Re-imagining Volunteerism: Bridging the Gap Between Formal Service and Community Care
Our friends from InWithForward have written this informative post about the focus of (Re)Engaged and the ‘what,’ ‘why,’ and ‘how’ of using a generative research approach to understand how we may re-imagine volunteerism to bridge the gap between formal volunteering and informal volunteering.
Volunteerism in crisis?
Leading volunteer organizations in Alberta are responding to evidence of a decline in volunteerism at a time when demand for services is growing.
In Spring 2024, Volunteer Alberta (VA) and Boys and Girls Clubs Big Brothers Big Sisters of Edmonton & Area (BCGBigs Edmonton) came together with social research and design agency InWithForward to tackle a problem. The numbers were grim. People are volunteering less, or not at all. Nonprofits are suffering the loss, especially in the aftermath of the pandemic, and must adapt quickly to reduced organizational capacity and new processes or risk a loss of programming. A 2022 survey by the Alberta Nonprofit Network and FuseSocial of 474 nonprofit organizations across every region of the province, 90% of respondents indicated they were facing disruptions to services and clients, 67% had to reduce staffing levels, 90% faced reduced revenue from fundraising, and 75% faced reduced revenue from earned income. Meanwhile, 60% of respondents indicated an increased demand for services for clients and communities, many of which are supported by formal volunteers.
We are seeing a shift to informal ways of helping out in community, which gained traction during the pandemic
At the same time, the pandemic spurred a proliferation of new ways to contribute and care for others informally: widespread messaging promoting checking-in on loved ones, Facebook groups where individuals can voice needs or offer generosity, and rising participation in mutual aid efforts. This shift poses a challenge for nonprofits and other civic engagement organizations which rely heavily on formal volunteers. In fact, Imagine Canada predicts that existing services will increasingly be insufficient to meet the spiking need in coming years, leading to an emerging “social deficit” in Canada (Imagine Canada, 2018, “Canada’s Emerging Social Deficit”). This deficit is concerned with formal volunteering through registered organizations, not other types of contribution that aren’t counted in the data.
Getting Curious About a New Future for Volunteerism
Is formal volunteering offering the best opportunities to satisfy the human needs met through community?
Civic engagement and volunteerism are important mechanisms for fostering meaning, agency, respect, and connection. And yet, we suspect that the ways in which we conceptualize the role of volunteers and many of the policies, protocols and systems for recruiting, training, and supporting volunteers might look more like those in professional, paid work settings, especially as organizations become more regulated. The professionalization of the volunteer refers to more prescribed interactions, expectations around documentation, following policies, etc., potentially cementing unhelpful power divides between the ‘helper’ and the ‘helpee,” or excluding people on the margins. Our hunch is that there is a growing divide between formal and informal volunteer roles and mutual self-help groups, and we hope to find an opportunity to re-imagine how we both frame and structure what it means to care for others.
Disruption is an opportunity for transformation & renewal, if we meet it with curiosity
To begin that process of re-imagining, we’re starting with curiosity. In the face of the disruption set in motion by the pandemic, we see an opportunity to get curious about what is or isn’t working for people, and how the conditions for community contribution may have shifted. Rather than lamenting the decline of formal volunteering, we are scouting opportunities for system transformation and renewal. This looks like paying attention to what people are already doing, saying, and thinking in their own contexts, understanding what matters to them, what enables them to pursue those values, and what gets in their way, or puts them off.
Data to Support System Change
We need ‘generative data’ to identify what could be, in the future
We can help create the conditions for change by building a new kind of evidence base. Social recovery is a major area of concern and consideration for communities and nonprofits throughout Alberta. Through ongoing conversations and connections with nonprofit organizations, we have been paying attention to shared concerns that continue to rise to the surface in nearly every conversation. The feedback and anecdotal evidence we have gathered through these conversations demonstrate the profound need for us to reimagine the role of volunteerism and civic engagement in the province to allow for social recovery and increased resilience.Social research and design organization InWithForward practices “critical design ethnography” which offers a research approach that is generative and attentive to context, culture, and power relations; meaning, it can help us understand not only what is happening currently, for whom, but also feel out what could be in the future to attract the participation of a diversity of Albertans.
Learn more about InWithForward’s approach here.
Existing data is out of date, too general, and describes problems rather than the features of solutions
Most research regarding volunteer experiences and motivations took place in the years prior to the pandemic and lacked contextual data on the many informal support systems, homegrown solutions, and pockets of social capital that fall outside the scope of formal volunteering. The pandemic changed the attitude and approaches people have towards community involvement, yet we lack data on how they have shifted. Data that is current, robust, and context-specific is essential for generating solutions, making informed decisions in context about strategy. Robust Social research & development starts with ‘thick data’, a term used to describe qualitative data rich in nuance and context, that is co-created using an inclusive approach to make space for the voices of people typically left out of surveys and consultations.The aim of thick data isn’t to enhance what already exists, but to rethink current models and how alternative models, grounded in different assumptions, might function. By having a thick data set about everyday Albertans’ relationship to volunteering, civic engagement, and care we can begin to approach policy and practice development from the ground-up.
Read a story about how InWithForward works with people to learn from their experience and co-imagine different futures.
Action Learning
This project will co-produce ideas for alternative ways to support civic participation and care, by spending time with diverse Albertans.
Indeed, this project aims to gather, analyze, and act on thick data in ways that kickstart systemic
change. Traveling around the province, we’ll spend time deeply listening to folks in three very different locations, from big city to small town: Edmonton, Lethbridge and Fairview. We will start with people on the margins, using design research methods to move from data to possible prototypes. We will disseminate insights and concrete ideas to the sector (nonprofits, government, and community members) who’ll be invited to engage during community sessions. This will create space for dialogue, learning/unlearning, partnerships, and co-creation to strengthen social recovery and flourishing through civic engagement.
Together, we will make sense of the data in ways that point to new practices and narratives that can be tested at a small scale, in order to learn and influence policy.
The key part of this project, however, is our collective sense-making of the data: What do the trends & gaps identified mean for organizations? How can we help organizations use human-centered data to prototype new policies and practices? We are bursting with excitement to begin this process, to open up spaces for new voices to be heard, and to see how that data can help organizations that rely on volunteers to grow and to flourish.