A Typical Volunteer?
This year at our AGM we wanted to explore the question of who is the typical volunteer? Who are they? Where are they?
I want you to take a couple moments and a sharpie, a pen and random scrap paper, and draw out the typical volunteer- include anything you want about them. Demographics? Where they volunteer? What skills they have? Who they support? No artistic talents required, stick figures encouraged!
We a have conducted this same process with a bunch of people in focus groups and I am going tell you some of the things you have included in your drawing based on what those focus groups have said: you have likely drawn a woman, someone who is of retiree aged and you have likely used words like ‘helper’ and someone who ‘cares about community’. She has no specific skills of note!
Some observations about this activity. These were done in groups of people who were all volunteers themselves and very few people described themselves. So funny and wild that when we inquire about an abstract ‘volunteer’ what comes up and the cognitive dissonance that exists between what whom we think a volunteer is and who they are not.
We also asked AI what a typical volunteer is, one of the pictures generated is here in this blog. They were all different versions of this. AI thinks that a typical volunteer is someone who volunteers in groups, in matching t-shirts and holds a tool.
With the over 600,000 Canadians who use VolunteerConnector we also have a vision of a typical volunteer. She is Gen Z, and she has so many skills! Humans can choose from 70 skills that they are willing to share are varied and vast, not one really sticks out, the talents that people possess are wide reaching! Like the person you likely drew the typical volunteer cares about community and maybe is not sure precisely what that means…they follow orgs and causes that are umbrella of doing good. A human who desires to be connected in meaningful engagement who is also existing in 2024…cost of living crisis, a heaviness in the world. They are also looking for flexible opportunities. Research out of the UK around Gen Z stated that rigid commitment was a massive barrier to engaging. We have seen the typical volunteer on the news lately, in fields of universities asking for disclosure and divestment, and in concert stadiums making friendship bracelets.
Our hope in this discourse around a typical volunteer is that we are a sector spend time reflecting on who actually is. That when we are talking about communities, volunteers, the humans doing work that we pause and reconsider what we think we know, who we think is out there that we can connect to, how those humans might want to engage in the things that they are looking to do, how they are wanting to do it.