Flexibility: An Important Key to Overcoming Volunteer Recruitment Barriers
Volunteers in Canada make a significant contribution to society through the time they give. According to Statistics Canada, nearly 79% of Canadians volunteered in 2018, contributing around 5 billion hours through both formal and informal activities, equivalent to over 2.5 million full-time, year-round jobs. For many years before COVID-19, volunteer rates remained relatively steady, with formal volunteering ranging from 41% to 47% and informal volunteering from 74% to 83% between 2004 and 2018 among Canadians aged 15 and older.
However, the number of people volunteering across the country has significantly decreased over the past few years. Since late 2022, several reports have consistently shown that rates of formal volunteering have fallen to an “all-time low”. For example, our CICP week 7 survey (CICP 1.2.7) found that almost six in ten (59%) charities reported a loss in volunteers in recent years, and over half (57%) found volunteer recruitment challenging.
Our recent CICP survey (CICP 2.05.15) shows some glimmers of a change in the volunteering trend: 33% of organizations have successfully restored or even exceeded their pre-pandemic volunteer numbers, while 41% have partially regained lost volunteers. However, almost 1 in 4 charities (24%) have not managed to recruit them back at all.
Shifts in Volunteer Interests: The Biggest Barrier for Charities’ Ability to Recruit Volunteers
Last year, based on 315 open-text responses (CICP 1.06.27), the top barrier was the impact of COVID-19, followed by changes in volunteer interests. Interestingly, this year we observed a shift. Changes in volunteer interests have become the primary challenge, affecting at least 52% of organizations (CICP 2.05.15).
Feedback from our panellists in last year’s survey (CICP 1.06.27) indicates that changes in volunteer interests, especially among younger generations, involve a growing disinterest among younger generations, who increasingly favor personal pursuits and short-term projects over traditional, long-term volunteer commitments:
“Parce qu’il y a moins de gens engagé dans le bénévolat depuis quelques années”
“I find that there is a gap between the older generation who used to give freely of their time to volunteer but are now too old to volunteer, and the younger generation who are starting to volunteer but only in their specific, narrow areas of interest and the middle generation, they don’t volunteer at all for anything”
“many want short transactional volunteer engagements rather than short engagements for 3-6 months”
Seeing the Greatest Barrier as a Key to the Volunteering Crisis: Lessons from Success Stories
Shifting volunteer interests or preferences may be linked to the changing conception of volunteering. Volunteer Canada’s National Volunteer Strategy Roadmap suggests that the traditional concept of volunteering does not fully capture the current trends among younger generations and diverse cultural groups, who are increasingly drawn to informal, grassroots activities that they perceive as more accessible, flexible, and impactful than traditional volunteer roles. According to Tara Hahmann from Statistics Canada, although Gen Z volunteers the least amount of time, they are the most active across both formal and informal types, primarily driven by career enhancement opportunities and likely to share their volunteer experiences on social media. By adapting to these trends and leveraging the digital prowess of younger volunteers, many charities in our survey have successfully overcome recruitment challenges.
Offering flexible, well-defined, and low-barrier opportunities is among the top four effective strategies that many charities are adapting to recruit volunteers in this year’s survey (CICP 2.05.15). Last year, it was the most frequently cited effective approach to volunteer recruitment (CICP 1.06.27). As shared by some panellists:
“A variety of opportunities that are flexible and with some not requiring large amounts of training.”
“we have multiple programs (shelter, drop in, kids, donations, etc) so it fits a variety of ages, interests, skills, etc”
“We have flexible and low-barrier opportunities for volunteers”
Conclusion: Resources Matter
It is promising to see numerous charities in our survey adeptly combining traditional and modern strategies to boost volunteer recruitment, effectively capturing the trend and tapping into the varied motivations of potential volunteers to navigate the volunteering crisis. However, adapting and rethinking volunteer programs is no easy, as one panellist eloquently states:
“Volunteer recruitment is not a task, it is a process that requires care, planning, and attention – preferably from a team of people who know how to welcome and engage volunteers, and with a clear understanding of reciprocity.”
These efforts all demand resources, which are urgently needed by the sector.
Author
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