Wow -look at us grow??? Australia's Volunteering Statistics

Last Friday,  I was corrected for a possible inaccurate perception I had of Australian Baby Boomer volunteering patterns when I suggested that  "As older volunteers disengage from volunteering, for health reasons, we will need to replace those people somehow. I do not see them being replaced by Baby Boomers or Gen X.

My attention was drawn to the General Social Survey that in 2010, 46.1 per cent of Baby Boomers volunteered and this represented an increase on four years ago- a significant increase.

Further, the survey showed that  6.1 million Australians aged 18 years and over participated in voluntary work in Australia.  A volunteering participation rate of 36%, up from 34% in 2006.  Amongst women the rate is 38% and amongst men it is 34%. Wow, this means 1 in 3 Australians are volunteering.

The data further says that Parents in couple relationships with dependent children aged between 5 and 17 years have the highest volunteering participation rate, at 55%.

I was perplexed by these figures. They do not bear out what I am hearing anecdotally. Managers across the country report declining volunteer rates. I do not see 55 per cent of the parents in my friendship circles out there volunteering. The figures are also different to the US figures which show quite different trends so I did some digging.

The key is what people are being reported on. A volunteer "is someone who willingly gave unpaid help, in the form of time, service or skills, to or through an organisation or group." No argument there. The reference period was the 12 months prior to the survey. In other words, any volunteer work done in the 12 months was included. In other words, if I volunteered once for half an hour or I volunteered every week for six hours, I was counted as a volunteer.  So for parents, 55 per cent of them did some sort of volunteer work in the past twelve months. It may have been coaching sport every week or cutting oranges once.

Table 10 of the 2010 data gave me what I am looking for. Of volunteers one third volunteered every week. In other words, 12.6 per cent of the Australian population volunteered weekly, just over one in ten people. A further 4.1 per cent of Australians (11.3 per cent of volunteers) volunteered at least every two weeks. So in other words,  16.7 per cent of Australians or 46.3 per cent of volunteers are regular volunteers. Is this glass half empty or half full? Interestingly, the 2006 Census which measured unpaid work for the first time determined that the proportion of the Australian population who performed voluntary work was 17.9%. Suddenly the census figure makes sense.

In the 2010 data, another 5.8 per cent of Aussies were identified as volunteering monthly.
A quarter of volunteers (almost one in ten Australians) "only" help several times a year. So they may run a sausage sizzle at the school four times a year or help kids practice reading a few times through the year or turn up to two planning meetings and a fundraising event.
And almost five per cent of Australians (almost 14 per cent of all volunteers) are the country's once a year volunteers.

	% of vols	% of popl
At least once a week	35.0	12.6
At least once a fortnight	11.3	4.1
At least once a month	16.0	5.8
Several times a year	24.1	8.7
Less regularly	13.6	4.9
Total	100.0	36.0

For our senior volunteers (over 65), about 40 per cent of them volunteer weekly and approximately 14 per cent fortnightly (every two weeks). In other words about 54 per cent of them volunteer often, higher than the overall average. For Baby Boomers, they were bang on the overall average. What was very significant for me was that 40 per cent of 55 to 64 year olds volunteered either several times a year or less regularly. This compares to 36 per cent of 45 to 54 year olds. In other words, the older Baby Boomers are volunteering less time than the Australian average. This is what we have been hearing anecdotally across the country.

I suggest we are seeing a continuation of the results in the 2006 survey where it was noted that: "While the total annual hours contributed by volunteers increased between 1995 and 2006, the amount of time each volunteer gave decreased."

The other significant thing is that Baby Boomers are volunteering for sport organisations at double the rate of senior volunteers. In fact almost 40 per cent of all Baby Boomer volunteering is in sport. Their involvement in welfare, health and religious organisations is way, way lower. This is the same for Gen X. Baby Boomer involvement in Business and Professional volunteering is, however, much higher than any other generational cohort and way higher than it is for the older generation.

I suggest we are seeing in the statistics the structural change I talked about last week. If I had the data cubes from 2006, then I could see the changes between the two periods. I also want to see hours volunteered by age group but as yet that data does not seem to be available for 2010.

So in summary:

• More Australians are volunteering - for fewer hours
• One fifth of Australians volunteer weekly or fortnightly
• More Baby Boomers are volunteering but almost half of all Baby Boomers are volunteering less than a few times a year
• More Baby Boomers are volunteering for business and professional roles (and more may want to!) and for sport
• In terms of replacing older volunteers with Baby Boomers, my concerns from last week remain. We need to restructure how we deliver services that utilise volunteers and make some hard decisions as to how we do that.

Paying the Cost of Volunteering

I have been mulling over my post from yesterday. Today, I am trying to look at the implications financially and practically of demographic change in volunteering.

At a presentation I did for my local area on Tuesday, I calculated that to pay for the equivalent of what volunteers do in my local area would be 90 million dollars per annum. The Total revenue from rates (land taxes) for 2010-11 for my shire was expected to raise 104 million dollars. In other words, if we had to replace all of the volunteer efforts with paid staff, our land taxes would need to almost double to pay for it.

It is very unlikely, that we would lose 100 per cent of our volunteering but demographic shifts suggest to me that we may see significant losses in some key areas. Older volunteers contribute a very high number of hours of service. As older volunteers diengage from volunteering, for health reasons, we will need to replace those people somehow. I do not see them being replaced by Baby Boomers or Gen X. Lets say, as a result of demographic shifts, we lose 20 per cent of our overall volunteer hours. To replace these hours with paid staff would requires the community to find funding of 18 million dollars.

