From my personal experience, the post-Covid volunteer and community involvement world has shifted. My experience has been a shift towards introversion and individualism by the broader community. Volunteer numbers for my sporting club are very low (perhaps record?) and just the general engagement of people is borderline lethargic. Everyone is "busy" but doing what?!
But this is resulting in the community leadership you're talking about becoming even more important. Without these people (and the support they need), clubs, groups, committees with just fade away. But the burnout rate of these people will be so high and then who/what replaces them?
There is definitely data supporting your experience with the volunteer sector. The Community Compass report was released last week which offers a really interesting analysis of engagement across community organisations in Australia - https://www.communitydirectors.com.au/research/community-compass
From a leadership perspective I believe there's an opportunity for organisations to get a little smarter about how they operate. Burnout is a real issue and I don't think we'll convince people to engage in the same way that they did pre-Covid (or in past decades). Exploring collaboration across organisations to reduce duplication of effort, considering how volunteers are trained and promoting the value they gain from the experience, using communication channels that people are accessing (particularly younger people), working with other organisations using volunteers to pool resources, partnering with businesses - they're all things to think about.
There's a big shift taking place that will require innovation. It's tough for small clubs and community organsations and likely requires a city-wide response but as you say, it's likely a case of 'do or die'.
So much to digest there.
From my personal experience, the post-Covid volunteer and community involvement world has shifted. My experience has been a shift towards introversion and individualism by the broader community. Volunteer numbers for my sporting club are very low (perhaps record?) and just the general engagement of people is borderline lethargic. Everyone is "busy" but doing what?!
But this is resulting in the community leadership you're talking about becoming even more important. Without these people (and the support they need), clubs, groups, committees with just fade away. But the burnout rate of these people will be so high and then who/what replaces them?
Thanks Anthony.
There is definitely data supporting your experience with the volunteer sector. The Community Compass report was released last week which offers a really interesting analysis of engagement across community organisations in Australia - https://www.communitydirectors.com.au/research/community-compass
From a leadership perspective I believe there's an opportunity for organisations to get a little smarter about how they operate. Burnout is a real issue and I don't think we'll convince people to engage in the same way that they did pre-Covid (or in past decades). Exploring collaboration across organisations to reduce duplication of effort, considering how volunteers are trained and promoting the value they gain from the experience, using communication channels that people are accessing (particularly younger people), working with other organisations using volunteers to pool resources, partnering with businesses - they're all things to think about.
There's a big shift taking place that will require innovation. It's tough for small clubs and community organsations and likely requires a city-wide response but as you say, it's likely a case of 'do or die'.
Great article Ellen!
Thanks Claire. Writing is the best way for me to synthesise all the parts 😊