David Vandenberg is answering Stéphanie Andrieux's questions.
What is Volunteer Canada?
David Vandenberg: Volunteer Canada’s Mission is to advance volunteerism to grow connection, community and belonging. Founded in 1977, our organization has acted ever since as the national voice and leadership body for volunteerism. Today, we are a registered charity1 with over 1100 organizational members.
Why was such a national organization needed in the 1970s?
In the 1970s, a conglomerate of volunteer centers across the country identified the need for leadership and resources in the volunteering sector, but also for a unified voice for Canadian volunteers. They felt such a national voice was necessary, mainly for advocacy, interprovincial cohesion, and resource development. One of our many achievements was to build the Canadian Code for Volunteer Involvement (CCVI) in 2017.
In 2019, a Special Senate Committee on Canada's charitable sector urged the federal government to "implement a national volunteer action strategy to encourage volunteerism by all Canadians in their communities". Is it the first time a national volunteer action strategy is needed in Canada?
No, Canada launched its first National volunteer strategy in 1967, coinciding with the celebration of the country's centennial. Back then, it was aimed at fostering a spirit of unity and pride. The 1967 strategy encouraged everyone to contribute their time and skills to local events, community improvement, educational programs, and charities.
For decades, Canada has had a robust and lively volunteer sector. In 2018, about 79% of Canadians aged 15 and older engaged in some form of volunteering2 .
In the past, volunteering has been so intertwined with what it means to call Canada home, that it's hidden in plain sight. We only notice what volunteers do when they're not there. Unfortunately, that seems to be what's happening right now.
From coast to coast to coast, we're seeing a shortage of volunteers3 . Organizations on the front lines are feeling strained. And, this is deeply linked, Canada is experiencing a loneliness epidemic.
Canadians are more isolated than ever before.
Our country has changed significantly over the last 50 years and it's time we launch a new National Volunteering Action strategy and meet the moment.
What first steps have you already implemented?
A key part of the initial funding was invested in understanding where we're at now in terms of volunteering across the country.
To restore it, we need to know more about the current state of the volunteer sector.
The last report on volunteering by Statistics Canada showed that iGens4 have the highest rate of formal volunteering across all generations, at 52%5 . However, they volunteer 82 hours annually, which is fewer average hours compared to older generations who volunteer less frequently but put in more hours.
We also need to understand why people aren't volunteering. We know that there's a cost-of-living crisis right now in Canada. People are working more than one job to support themselves or their families, so volunteering takes a back seat. This is just one example of how volunteering is changing as quickly as our societies and economies.
Even though we’re seeing formal volunteering decreasing, people are also volunteering in new ways.
Canadians are moving away from traditional institutional participation towards more informal models of engagement, like grassroots engagement and mutual aid. According to the General Social Survey on Giving, Volunteering, and Participating by Statistics Canada, a significant majority of Canadians engage in informal volunteering6 .
Today, close to 23 million people aged 15 years and older volunteer on their own. This represents 74% of Canadians 15 years of age and older, meaning that the rate of informal volunteering is almost double the rate of formal volunteering at 41%7 .
But would these 23 million Canadians consider themselves volunteers?
Many who are involved in their communities don't think of themselves as volunteers. For the younger generations in particular, the term volunteer is increasingly seen as antiquated or too narrow.
Mutual aid is a good example of this. While it has a longstanding tradition in many communities, the proliferation of this type of engagement over the COVID-19 pandemic sparked a renewed interest in the model. Often led by communities experiencing marginalization, mutual aid activities prioritize solidarity and fill important gaps in the system for those left behind by formal institutions.
We've conducted many community consultations over the past year and heard repeatedly that the traditional understanding of volunteering does not capture the breadth of many new ways people contribute their time to causes that matter to them.
We want to respond to this trend through the new National Volunteer Action Strategy; working together to break down these barriers to volunteering and participation, specifically the systemic ones, and create welcoming and meaningful spaces for people to engage.
What do you identify as systemic barriers to volunteering and participation?
Canada is still home to a lot of persistent inequalities and barriers, along with discrimination and violence, racism, colonialism, transphobia, sexism, and ableism. These same barriers extend into volunteering because they dictate who has access to power and resources within communities.
So many factors cause equity-deserving individuals to abandon volunteering or prevent them from engaging in the first place.
Research shows that certain groups, such as those who are unemployed, those with chronic health conditions, and those from lower socioeconomic groups, have the most to gain from volunteering. This is why it is critical for our National Volunteer Action Strategy to co-create engagement opportunities with people who've been historically under- or unrepresented in volunteering spaces.
Are you trying to help nonprofits open to a wider range of populations or to help recognize the different ways communities are already engaging?
I hope that our strategy will do both. We've been conducting many nationwide stakeholder engagement sessions, and a lot of our work there is just listening. For example, Canada's history of colonialism has deeply impacted Indigenous communities, shaping many of the systemic barriers they face today. Therefore, how we engage Indigenous communities in the National Volunteer Action Strategy is crucial to its success.
Right now, we're going to communities and building two national and provincial roundtable committees with diverse voices. We aim to create a system where those communities are involved from scratch. In involving these communities and getting a clear picture of needs, the hope is to then build tools and resources to equip nonprofits with the capacity to better engage everyone.
Did you look at the National volunteer action strategies launched recently in Scotland, Ireland, or Nigeria?
For sure, we even invited our friend, Volunteer Ireland CEO Nina Arwitz to the strategy launch back in December 2023. We're fortunate that some countries have been leading this work already, and we plan to leverage it.
