Volunteering guide
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Volunteering is work without pay; the branch of philanthropy in which time and skills replace the credit card. It is an expression of individual freedom, building on deep cultural tradition and increasingly on modern technical wizardry. Volunteering has indeed become almost too fashionable. As opportunities mushroom, the goal of helping others can lose focus amongst a bewildering array of personal motives of the volunteer.
updated November 2010
Change the World
Can the modest endeavour of an individual volunteer make any real difference to such formidable problems as global poverty and climate change?
Most certainly, says UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. His 2008 report to the General Assembly declared that achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) “will require the engagement of countless millions of people through volunteer action.”
The report reflects how the spirit of volunteering is spreading fast in the developing world especially amongst young people, for whom the context of the MDGs is most meaningful.
A survey of volunteer effort dedicated to climate change and the environment was conducted by the UN’s Volunteering for the Planet initiative in 2009. It yielded the remarkable result that commitment of unpaid time has been far greater in developing countries. Only one western country featured in the top ten.
The task of the professional sector of civil society is to inspire and guide this pool of resources to maximum effect. It also encourages volunteers to be active, not just in helping others directly, but also in political campaigning against unfair economic regulations and other root causes of global poverty.
Executive Coordinator of UN Volunteers, Flavia Pansieri, explains how volunteering makes a difference.
Volunteering at Home
Richer countries are no strangers to the role of volunteering within their communities. Such traditions emerged from 19th century extremes of wealth and poverty not dissimilar to conditions in the developing world today.
In Europe and North America the culture has become embedded to the extent that local voluntary organizations are widely recognised for their contribution to social cohesion, papering over the cracks in government welfare programmes.
Developed countries therefore strive to optimise their infrastructure for volunteering. This typically involves supportive employment legislation, establishment of national volunteering councils, public exhortation by politicians, and training for volunteer managers.
Many developing countries possess similar cultural norms for community support, and seek to build on them in national poverty reduction strategies. In Nepal, volunteer community health workers bridge the gap between villages and distant health clinics. They are often drawn from lower caste illiterates but have nonetheless become known as “miracle women”. Volunteering can facilitate greater social inclusion for marginalised people.
The most spectacular success stories involve the immunisation of very large numbers of children. In an inspiring attempt to eliminate polio from West Africa in 2010, the World Health Organization coordinated 400,000 volunteers to deliver synchronised vaccinations to 85 million children across 19 countries.
Countries emerging from periods of strong central state control can experience difficulty in building expectations of voluntary community service. However, in the aftermath of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, 200,000 people from the more affluent regions of China travelled spontaneously to offer assistance.
Volunteering Abroad
Another tradition with its origins in wealthy countries is volunteering overseas, the ultimate experience of non-financial altruism. A commitment on this scale is often motivated by a search for personal fulfilment which goes beyond the core satisfaction of helping disadvantaged people.
The best known agencies offering overseas opportunities are VSO in the UK and Peace Corps in the US. Ironically, the highly professional assignments offered by such organisations are the only branch of volunteering not currently enjoying a period of exponential growth.
Career prospects and mortgage repayments are vulnerable to the standard two year absence on local pay scales typically demanded. The time-driven modern executive often seeks shorter assignments.
The more extreme element of this demand for fast-track overseas volunteering has created a new branch of the travel business known as "voluntourism". This involves visits to developing countries for just a few weeks of engagement on a "project" together with the experience of living within a poor village environment. The "volunteers" typically pay the full costs of the expedition.
"Gap-year" students are a core market for these packages, whilst even shorter term versions are available for "vacation volunteering". There is great variation in these student schemes. Some offer sophisticated flexibility; others reduce the volunteering component to the equivalent of an excursion.
It is no wonder that NGO professionals, wary of the complexity of delivering successful development projects, have been critical of this trend. Unflattering motives are sometimes attributed to the volunteers. And there are deeper concerns that financial rewards for the host communities create incentives which undermine their own long term interests.
A more positive development is the enthusiasm for international volunteering amongst the emerging middle classes in developing countries, leading to south-south assignments. This is particularly strong in India with its burgeoning numbers of medical, information technology and business professionals who are more than capable of delivering the capacity building potential of the best overseas assignments.
