Opinion: Three key shifts for volunteer involving organisations - Rob Jackson
This opinion article is one in a series of responses by Community and Volunteer Sector thought leaders in response to our State of the Decade of Volunteering report.
UK-based Rob Jackson has over 30 years’ experience working in the voluntary and community sector, holding a variety of strategic development and senior management roles that have focused on leading and engaging volunteers.
Thank you, Volunteering New Zealand, for publishing the “State of the Decade of Volunteering” report. Any research and data that allows us to explore trends in volunteering is vital to ensuring that Volunteer Engagement Professionals, Volunteer Involving Organisations, volunteering infrastructure, funders, policymakers, and others make properly informed decisions to strengthen our communities.
I was honoured to be invited by Volunteering New Zealand to give my reflections on this new report. I do so from my perspective as a UK-based consultant on volunteer engagement, someone who has had the privilege of engaging with colleagues around the world (including New Zealand) on the crucial issues facing volunteering in our ever-changing world.
In my article, I want to reflect on three shifts in volunteer engagement that Volunteer Involving Organisations need to make. These are not all unique to New Zealand, but they are borne outby the data in the “State of the Decade of Volunteering” report. I hope they are of help and considered in the spirit in which they are shared — one of seeking a better future for society, our organisations, and volunteering.
1. Stop seeing long-term and short-term volunteering as binary options
“Organisations are finding it harder to secure volunteers who are willing to undertake long-term commitments, and many now rely on a small group of highly engaged but aging individuals, placing additional pressure on this core cohort.” - State of the Decade of Volunteering report
There is much in the report about the changing nature of volunteering. People are giving less time, and they are doing so on their terms and not ours. Volunteering New Zealand sums it up well when they talk of the public taking a more casual approach to volunteering, one that is at odds with the traditional, formal and structured approach employed by many organisations.
Volunteer Engagement Professionals and Volunteer Involving Organisations understandably bemoan this situation. Demand for their work is rising as funding falls, just as the models of volunteer engagement they have relied upon for so long undergo fundamental changes. It’s not an easy situation.
We can worsen it, though. If we view people’s commitment to volunteering as binary — either short or long term — then we miss a rich and fertile land of potential that lies between.
There is huge potential in that fertile middle ground — taking people from their first engagement to a deepening relationship with our organisations where, over time, they can step up to the high commitment roles we need filled.
It is wrong to say that people won’t make regular, long-term commitments to volunteer any more. Rather, they won’t do it on day one. We must take people on a journey, one they are controlling, allowing them to adapt their commitment over time as we create and curate meaningful ways for people to engage with the causes they are passionate about.
2. Start collaborating
”The availability of entertainment options has changed drastically in the past decade. The rise of our digital, connected world means that there is always ‘something to do’ or ‘something on’, directly competing with the time people are able to devote to volunteering. This cultural shift towards so-called “on-demand lifestyles” has created competition between volunteering and other leisure pursuits, reshaping the volunteer offering and expectations from both individuals and organisations.” - State of the Decade of Volunteering report
If the first shift sounds challenging, here’s some good news. You are not in it alone. Every Volunteer Involving Organisation is facing, or will face, the need to shift their engagement practice as volunteering changes.
Yet, if we see our nonprofits as in competition with each other, we will make our task of adapting to the new volunteering reality more difficult than it needs to be.
Here’s the truth — you are not in competition with other organisations seeing to recruit volunteers in your community. You are all in competition with any of those multitudes of ways people can choose to spend their spare time.
If Volunteer Involving Organisations come together to face this common challenge, then we can find creative new ways to engage people. Volunteer sharing initiatives, local passporting schemes and other collaborative efforts help make it easier for people to volunteer. We can do what we can to reduce bureaucracy and make it possible for people to move more seamlessly between organisations according to the needs and desires of the individual.
As Lucas Meijs and Jeff Brudney put it in their 2009 paper, "It Ain't Natural: Toward a New (Natural) Resource Conceptualization for Volunteer Management”, it is our collective responsibility to work together to steward the natural resource of volunteer energy in our communities.
3. Start to invest in volunteer expenses
“…the majority of VIOs do not routinely reimburse volunteers for all their out-of-pocket expenses.”
“Many organisations are now taking active steps to embed diversity and inclusion into their practices… This formalisation of values reflects a broader sectoral shift toward diversion, inclusion, and equity.” - State of the Decade of Volunteering report
Progress on diversity, inclusion, and equity (DEI) is welcome. Yet, it will always be limited if Volunteer Involving Organisations are not providing the reimbursement of volunteer expenses.
Without covering expenses, volunteering becomes the preserve of those who can afford to engage in it. That creates uniformity, inequity and exclusion, the very opposite of what we want to achieve.
I know money can be scarce. Volunteering is often an easy budget line to realise savings from. But I will be blunt — it is hypocritical to claim to champion DEI and not provide volunteer expenses.
Challenging as it may be, money needs to be allocated to offer and provide expense reimbursement to all volunteers. Whether it’s an organisation, government (at all levels), or a funder seeking to effective positive change, volunteer expenses are not a cost to be cut but a vital and worthwhile investment in the future of healthy, vibrant New Zealand society.