Youth Volunteering – engaging young people for service

25 September 2009 | Stefanie Sandford, International Baccalaureate

First published in IB Australasia's Spotlight on Service Newsletter, September 2009

I recently attended the annual conference of The Centre for Volunteering with the goal of learning more about engaging young people for volunteering service.

A reoccurring theme of the conference was that the landscape of volunteering is changing, and not-for-profit organisations, especially long established ones such as the Salvation Army and Benevolent Society, need to reassess their programs and program delivery or risk ever falling numbers of volunteers as the age of  their willing workers increases.

As Robert Putnam, social researcher and author of Bowling Alone (2000), writes the "long civic generation," born in the first third of the twentieth century, those coming of age during the Depression and the Second World War, "are now passing from the volunteering scene. Their children and grandchildren (baby boomers and Generation X-ers) are much less engaged in most forms of community life. For example, the growth in volunteering over the last ten years is due almost entirely to increased volunteering by retirees from the long civic generation."

For this generation, now in their 70s and 80s, the notion of building the nation up again and giving something back was strong and many of our great not-for-profit organisations developed during this era. Unfortunately, as many organisation representatives at the conference could testify, this group of steadfast volunteers are starting to call it a day with their volunteering, and in many cases change from being the service deliverers to service receivers. Thus leaving a significant gap in volunteer numbers, an aging population and a shift in the nature of volunteering itself.

CEO of NSW Meals on Wheels, Les MacDonald, said that he has noticed a transition away from the everyday practical kinds of local volunteering such as delivering meals to those unable to cook or shop for themselves, and towards cause related volunteering such as the 'Make Poverty History' campaign, climate change, human rights and other global issues.

In addition, the NSW Minister for Volunteering, Graham West MP, said that young people "are not interested in politics and bureaucracy, but they are intensely passionate about social justice. While the issues they are interested in may indeed be political in nature, they don't see that as the most effective way to make a difference – preferring to see themselves as activists and advocates."

Now is a crucial time for not-for-profit organisations to get creative and re-assess their programs and program delivery if they want to engage the next generation of volunteers.

During the conference it was highlighted that the younger generation of potential volunteers has a specific set of challenges and enablers to volunteering.

Logistics and available time have always been challenges to youth engagement in volunteer service. It is often difficult for young people to get to the location they need to be at (without the help of mum or dad), and finding the time to be able to volunteer is also difficult because they are at school during the week and organisations are not usually operating on weekends when a young person could drop in amongst their sporting games, music lessons and tutoring.

In terms of enablers to volunteering, as tech-savvy masters of the social networking era, young people have the ability and opportunity to have widespread impact. This also opens up a new area for volunteering; enter the age of e-volunteering. This can include translation, researching, providing technical support, developing online training and education materials, writing articles, participating in the social Web to network, inform, promote and open up new fundraising avenues.

Young people are also seeking positive role models, an opportunity to build life and work skills and expand their networks – all things that forward thinking not-for-profit organisations can readily provide.

The Centre for Volunteering aims to improve access to volunteer opportunities for young people.

For more information visit: www.volunteering.com.au/youth_volunteering

So how can we engage young people in volunteering?

Here are just some of the ways…

For the school

• Encourage young people to be involved in the development, implementation and evaluation of their service projects (empower them to take the lead, not organise it all for them!)
• What are they interested in? Is there a particular issue or community need they feel a connection to? What organisations are currently working in this area, and what skills and talents could the young person bring to that organisation?
• Encourage students who are interested in the same issue to work together.
• Look for volunteering opportunities that provide a two-way benefit to both the student and the organisation e.g. student shares and uses their skills and ideas to bring a new dimension to the organisation, and the organisation provides the student with a mentor and up-skills in terms of work experience.
• Encourage multigenerational volunteering e.g. the Volunteering Queensland Wii Sports Challenge: www.volqld.org.au/projects_initiatives/wii_sports.shtml

For the organisation

• Consider the young person's personal circumstances (how much time have they got available, are they ready to engage with this program?)
• Develop roles that have variety and flexibility
• Give them a place to have their perspectives heard.
• Engage them in short term projects with definable goals.
• Explore new models of volunteering such as e-volunteering, school holiday programs, in-school projects.
• Explore the possibilities of integrating ICT based methods as a tool for engaging young people.
• Provide incentives such as a certificate of appreciation and a reference letter outlining how the young person has helped your organisation and what skills they've demonstrated and learned – great for the young person to use in job applications etc. Offer wearable rewards such as arm bands, t-shirts or hats – gets your organisation's visual identity out there and shows your appreciation of the volunteer.