Friday Facts: No follow through

Australian media this week was full of the news story below about the experiences that were had by those organising volunteers after the floods and cyclone in the northern state of Queensland. The news was based on Volunteering Queensland's Submission to Queensland Floods Commission of Inquiry (pdf version).

I was fascinated by the comments and learnings and I deeply appreciated Volunteering Queensland's candid comments and recommendations.

QUEENSLAND'S peak volunteer organisation says the vast majority of people who registered to help clean up following the floods and cyclone Yasi backed off at the last minute.

I am not surprised but I am surprised if anyone else like the media, government or public are surprised. There are three factors at work here:

1. Typical volunteer engagement behaviour
2. Motivations
3. Time

1. Typical volunteer engagement behaviour

My research and experience gives me the tested belief that typically 50% of people who make an enquiry to an agency to volunteer never follow through. This is in "normal times".

Further 50% of those enquirers drop out at the application stage and 50% of those remain drop out between application and interview...in other words, in "normal times", about 12.5% of people will go through from enquiry to volunteer--NB 50% of those volunteers will "drop out" in their first three months of volunteering.
Volunteering Queensland in their submission suggest there was a 90% drop off.

2. Motivations
When people spontaneously volunteer in an emergency they want to help then and there. To ask someone to delay volunteering in normal times, will reduce the likelihood they will come back. If someone rang to offer a $20 donation and we took their name and number and rang them back in 3 weeks or a month, whats the likelihood, they would still donate after that time. Why are we surprised with volunteering?

Some people of course volunteer because they want to be seen as a "hero". Several weeks after the hero opportunities have vanished.

3. Time
With  schools closed and offices shut, people had the time to volunteer. After a few weeks that time was gone.
Volunteering Queensland's submission to the Queensland Floods Commission of Inquiry also found that 30 per cent of callers were people in distress who needed to "chat" and weren't in a state to volunteer.

Again, no surprise. In a disaster, one way of coping is to offer to help. The people may not be able to actually help but calling to offer to volunteer is easier for many than calling a phone counselling service, I am in no way belittling the valuable service of phone counselling  as I was a Lifeline volunteer in the past. To call such a service, a person  needs to have come to a point where they need help. In  a crisis, many people have not realised that they need help to cope with what they have seen and experienced. Volunteering Queensland have called for more research in this area, a move I would support.

It [Volunteering Queensland] was forced to accept and follow up calls from individuals... were under the impression that registering was the appropriate avenue for donating goods, cash and other forms of service such as childcare, transport, accommodation and catering.

The Volunteering Queensland number was very well publicised through so many channels. This was fantastic effort on VQ's part.. For many in our community,however, volunteering is associated with any act of charity and therefore people will call whatever number they hear.

Perhaps it is time, we had a in Australia, a number like 000, 911, 999 that people can call in an  Natural Disaster/Emergency/Crisis situation. This "One Number" would provide any information or collect any information including:

• Donations of cash
• Donations of Goods
• Donations of services
• Volunteering
• Requests for help

The calls could be handled by operators and funnelled via an IT system to the agencies such as Red Cross delegated to handle each of the needs.

The 211 service in the USA aims to provide quality Information & Referral Services about essential human services to the public. 211 services are provided by coalitions of  independent not-for-profits, individuals, governmental programs, United Ways, American Red Cross, crisis hotlines, libraries, military service centers, senior services, child and adolescent services, religious charities, multi-service organizations and other agencies.

Could other countries including Australia do the same?

Volunteering Queensland said to avoid such problems in the future, prospective volunteers should register before the natural disaster season.

Agreed. The difficulty is that volunteers registered for future disasters can get "bored" or disconnected between disasters. They become resistant to attending training. If for example there is three, five, ten year period between disasters, then people can get lost. Getting people to enact a disaster scenario regularly is one way of maintaining momentum but there is no guarantee that people will be available to attend such "events".
Feedback showed that concerns were voiced about health and safety measures for volunteers who, in many cases, were not given a sufficient level of coordination on the ground.

This is the greatest challenge and opportunity.  I would suggest we recruit trained cool headed team leaders ready to be deployed to help with any emergency in a town, state or country. Trained in crisis thinking, and volunteer management etc, they could handle groups of less experienced volunteers and know how and where to deploy them when an emergency happened.

"The most critical issue is to produce a shift in thinking amongst the general public away from a spontaneous reaction and towards longer-term engagement in emergency volunteering.

The reality is people will always want to spontaneously volunteer as they want to help...somehow. People don't think through practical considerations such as time, transport or training- they just want to give that help. For me, its a function of volunteering that is as fixed in the Western consciousness about volunteering as much as people always wanting to volunteer only at holiday times like Christmas and Thanksgiving.

We are now in a world where people are being told increasingly that volunteering is a one day event or a few hour event. A world where a large chunk of people indeed only volunteer one day a year.  This disaster exposes that this trend is only one part of an equation and we need to do some radical re thinking to engage people in a longer term commitment in a shorter commitment world. Volunteering Queensland have opened the discussion after their hard work earlier in the year. Lets add to the discussion and look to the future. (we of course pray for a disaster free period for our world..enough is enough for 2011). Finally, lets remember the many thousands who did volunteer.

Volunteering Queensland's submission (PDF version)

The Media Response:
QUEENSLAND'S peak volunteer organisation says the vast majority of people who registered to help clean up following the floods and cyclone Yasi backed off at the last minute.

Volunteering Queensland's submission to the Queensland Floods Commission of Inquiry also found that 30 per cent of callers were people in distress who needed to "chat" and weren't in a state to volunteer.

After a huge spontaneous surge in people coming forward to volunteer following the disasters, most opted out when it came to getting their hands dirty, the submission showed.

"Only a week after registering on the database, a vast majority that were contacted were not prepared to volunteer," the organisation said in its submission.

"In most cases the explanation was that personal circumstances of those who registered changed; they had to go back to work, needed to help their family and friends or Simply lost interest

The organisation also said a lack of planning meant concentrations of volunteers in one place, leaving some feeling like "seagulls fighting over a chip".

Feedback showed that concerns were voiced about health and safety measures for volunteers who, in many cases, were not given a sufficient level of coordination on the ground.

The organisation said the role of Volunteering Queensland, to act as one point of contact between people wanting to volunteer and recovery agencies, was little known.

Therefore it had to deal with a raft of requests that were outside its expertise.

It was forced to accept and follow up calls from individuals who were under the impression that registering was the appropriate avenue for donating goods, cash and other forms of service such as childcare, transport, accommodation and catering.

On top of that, many flood-affected people contacted them seeking assistance.

Volunteering Queensland said to avoid such problems in the future, prospective volunteers should register before the natural disaster season.

"Overall, this was an event that tested the entire system," the submission said.

"The most critical issue is to produce a shift in thinking amongst the general public away from a spontaneous reaction and towards longer-term engagement in emergency volunteering.

"The idea behind it is to educate and inform the public that, in most cases, last-minute inquiries are hard to process and are less likely to lead to volunteering."

To date, 84,000 people are now registered with Volunteering Queensland.