There are six ways the community could manage this:


1. Some services could close


We are seeing that possibility with Rotary Clubs, Country Womens Associations and Citizen Advice Bureaus which are predominately staffed by older volunteers. It would mean we lose tree planting, advocacy for the disadvantaged, the building of park equipment or equipment purchasing for local Hospitals. Whatever the cuts, key infrastructure would be missing. The difficulty is that with an aging population we are going to need more of some services.

2. We could charge people fees or greater fees for community services

To engage paid staff in some roles currently done by volunteers will cost. So for example the cost of getting a Meal through Meals on Wheels would rise, the cost of admission to museums, people would pay more to park at the beach, or pay a higher fire levy.

3. Charities could fundraise more

Again, to pay for labour to replace volunteer input would require money. So we as citizens would need to donate more. Lets say every citizen man, woman and child in my area (150 000 people) gave $120 per year more- ten dollars per month. This is money not for new services or to help more people but simply to preserve what we already have that is being provided by volunteers. This would raise the eighteen million dollars.

4. We could restructure how we engage volunteers 

We know that we will have lots of very skilled Baby Boomers in the community. They may not want to work behind the counter of a Charity shop every week for the next year. They may however be interested in a program that gives them four weeks behind the counter, four weeks working in the office and four weeks distributing the aid raised by the shop. Then starting the cycle again. Or we may get a group of ex marketing managers together and have them develop the marketing campaign for the charity currently done  by a paid person. Those funds could be then released to employ people to do the more "basic work" which may not be as appealing to tomorrow's volunteers.


5. Get more people to volunteer for a day


There are many organisations encouraging one day of service.  For example working on meals on wheels once a year or planting trees once in a year or serving in a charity shop once in a year. Yes, there are some training and safety issues we need to consider when we do this. To replace 18 million dollars worth of volunteer labour, would require 100 000 people to give one day per year. In other words, almost every resident of my area would need to give that day.




6. Try and Engage New Volunteers


We could develop creative ways to engage some of the the 60 per cent of people who do not volunteer at all.

7. Put our Taxes up

To use our taxes to pay for the volunteers who would not be able to any more, would require a 17.3 per cent increase. My land tax would go up by about  by around $136 per annum. This rise would not be for new services but simply to fund the gap caused by a loss of volunteer power in key roles during key hours.

Clearly to cope with the changing demographic we could do a combination of things.
The actual mix of options chosen will impact things, If we decide not to replace volunteers with paid staff funded by tax or fund-raising, we will lose more services. No new playgrounds or hospital equipment would have a negative impact on our community.

If we decide we cannot lose any services, then we may have to fund more through taxes. 

If we put energy into options 4 and 5 (which would require an investment in people to do volunteer engagement - lets say $250 000 per annum for this), we may find we don't need to lose any services and only need to raise taxes by .2% (to pay for good volunteer engagement). 

Whatever we decide to do, we need to start to make changes now.

US Baby Boomer Facts

• On January 1st, 2011 the very first Baby Boomers turned 65
• Every 8.5 seconds a baby boomer in the U.S. turns 50 years old.
• The baby boom generation is the largest generation in American history -There are approximately 77.6 million baby boomers in the U.S. - 28% of the U.S. population
• In four years time (2015), people aged 50 and older will make up 45% of the America’s population. 
• A 50-year-old female baby boomer can expect to live 82.5 years; while a male boomer will live on average 78.5 years.
• The baby boom phenomenon is responsible for over half of all consumer spending in the United States (and I would say in NZ, Australia, Canada and Uk too)
• 80% of all leisure travel is taken by boomers.
• Beginning in January 2011 about four million boomers will be ready to retire each year, and will do so for almost two decades.
• Baby boomers account for  (The U.S. Census)

How are they going to fill their next 30 years?

Canada notes changing boomers

The Vancouver Sun has picked up the concern that I have held for a while,  that we are not ready to face the decline in volunteering amongst boomers. They note the "sandwich generation" of baby boomers, for instance, are likely to be so busy holding down full-time jobs and caring for their parents and children that they won't have time for charity work that I share about in my training.

The National Seniors' Council of Canada  in 2007 noted "three main barriers to securing boomers as volunteers:

1.  their lack of time (because its filled with so many other options)
2.  inability to make a longterm commitment (I would prefer desire to not make a long term commitment rather than inability!)
3. their preference for giving money rather than their time (which is linked in their consumer mentality-they are massive consumers)

These are definitely not unique to Canada. I am seeing same things in UK, Australia, NZ and USA. See my earlier blogpost where I talk about the massive drop in boomer volunteer numbers in the USA- I note that no one there seems worried. 

A great quote  in the article comes from Lorelynn Hart, program manager for Volunteer BC.
"The challenge is, when people are gone how do we replace them? Seniors are still the crux of many organizations. They're flexible, they have more time and they want to give back to their community. My in-laws are in their 70s, but they're the busiest retired people I know."

This is my question too: "How do we replace them?".

The answer is not filling the same volunteer roles. It means completely re designing volunteering. It means making volunteering an attractive, meaningful activity and not just a cheap substitute for paid workers. It means marketing volunteering very differently?

Is anyone ready for that?