VSO volunteer Julie Wilson explains how her experience of teaching in a primary school in Nepal has changed her perspective of education back home in England.
Online Volunteering
Computers and the Internet have unleashed a new breed of volunteer development workers and activists. The expertise of online volunteers bridges gaps between rich and poor communities in ways that sweep aside the logistical shortcomings of traditional overseas volunteering.
There are countless examples of new technologies working for the benefit of of community organizations in poor countries. The construction of a website, translation services, and marketing and fundraising support are examples of quintessential online volunteering.
The tactic of politicians and corporations to leverage power through global groupings can now be mirrored by activists and networks connecting online. Young people in their millions have signed up to the many “causes” on Facebook as a relatively painless first step towards the world of volunteering.
Blog Action Day is an annual event in which bloggers and other purveyors of user-generated content volunteer to address a single issue, triggering the viral potential of the Internet. Even our computers themselves can be volunteered for projects which utilise spare capacity to run small components of vast distributed models, ideal for climate change science.
Employee Volunteering
The spirit of volunteering has natural resonance for those major corporations which profess commitment to the world of corporate social responsibility. Companies encourage employees to volunteer for social projects, typically conceding normal company time for the purpose.
The company becomes an extra link in the chain of beneficiaries of conventional volunteering. It aims to improve its image in the local or wider community, and improve employee skills through teamwork and personal development. The great majority of corporate schemes focus on local community work rather than problems in developing countries.
Some civil society organisations pause for thought before participating in corporate or "employee" volunteering schemes, some of which involve placement of corporate staff within the NGOs themselves. Schemes vary considerably in detail and it is not always clear whether the employees are volunteering in the true sense of giving personal time, or whether it is the company that is donating its time.
However, such programmes can deliver valuable services and corporate volunteering shows every sign of extending to companies based in the developing world.
Integrity at Risk
Politicians too have seized on volunteering as a tool to further the aims of government. In 2009, President Obama signed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, a five-year stimulus of national volunteering. The new UK government has set out its stall for “big society”, a push for community service to prevent further encroachment of public sector services.
The UN is playing its part through the International Labour Organization in publishing a manual to assist governments in calculating the economic value of volunteering. Research provided by the Johns Hopkins University has estimated that volunteering contributes $400 billion per annum to the global economy.
Whether sponsored by corporations, governments or the tourist industry, this cheerleading for the “correctness” and cost/benefit ratios of volunteering pushes against its traditional boundaries. These boundaries resist any hint of conscription or the pursuit of activities which further the interests of the sponsor rather than the beneficiaries.
If the voice of top-down encouragement to volunteer becomes too strong, then the essence of volunteering as a spontaneous non-monetary gesture may be at risk.
Can the modest endeavour of an individual volunteer make any real difference to such formidable problems as global poverty and climate change?
|
| Mozambique-Brazil Youth Exchange © Melisa Dickie / International Women's Health Coalition |
The report reflects how the spirit of volunteering is spreading fast in the developing world especially amongst young people, for whom the context of the MDGs is most meaningful.
A survey of volunteer effort dedicated to climate change and the environment was conducted by the UN’s Volunteering for the Planet initiative in 2009. It yielded the remarkable result that commitment of unpaid time has been far greater in developing countries. Only one western country featured in the top ten.
The task of the professional sector of civil society is to inspire and guide this pool of resources to maximum effect. It also encourages volunteers to be active, not just in helping others directly, but also in political campaigning against unfair economic regulations and other root causes of global poverty.
Executive Coordinator of UN Volunteers, Flavia Pansieri, explains how volunteering makes a difference.
Volunteering at Home
|
| Clean-up volunteers in South Africa © Gideon Mendel/Network / allAfrica.com |
In Europe and North America the culture has become embedded to the extent that local voluntary organizations are widely recognised for their contribution to social cohesion, papering over the cracks in government welfare programmes.
Developed countries therefore strive to optimise their infrastructure for volunteering. This typically involves supportive employment legislation, establishment of national volunteering councils, public exhortation by politicians, and training for volunteer managers.
