3, middle-income charities appear to have the most volunteer hours.
Median vs Average:
Tier 4: have an average of 24 hours per week each.
Tier 3: have an average of 52 hours per week.
Analysis:
Interestingly, average volunteer hours per charity vastly exceeds the median. Such a consistent difference between median and average has not shown up elsewhere in our analysis to date.
This means there are a small number of charities receiving vastly more volunteer hours than others, significantly increasing the average but not affecting the median.
Relation to income - take away thoughts
As expected, total income is strongly correlated to total number of paid hours a charity has.
Tier 3 charities with service contracts or commercial income as their largest source of income generally have much more paid hours than charities with other primary sources of income.
The story of volunteer hours received differs dramatically from paid hours. By median, it seems to be the middle income tier 3 charities that regularly have the most volunteering hours, not the biggest income ones.
However, including average volunteer hours alters the trend, showing that large income charities do seem to receive more volunteer hours.
The significant difference between median and average volunteer hours received by decile for tier 3 charities tells us that:
Generally, Tier 3 charities increase their reliance on staff as they get larger. Over $500,000pa in income, their number of volunteer hours received decreases.
However, there remain a small number of Tier 3 charities that receive a large number of volunteer hours. This continues to increase as their income increases beyond $500,000.
That the trend in volunteer hours received changes between the median and the average tells us that the discrepancy becomes more extreme for the larger income deciles.
While this discrepancy between median and average volunteer hours received also exists for Tier 4 charities, the broader trend across income decile remains the same.
How does expenditure relate to paid and volunteer hours?
Paid hours by expense (2024)
Tier 4: 17.6% have staff, with an average of 30 hours per week.
Tier 3: 61.7% have staff, with an average of 192 hours per week.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, charities that have employee costs as their largest expense, also have the most paid hours.
Note: The number of charities with volunteer costs as their largest expense are exceedingly small, ~0.5% of total. This has led to some large discrepancies when comparing median to average for the category. While this category has been included in the graphs for completeness, we've not drawn any specific conclusions about it.
Median vs Average:
Tier 4: 17.6% have staff, with an average of 30 hours per week.
Tier 3: 61.7% have staff, with an average of 192 hours per week.
Analysis:
Looking at average as well as median, ordering in the middle of the pack changes around, while 1st place and last two places remain consistent.
Where there is large discrepancy between median and average, it suggests there is a small number of charities pulling up the average, that is not reflective of most charities.
The low number of returns with volunteer costs and in the unnamed/blank as largest expense mean we should largely disregard these categories.
Volunteer hours by expense (2024)
Tier 4: have an average of 24 hours per week each.
Tier 3: have an average of 52 hours per week.
Disregarding our problematic volunteer costs category, employee costs and commercial costs as the largest expense seem to be linked with the most volunteer hours received by a charity.
Interestingly, charities whose largest expense is grants and donations paid seem to receive almost no volunteer hours.
Relation to expenses - take away thoughts
We also looked at paid hours and volunteer hours in relation to expenditure decile. However, trends were very similar to the income decile.
Less than 1% of charities had volunteer costs as their largest expense in 2024.
As expected, having employee costs is the largest expense correlated well with having the most paid staff hours.
Interestingly, employee costs also correlated to receiving the most volunteer hours, alongside commercial costs.
Again, some of the large differences between median and average suggest there are a small number of charities with a very large number of paid hours and/or receiving a large number of volunteer hours. This drags up the average but is not representative of charities overall.
Who benefits from these paid and volunteer hours?
Paid hours by beneficiary
Tier 4:
Tier 3:
Analysis:
Ignoring those charities for which beneficiary is blank, both tiers have animals and people with disabilities in their top four.
Where Tier 4 has older people andgeneral public receiving the most weekly paid hours, in Tier 3 these are at the back of the pack.
Instead, voluntary bodies other than charities stands out in Tier 3.
Volunteer hours by beneficiary
Tier 4:
Tier 3:
Analysis:
Both tiers are similar when it comes to receiving volunteer hours.
People of certain ethnic origin, general public, animals, and religious groups are top four in each, with their order the same as well.
However, general public outstrips anything else for Tier 3, receiving by median twice as many voluntary hours each week as second place.
Relation to charity beneficiaries - take away thoughts
People of certain ethnic origin comes in 5th in both tiers for paid staff hours, but 2nd for volunteer hours.
Religious groups also placed third in volunteer hours received, but were further back in paid hours.
Tier 4 charities benefiting older people seem to have above average paid staff hours. However, this doesn't translate over to their larger tier 3 siblings, nor into volunteer hours received.
Charities benefiting general public and also have above-average staff hours in tier 4, and receive the most volunteering hours in both tiers.
Note, we did also look at the data by sector and activity, but didn’t consider it worthwhile including.
Final thoughts
As expected, Tier 3 charities had more paid staff time than Tier 4. For charities with paid staff/contractors, Tier 3 organisations had four times as many paid hours as Tier 4.Â
Tier 3 charities with service contracts or commercial income as their largest source of income had the largest number of paid staff hours.
It was interesting that paid staff hours didn't really seem to be affected by the COVID pandemic, nor be related to the age of the organisation. Several people had posited in advance that older organisations would have more staff.
Volunteer patterns were almost the reverse of paid employment. Tier 3 charities only received about twice as many volunteer hours as their tier 4 cousins, despite being many times larger financially.
The number of volunteer hours received was not influenced by the pandemic for most charities. However, some charities saw a very strong increase in 2020, that ran into 2021 and 2022. Volunteer numbers in 2023 and 2024 are lower than pre-pandemic.
Some very large variation between mean and average in our datasets suggest there are a small number of charities that receive a very high number of volunteer hours in comparison to the majority of charities.
Analysis suggested that as tier 3 charities get larger, they tend to rely less on volunteers. The concentration of volunteer time shifted to fewer and fewer organisations at larger financial size.
Charities that received the most volunteer hours generally had employee costs and commercial costs as their top outgoing expense.
Looking at who a charity benefits was a bit of a mixed bag in terms of paid and volunteer hours. The only consistent area of note was that charities benefiting a certain ethnic/racial origin were 2nd place when it came to volunteer hours received, but 5th place in terms of paid hours compared to their peers.
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