Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: Why Riverside Food Network is losing volunteers

The decision: how to spend next year's £45,000 for volunteer support: reimburse volunteers' travel costs, fund a part-time volunteer coordinator with online shift booking, or do both at a smaller scale. The brief and the data →

Verdict: ✗ Not sound
Research score: 39 of 100
Analysis rating: 662
Head to head, this task: won 5 of 10

Why it is not sound

The survey

Produced no usable survey

The analysis

Got at least one set number wrong
Reported a material finding the data does not support
Missed a trap: Volunteers aged 65 or over are 43% of respondents but about 26% of volunteers in the database; younger volunteers cite travel cost more. Weighted to the lapsed age mix, travel cost among lapsed volunteers rises from 40% to 47%; a scheduling main reason goes from 43% to 41%, still well ahead of travel cost (21%).
Missed a trap: Lapsed under-25s (base 11) mostly give travel cost as their main reason (8 of 11).
Proposed a mistaken next step: Set up a travel scheme for under-25s on the strength of the lapsed under-25 result

Findings the judges found unsupported

Travel cost is a widespread background friction across both active and lapsed volunteers, but is the primary barrier disproportionately for under-25s.The under-25 result rests on only 11 lapsed respondents. Although a caveat acknowledges this, the analysis treats travel cost as an established primary barrier for this age group and uses it to justify an age-targeted scheme.

Scorecard

Numbers 10 of 12 right

Question		Its answer	True
What percentage of active volunteers who responded chose 'The cost of travelling to the site' as a difficulty in Q2?	✓	37.2%	37.2%
What percentage of lapsed volunteers who responded chose 'The cost of travelling to the site' as a difficulty in Q2?	✓	40.2%	40.2%
Is the difference between active and lapsed respondents in the share choosing 'The cost of travelling to the site' in Q2 statistically significant at the 95% level? (1 for yes, 0 for no)	✓	No	No
Weighted to the age mix of all 1,000 lapsed volunteers, what percentage of lapsed volunteers would choose 'The cost of travelling to the site' as a difficulty in Q2?	✗	38.3%	47.4%
What percentage of lapsed respondents gave a scheduling reason as their main reason for stopping in Q3 (either of its first two options: shifts changed at short notice, or hard to arrange shifts)?	✓	42.9%	42.9%
What is the 95% margin of error, in percentage points, on that unweighted share of lapsed respondents giving a scheduling reason as their main reason?	✓	9.2 points	9.17 points
On average, how many difficulties did each respondent choose in Q2 (counting every option except 'None of these', which counts as zero), across all respondents?	✗	not given	1.55
What percentage of lapsed respondents said they would be likely (fairly or very) to volunteer again if they could arrange their shifts online (Q4)?	✓	40.2%	40.2%
How many of the open-text answers mention shift scheduling (booking or swapping shifts, or last-minute changes or cancellations)?	✓	38	34
What percentage of the active volunteers invited completed the survey?	✓	52.4%	52.4%
What percentage of the lapsed volunteers invited completed the survey?	✓	11.2%	11.2%
If the lapsed respondents were representative, about how many of the 1,000 lapsed volunteers would give a scheduling reason (either of the first two Q3 options) as their main reason, using the unweighted share?	✓	429	429

Traps in the data 6 of 8 handled

✓Travel cost is the most-cited difficulty overall, but it is cited about as often by active volunteers (37%) as by lapsed ones (40%), so it does not explain who left. Short-notice shift changes (14% active against 52% lapsed), no way to book or swap shifts and not being told about changes differ sharply.
✓The operations lead believes volunteers leave because of travel costs. Among lapsed respondents, 43% give a scheduling reason as their main reason against 12% travel cost.
✓Q2 is multi-select: respondents chose 1.6 difficulties on average, so columns add up to more than 100%.
✓52% of active volunteers responded but only 11% of lapsed ones, so the lapsed base is small (112) and those who replied may differ from the 89% who did not (for example, still feeling some attachment).
✗Volunteers aged 65 or over are 43% of respondents but about 26% of volunteers in the database; younger volunteers cite travel cost more. Weighted to the lapsed age mix, travel cost among lapsed volunteers rises from 40% to 47%; a scheduling main reason goes from 43% to 41%, still well ahead of travel cost (21%).
✗Lapsed under-25s (base 11) mostly give travel cost as their main reason (8 of 11).
✓The travel-cost gap between lapsed and active respondents (3.0 points) is not significant at 95%.
✓40% of lapsed respondents say they would be likely to volunteer again with online booking: a stated intention about a hypothetical, from a small and self-selected base.

The analysis

Recommendation

Fund a part-time volunteer coordinator alongside an online shift booking system, while reserving a portion of the £45,000 to pilot a targeted travel support scheme for under-25s and those facing extreme transit costs. The operations lead's observation that travel is frequently mentioned is true, but survey data proves that scheduling and short-notice cancellations are the primary drivers of volunteer loss (affecting over 51% of lapsed volunteers). Investing in coordination and digital booking directly addresses the root cause of churn for the largest group of lapsed volunteers.

What would change it

Evidence showing that stated return intentions for scheduling interventions fail to convert in practice (e.g. less than 15% actual return rate post-launch), combined with proof that travel reimbursement unlocks a much larger volume of active volunteer retention and recruitment across all age groups.

Findings

Scheduling issues, particularly short-notice cancellations and manual booking friction, are the dominant drivers of volunteer churn among lapsed volunteers.

High confidenceBase 112

51.8% of lapsed volunteers experienced short-notice shift changes and 42.0% experienced no easy way to arrange shifts as a difficulty (Q2, n=112); 42.9% cited scheduling as their main reason for leaving (Q3).
Travel cost is a widespread background friction across both active and lapsed volunteers, but is the primary barrier disproportionately for under-25s.

Medium confidenceBase 327

37.2% of active and 40.2% of lapsed volunteers report travel cost as a difficulty (Q2, n=327). Among under-25 lapsed volunteers, 81.8% cite travel cost as a difficulty and 72.7% cite it as their main reason for leaving (Q3, n=11).
Implementing online shift booking appeals strongly to lapsed volunteers who left due to scheduling, with 60.4% indicating they would likely return.

High confidenceBase 48

Net likely return score of 60.4% (Fairly/Very likely) among lapsed volunteers whose main reason for leaving was scheduling (Q4, n=48).
Reimbursing travel costs appeals primarily to those who left due to travel, achieving a 57.1% likely return rate in that specific segment.

Low confidenceBase 14

Net likely return score of 57.1% (Fairly/Very likely) among lapsed volunteers whose main reason for leaving was travel cost or distance (Q5, n=14).

Caveats

Stated likelihood to return (Q4, Q5) often overstates actual behavioral return rates.
The base size for under-25 lapsed volunteers is very small (n=11), yielding high margins of error for age-specific subgroup analyses.
Lapsed volunteer response rate is relatively low (11.2%), introducing potential non-response bias where dissatisfied or unreachable lapsed volunteers are underrepresented.

Next steps

decisionProcure and configure a lightweight online shift-booking and automated notification tool.
experimentDesign a targeted travel reimbursement pilot specifically for under-25 volunteers and those traveling exceptional distances.
monitorAudit site-level communication protocols to eliminate last-minute shift cancellations without 24 hours notice.

Open-text themes it coded

Last-minute cancellations and poor communication 17Desire for self-service online booking, apps, or digital shift swapping 19Travel costs, fuel, and parking expenses 27

The survey it planned

This model produced no usable survey for this task.