Get started volunteering
How often have you sat on your couch and thought you should get more involved with your community...but stopped there? Guilty! So when I heard that my friend Sky was, in her mid-40s, entering a volunteer management programme I decided to sit down with her and get the dirt on volunteering:
What made you personally start volunteering?
Well, simply put, I was bored. Work was not terribly fulfilling and I felt there was something missing in my life but wasn't sure what. About 5 1/2 years ago, I participated in the Friends for Life Bike Rally (http://www.bikerally.org), which is an annual six day charity ride from Toronto to Montreal. I had such a great time that when I was approached to join the Steering Committee to work on the website, I felt I wanted to give back. And the best way to do that was to offer a hand. The event is almost entirely organized and supported by volunteers and is the Toronto People with AIDS Foundation's largest fundraiser. I volunteered with the Bike Rally in different capacities for four years.
After that, I got the volunteering bug. When I worked full-time, I found placements that were only several hours long [in Toronto], such as the set-up shift for Word on the Street (http://www.thewordonthestreet.ca/) or selling ice cream at Canada Blooms (http://www.canadablooms.com/). Dropping down to part-time work allowed me to try out longer placements, such as feeding baby kittens at the Toronto Humane Society (http://www.torontohumanesociety.com/) and being matched with two newcomers through CultureLink (http://www.culturelink.net/).
Why go into volunteer management?
Some of the places I have volunteered at have had great, committed people and a not very supportive environment, which is a real shame, because then people get frustrated and leave. Volunteers add so much potential to an organization if encouraged and managed properly. I want to be a part of building and maintaining that energy.What are some trends in volunteering?
The volunteer pool has shrunk considerably over the last five to 10 years in Canada. Seniors traditionally have volunteered the most hours and now they are "retiring". Baby boomers are turning out to be much more fussy about what they want to do with their free time than their predecessors, approaching volunteer postings much like jobs – looking for opportunities to use their skills and experience. Already books are being published about how to recruit boomer volunteers.
A relatively new trend is the concept of "family volunteering". Parents want to pass along the value of helping others to their children while not giving up time they could spend with them. Together they sort donations at food banks, visit seniors, participate in community clean-up days, etc. Organizations are just starting to tap into this trend.