On our website volunteerstrategy.ca, we published an international case study and literature review on the Australian, Nigerian, Scottish, Irish, and British cases. One of the most salient commonalities between these strategies is that they were each designed through a collaborative, multisectoral process. We can learn from their strategies and adapt elements that align with our unique context to create a solution that works for us.
I believe that the R&D acronym could switch from research and development to rip off and duplicate, as there's so much good work happening around the world.
It is also interesting to notice that the trends of volunteering are not that dissimilar from one country to the other, the rise of informal volunteering for example.
Right, we also have much to learn from the diversity of the nonprofit sector within our own country. We saw the rise of informal volunteering during the COVID-19 pandemic where those acts of kindness and service for friends, family and strangers increased.
Canada is also a vast country, and volunteerism funding and support vary significantly across provincial governments, resulting in different levels of volunteering infrastructure across the country. The communities and the geographies are so different that the communities' needs are so different.
Taking a step back, do you know why current Canadian volunteers give their time?
We know five key motivators to get engaged in one's community, starting with altruism. The will to contribute to the well-being of others is probably the number one reason why people engage.
A personal connection to a cause is another significant motivator. Once they decide to give time, volunteers choose organizations that hit close to home for them. Life experiences are therefore a second motivator.
A third one will be social influences. Volunteering is influenced by whether or not your relatives, friends, or family, volunteer. We see this a lot with religious organizations, which are one of the main sector of organizations where people volunteer in Canada.
The fourth motivator, that we're noticing mainly among young folks, is skill development. Some use volunteering to grow their professional skill, network, and access spaces that they normally wouldn't through their nine-to-five job.
And the last motivator is civic responsibility. Some people feel they should contribute back to their community, simply because they feel a social obligation to do so.
How does the change you were detailing earlier in volunteering habits affect nonprofits?
According to the latest Canadian Survey on Business Conditions, 61 % of organizations have experienced a decline in both volunteers' number and volunteering hours during the pandemic8
.
The same survey showed that 32 % reported an increase in demand for services, 65 % reported a shortage of volunteers, and 54 % reported challenges recruiting and retaining staff9 .
Demand is going up when volunteers are going down, it's a very difficult position for nonprofits who have to shrink their programs.
That's the overall impact from a supply and demand perspective, but what can nonprofits do about it? Some non-profits are investing in digital tools to reach people across the country and engaging them in remote virtual volunteering. But those can be quite resource intensive.
And for some charities or nonprofits, that's not the priority right now, or they don't have the funds to make such an investment. At Volunteer Canada, we develop resources and training programs to help organizations transition to new models.
We've launched this new data-driven engagement platform, which uses data to help not-for-profit, philanthropic, and government organizations make informed decisions, and optimize operations.
We also offer targeted programs and strategies to engage diverse volunteers, including younger people. So, we're trying to stay ahead of the curve, but we feel like the curve is moving quickly.
How would you summarize the sector's main challenges right now?
We're seeing recruitment and retention, as well as funding uncertainty between government shifts. Another challenge is the increased demand for services.
And the last one is impact measurement. Although there have been signs of a shift into trust-based philanthropy, we still see a lot of restricted grants. To get those grants, nonprofits and charities need to be able to say how many lives their programs change and how people are better off. Funders want to know the outcomes, and some are even willing to invest in impact measurement.
For example, how are learning outcomes improved through a breakfast program for students?
To answer that question, nonprofits and charities need to build a more cohesive understanding of impact. However, with tight resources and limited funding, their primary focus often remains on service delivery, making it challenging to invest in comprehensive impact measurement.
The shortage in volunteers is also a major challenge, given that so many organizations are entirely volunteer-run. For so long, volunteers were considered a given, but it’s clear that we need to raise the profile of volunteering in policy conversations especially.
Finally, what would be the main opportunities for the volunteering sector?
Technological integration is a huge opportunity. Another significant opportunity lies in increased corporate partnerships. Companies are increasingly recognizing that strong employee volunteer programs not only boost morale and job satisfaction but also enhance employee retention and engagement.
Having a country that's so diverse is another significant opportunity for nonprofits to tap into.
We have so many folks: if we eliminate barriers for them to contribute, we can move the needle.
And the last one is pretty straightforward: it's promoting volunteer recognition. How do we highlight volunteer contributions so we will encourage people to continue volunteering or attract new volunteers? I will finish with a simple example: Volunteer Canada leads the National Volunteer Week campaign every year and it's been a key cornerstone every single year. We need to promote and thank volunteers more than ever, and this week is a beautiful way to do so.
- 1Charities and nonprofits are distinct categories in Canada. While charities are organizations with a charitable purpose recognized under common law, nonprofits are not-for-profit associations that are not charitable. Only charities are registered by the Charities Directorate of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), and nonprofits have minimal reporting requirements.
- 2Tara Hahmann (Statistics Canada), "Volunteering counts: Formal and informal contributions of Canadians in 2018", Insights on Canadian Society, April 2021, [online].
- 3Allison Russell (University of Pennsylvania), Paula Speevak (Volunteer Canada), and Femida Handy (University of Pennsylvania), "Chapter 20 - Volunteering: Global Trends in a Canadian Context", In Susan D. Phillips and Bob Wyatt (Eds.), Intersections and Innovations, 2021, [online].
- 4iGens refers to the group of people who were born in 1996 and later.
- 5Tara Hahmann (Statistics Canada), Ibid.
- 6Tara Hahmann (Statistics Canada), Ibid.
- 7Tara Hahmann (Statistics Canada), Ibid.
- 8Statistics Canada, « Canadian Survey on Business Conditions, fourth quarter 2022", The Daily, November 25, 2022, [online].
- 9Statistics Canada, Ibid.