Register to be a volunteer

By registering to become a PBE volunteer, you will join a group of hundreds of economists, statisticians, researchers and analysts who have vital professional skills they want to contribute to charities and community groups which lack them.

Every week, social sector organisations approach Pro Bono Economics looking for help to make better use of their data, to measure, understand and articulate their impact, and to research a broad range of issues from education to refugee policy. PBE's long-standing volunteering programme gives economists and other data-savvy professionals the opportunity to help charities and community groups that need their expertise. It also provides you with the opportunity to improve skills and develop new ones, from technical and methodological skills to more general skills such as project and client management.

Volunteer with PBE today to access opportunities that suit a wide range of schedules and interests - from long-term projects working very closely with charities offering vital services, to short-term data tasks like analysis or visualisation, spreadsheet tasks or short pieces of research.

How to register

Registering as a PBE volunteer is a simple process. By filling out our registration form, you’ll begin to receive opportunities to volunteer that fit with your skills on a regular basis. You’ll also be able to apply for the opportunities which are publicly listed directly on our website. PBE will then inform you whether or not you’ve been matched to the project you’ve applied for, and – if you’re successful – arrange next steps to link you up with the charity involved.

PBE receives requests for support from a very wide range of charities, so there might not be an opportunity that suits you straight away. But by registering, you can guarantee you’ll receive all the opportunities which might.

Once you’re registered with us, you can apply for as many or as few projects as you wish, to suit your interests and availability.

Time commitment

The volunteer time on a project varies but typically ranges from 1 to 15 days. We will always provide an estimate of the time commitment and timeframes in the Volunteer Brief.

We ask that you consider your other ongoing commitments and competing deadlines before applying. The charities we work with are often small, and almost always lean – so we require a dedicated approach from our volunteers to ensure the project runs smoothly and the project goals attained.

General assistance

We also sometimes email requests to our registered volunteers regarding more general, non-project, assistance e.g. for “critical friend” discussions with partner organisations, charities with a question/issue related to a specific area of expertise, or organisations looking for a speaker at an event.

Please do note that applying to volunteer isn’t a guarantee that you’ll be matched. We are a small charity and are limited in the number of charity projects we can support each year so, unfortunately, we are not able to match every interested volunteer. We do however try to ensure that we support as many volunteers as possible each year.

Volunteer registration

Can't volunteer but you still want to support PBE?