Diversity/Inclusion/Equity

Are you helping to develop the next generation of volunteers? Today’s youth are tomorrow’s adult volunteers—if they grow up with the empathy and mindset to contribute their time and talents to their communities. Unfortunately, some studies have shown that contemporary youth are actually less likely to volunteer, even though community engagement appears to be more important to them than it was to their parents a quarter-century ago.

This Along the Web column examines the importance of involving children and teens in the volunteer experience and explores ways to introduce children and teens to volunteering. Because reaching children also means reaching their parents, this column identifies frequently suggested approaches to family-oriented volunteering for different age groups. By examining what appeals to parents, organizations may be able to find new ways to reach families, involve youth, and help encourage the volunteers of tomorrow.

It all began when people with intellectual disability told us they wanted their own friends: friends who were not part of their own family or paid to spend time with them. At IHC we listened, and that premise became the foundation that IHC Volunteer Friendship Programme is based on: One person with intellectual disability is matched with one volunteer, and both decide together what they want to do out in their communities. — Sue Kobar

IHC is New Zealand’s largest provider of services to people with intellectual disabilities and their families. Its one-to-one, Volunteer Friendship Programme has been very successful. As author Sue Kobar explains in this feature story, IHC’s desire to attract younger volunteers has now expanded the concept of what the friends do together to include opportunities for much shorter, focused, and task-specific volunteering. While maintaining the same one-to-one premise, IHC implemented skill-based volunteering to support a person with intellectual disability as he or she sets out to learn a new skill (like using public transportation, for instance) or to achieve a personal goal (say, attend a Zumba class). 

As Kobar explains, these shorter-term assignments are a win-win for all involved. Such opportunities, which allow volunteers to set the time commitment to fit the project, have attracted younger volunteers to IHC who may very well be on the road to long-term volunteering. And along the way, the people supported by IHC learn new life skills. 

Today’s workplaces may have as many as five generations of workers, each raised in different times with different influences affecting their work styles. The same is true of volunteer programs. Organizations are now experiencing many different generations of volunteers working together, making for a very interesting and complex environment for volunteer management.

In this quarter’s Research to Practice, reviewer Laurie Mook looks at a study by Walden University’s Dr. Tonya Renee’ Howard, who interviewed five generations of volunteers (including Generation Z) and asked about their volunteer experiences with recruitment, recognition, and retention. Based on these in-depth interviews, Dr. Howard proposes generation-based volunteer management practices that all leaders of volunteers will find useful.