Where are the environmental volunteers now that the crowds have returned?

It's been a huge couple of years here in Australia and around the world. Some of us have struggled to make it through the challenges of covid stacked with environmental disasters, rising household costs, lockdowns and everything in between others were fortunate enough to thrive in our changing world and fold into simplicity, finding comfort in the change of pace. No matter what the personal story for you, one thing is for sure, the road has been paved with enormous challenges for our not for profits, charities and community groups.


The Declining Rate of Volunteering in Australia
The rate of volunteering has been in decline over time, long before we were smacked down by covid the trend was apparent. In 2010 36.2% of population were volunteers by 2019 this number had dropped to 28.8%
We saw the biggest decline with our female volunteers dropping from 38% in 2010 down to 28.1% in 2019.

Then covid came along and we went on a landslide with the decline in volunteering due to covid at 66%. Thats a loss of 12.2 million hours per week. Volunteers over the age of 65 were the most likely to have given up their hours and we saw the reduction occur across the country, in every state and territory.


Online Volunteering
Just 21% of volunteer roles had the option to move online once covid hit. In 2019 nearly all formal volunteering was in-person. At that point just 8.5% of volunteering was online and interestingly slightly more on the phone at 9.5%. So not surprisingly, the NFP sector did not transition to online through covid at the same rapid rate that business did. There is a huge opportunity here for the organisations that are willing to step up, and it doesn’t have to take a whole lot of effort, but looking at the tasks that can be done online and using a targeted approach to recruit for them. We recommend the 5A method of volunteer recruitment, you can access it here: https://www.theforeveragenda.com.au/volunteerrecruitment


Environmental Space
The environmental space attracts just 5.8% of the volunteers in Australia.
This figure is also lumped in with Animal Welfare which is actually overprescribed (meaning there are more people wanting these roles than there are roles available) so we can likely assume that the figure strictly for the environmental space is much lower. The most common types of organisations to volunteer with are:

• Sport and physical recreation 39.1%
•  Religious Groups 23.3%
• Education and training 21.8%

Volunteer Recruitment
The top way that people come to volunteer may not be so surprising. The vast majority of volunteers knew someone already involved in the cause. This data gives insight to volunteer organisations looking to increase their volunteer base. It’s important to promote to your volunteers that you are recruiting and prompt them to think about bringing along a friend. You may even look at how you might incentify referrals to get a bigger rate of uptake.

The second most popular reason volunteers cite for becoming involved is that they were asked by the organisation. Now this may seem obvious, however it serves as a stark reminder for our keen volunteers who have been at the recruitment game for a long time. Often we can feel like we have asked hundreds of times and received just as many nos, the rejection starts to nestle home inside of us and before we even realise it we have started asking from a place where we are expecting people to answer no in return. For the listener, the ask that comes from expecting a no lands in stark contrast to an ask that is laced with urgency and the expectation of a yes. We need to remember that while we may feel like we are asking for the thousandth time, for that person, it is the very first time they have heard the request.

When it comes to online advertising our volunteer tasks and roles, according to the State of Volunteering report, only 9% of advertised roles are for the environmental space.
Notably however, when it comes to online advertisements, the environmental space is punching above its weight in terms of the number of applications for each role advertised. We get 18 applications for every advertisement, indicating that this may be an under valued resource when it comes to volunteer recruitment for us in the environmental volunteering space and certainly one worth testing for those groups looking to recruit new volunteers.


Corporate Volunteering

78% of business’ now report having some kind of employee volunteering program. This incredible number is a real success story in Australian society and there is also some great news sitting behind this figure for organisations that are keen to step up and grab a piece of the pie. 50% of the allocated hours in employee volunteering programs remain unworked, thats the equivalent of 500FTE - 20,000 hours per week - 960,000 hours per year!! All there for the taking. For more information on this refer to our blog https://www.theforeveragenda.com.au/blog/960-000-hours-of-volunteer-time-up-for-grabs

The Generosity of Millennials

There is increasing research indicating that the younger generation are becoming more generous than their older counterparts. The Australia giving report found that millennials were more likely to donate time to charity and twice as likely to donate through workplace giving programs than any other generation. According to Pro Bono, In the past year they have also been the generation that gave more time, with 1/3 of millennial volunteering for causes. And while there is a deeper story here that aligns with baby boomers being more likely to have ceased volunteering due to covid, what is clear is that the younger generation deserve a lot more credit for their community participation and their generosity of money and time than what the dominant narrative may suggest.


But perhaps the biggest story for society when it comes to volunteering lies in the ABS 2019 data that Volunteers are reported to be more delighted/ pleased or mostly satisfied with their life (82%) as opposed to those who do not volunteer (75%)

Data sources:

• Australian National University Centre for Social Research & Methods; Experience of volunteers during covid. (Study commissioned by Volunteering Australia)
• Australian Bureau of statistics; Census data
• State of volunteering report (October 2020)
• Pro Bono Australia
• Giving Australia