Trends and Issues

In the spring of 2001, Canadian Blood Services (CBS) contracted the services of an external consulting firm to conduct a review of its volunteer program. The research had two key purposes. The first was to explore how CBS might improve both the involvement, and the management, of volunteer resources. The second was to summarize current and anticipated issues and trends in volunteerism and volunteer program management both in North America in general, and in other large Canadian health sector organizations. This article reports on the results of this review.

Volunteer manager Laura Hamilton knew there had to be a better way to manage and schedule volunteers at George House Trust, the largest HIV Social Care Charity in the North West of England. So when her organization began to review rota management software packages to help manage volunteer rotations, she stumbled upon a solution that surprised her: SurveyMonkey, an online tool for collecting data for volunteer surveys. "Whilst exploring how it worked," Hamilton writes, "it struck me that with a bit of tweaking, we could set up a form which, rather than collecting feedback or evaluation data, would allow people to tell us their availability and sign up for shifts."  In this e-Volunteerism feature, Hamilton reviews her experience with SurveyMonkey as a rota tool, and explains why "it really has changed my life!"

During the last year, e-Volunteerism presented a number of retrospectives, looking at what happened in volunteering over the last decade. Now it’s time to look forward. 

Though Susan Ellis and Steve McCurley use their quarterly Points of View as an outlet for their opinions, the journal’s feature section editors generally keep their personal thoughts out of the pieces they edit. We decided that this special, re-designed issue was a great opportunity to share the voices and varied perspectives of our far-flung editors – professionals who are all deeply immersed in the field of volunteerism as authors, trainers, consultants and volunteer-involving agency executives, representing the United States (both coasts), England and Australia.

In this Voices, we ask each of our editors to respond to the following question: 

What volunteering trends and issues are you keeping your eye on that have the greatest implications or potential for the volunteering field in the next few years?

The responses are presented in recorded audio clips, so you can hear their “voices” for  yourself.

It seems increasingly complex to offer what the different generations of volunteers want, particularly Baby Boomers and Millennials: high impact volunteer opportunities, a range of choices of positions, ways to apply their workplace skills and more. The good news is there is a wealth of research on the topic. The bad news is that many of today’s leaders of volunteers don't have the time to sort through the gigabits of information on generation change, are puzzled by (or sick of) the hype on Boomers, and face real barriers in implementing the necessary modifications in their organizations.

Established in 1964 and held every year in Western Australia, the Dowerin Field Day is an effort to find ways to prevent the small, wheat belt community of Dowerin from becoming a ghost town and to raise funds for improved community facilities. In an attempt to engender community backing for the project, organizers decided to “pay” each volunteer who contributes time to the event, by way of a cheque presented to a local charity or project chosen by the volunteer. As the Field Day's Web site says, "It was and continues to be a masterstroke in distributing much needed funds to deserving organisations across Western Australia’s wheat belt."

Should volunteers be paid for their time and efforts? Is the method a “masterstroke” to cleverly distribute money to deserving organizations? In this Keyboard Roundtable, leading commentators Susan J. Ellis, Steve McCurley, Jayne Cravens, Martin J. Cowling, Andy Fryar, Linda Graff and Betty Stallings debate the pros and cons of this and other alternate economy projects, which translate the hours contributed by volunteers into real cash.

The rise of social media is contributing to the return to prominence of what is called ‘the gift economy.’ As social networks and online communities grow, values such as sharing, openness and collaboration are increasingly governing our relationships and the connections between us.

According to writer Patrick Daniels, social media facilitates volunteerism and other giving activities on a grand new scale, with the assistance of recent developments in technology, critical mass usage and more visibility.  Yet even as our social lives move online, Daniels argues that the field of volunteerism seems ambivalent about this increasingly social web and unsure about how to harness its potential for the benefit of volunteering programmes. This e-Volunteerism feature article attempts to untangle the connection between social media and volunteerism, and sets out a framework for understanding the kind of opportunities social media offers those in volunteer management.

Despite all the theory and research about Generation Y — those individuals typically born between 1977 and 1997 — there still appears to be a considerable amount of confusion as to how volunteer managers can effectively engage this generation. Could this confusion stem from not clearly understanding the key factors that shape the lives and thinking of Gen Y? Author Catherine Williams thinks so. In this feature article, Williams reviews how effective engagement with today’s young adults involves moving beyond the hype associated with this generation and developing a deeper understanding of what shapes the lives of our younger generations. By sharing the stories of a few Gen Y individuals (also called Millennials), Williams presents some important lessons about why young people are not engaging in traditional volunteer roles. She also looks at the implications for volunteer management practices, and explores some of the changes that volunteer managers may need to consider in order to make volunteering relevant to this generation.

In this Research to Practice, Steven Howlett reviews a recent research report that delves into how middle-aged and older Americans spend their time when they’re not at work. Published in January 2010 by AARP in Washington, D.C., this report collects information from a comprehensive survey of Americans over age 45 (with a smaller sample of younger Americans for comparative purposes). Although the report itself is largely descriptive, Howlett reveals that it outlines what organizations older Americans belong to, how they make connections and build communities, and what, if any, volunteering they do. The valuable insights offered in this research can be used to examine the latest volunteer trends in older Americans and to draw out implications for practice in the US and elsewhere.