Many developing countries possess similar cultural norms for community support, and seek to build on them in national poverty reduction strategies. In Nepal, volunteer community health workers bridge the gap between villages and distant health clinics. They are often drawn from lower caste illiterates but have nonetheless become known as “miracle women”. Volunteering can facilitate greater social inclusion for marginalised people.
|
| Polio vaccine given to a child © United Nations Children's Fund |
Countries emerging from periods of strong central state control can experience difficulty in building expectations of voluntary community service. However, in the aftermath of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, 200,000 people from the more affluent regions of China travelled spontaneously to offer assistance.
Volunteering Abroad
Another tradition with its origins in wealthy countries is volunteering overseas, the ultimate experience of non-financial altruism. A commitment on this scale is often motivated by a search for personal fulfilment which goes beyond the core satisfaction of helping disadvantaged people.
|
Career prospects and mortgage repayments are vulnerable to the standard two year absence on local pay scales typically demanded. The time-driven modern executive often seeks shorter assignments.
The more extreme element of this demand for fast-track overseas volunteering has created a new branch of the travel business known as "voluntourism". This involves visits to developing countries for just a few weeks of engagement on a "project" together with the experience of living within a poor village environment. The "volunteers" typically pay the full costs of the expedition.
"Gap-year" students are a core market for these packages, whilst even shorter term versions are available for "vacation volunteering". There is great variation in these student schemes. Some offer sophisticated flexibility; others reduce the volunteering component to the equivalent of an excursion.
It is no wonder that NGO professionals, wary of the complexity of delivering successful development projects, have been critical of this trend. Unflattering motives are sometimes attributed to the volunteers. And there are deeper concerns that financial rewards for the host communities create incentives which undermine their own long term interests.
A more positive development is the enthusiasm for international volunteering amongst the emerging middle classes in developing countries, leading to south-south assignments. This is particularly strong in India with its burgeoning numbers of medical, information technology and business professionals who are more than capable of delivering the capacity building potential of the best overseas assignments.
VSO volunteer Julie Wilson explains how her experience of teaching in a primary school in Nepal has changed her perspective of education back home in England.
Online Volunteering
Computers and the Internet have unleashed a new breed of volunteer development workers and activists. The expertise of online volunteers bridges gaps between rich and poor communities in ways that sweep aside the logistical shortcomings of traditional overseas volunteering.
|
| © Radio Netherlands Wereldomroep |
The tactic of politicians and corporations to leverage power through global groupings can now be mirrored by activists and networks connecting online. Young people in their millions have signed up to the many “causes” on Facebook as a relatively painless first step towards the world of volunteering.
Blog Action Day is an annual event in which bloggers and other purveyors of user-generated content volunteer to address a single issue, triggering the viral potential of the Internet. Even our computers themselves can be volunteered for projects which utilise spare capacity to run small components of vast distributed models, ideal for climate change science.
Employee Volunteering
The spirit of volunteering has natural resonance for those major corporations which profess commitment to the world of corporate social responsibility. Companies encourage employees to volunteer for social projects, typically conceding normal company time for the purpose.
The company becomes an extra link in the chain of beneficiaries of conventional volunteering. It aims to improve its image in the local or wider community, and improve employee skills through teamwork and personal development. The great majority of corporate schemes focus on local community work rather than problems in developing countries.
Some civil society organisations pause for thought before participating in corporate or "employee" volunteering schemes, some of which involve placement of corporate staff within the NGOs themselves. Schemes vary considerably in detail and it is not always clear whether the employees are volunteering in the true sense of giving personal time, or whether it is the company that is donating its time.
However, such programmes can deliver valuable services and corporate volunteering shows every sign of extending to companies based in the developing world.
Integrity at Risk
|
| Barcelona volunteer forum 2004 © Fòrum Barcelona 2004 |
The UN is playing its part through the International Labour Organization in publishing a manual to assist governments in calculating the economic value of volunteering. Research provided by the Johns Hopkins University has estimated that volunteering contributes $400 billion per annum to the global economy.
Whether sponsored by corporations, governments or the tourist industry, this cheerleading for the “correctness” and cost/benefit ratios of volunteering pushes against its traditional boundaries. These boundaries resist any hint of conscription or the pursuit of activities which further the interests of the sponsor rather than the beneficiaries.
If the voice of top-down encouragement to volunteer becomes too strong, then the essence of volunteering as a spontaneous non-monetary gesture may be at risk.
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