DO YOU USE VOLUNTEERS?
Chances are if you are an artist you have worked with, and probably worked as a volunteer.
Volunteers are an important part of our artistic community and there is much that we rely on volunteers for.
I’ve done a little digging and I grabbed some stats from volunteering Australia, but I also put a call out through my own network which is filled with lots of people that volunteer their time and I asked them two questions.
Firstly, “Why do you volunteer?” and second, “What are the sorts of things that make you stop volunteering?”
A BIT OF RESEARCH
The volunteering Australia research tells us that people find volunteering a valuable addition to their lives and in 2014, which is the latest stats I could find. There was over 5.8 million people over the age of 15 in Australia that volunteered their time.
That’s a lot of people!
Something great for us to note as creators is that when people were asked what sectors they would like to volunteer their time in, Arts and Culture, ranked number five out of the top eight sectors that people want to give their time to, and 99% of people who were interviewed would be interested in continuing to volunteer.
As indie creators, it’s really often out of reach for us to be able to pay everyone and cover the costs of everything that we do. We rely heavily on volunteers. Even major theater companies in most cities rely on a volunteer base to help them actually turn a profit.
THE DOLLARS
Volunteers bring a lot of financial benefits to organizations as well. In fact, it was estimated that the collective dollar value of volunteering in 2010 in Australia was in excess of $100,000,000,000.
That is 100 Billion Dollars.
That’s a lot of money!
On top of that financial saving volunteers bring a lot of other benefits as well.
They are more likely to attend community events; they had generally more trusting of other people and they are generally happier than those people who don’t volunteer.
93% of people interviewed said that they saw a positive change or benefit come out of the work that they did as volunteers and 67 percent of businesses believe that new ideas or innovations that they had implemented came about through volunteers.
So you can see the massive benefit that volunteers have, not only to our organizations, to our businesses, but to the community in general.
So what did my network tell me about why they volunteer?
There were a few reason:
• They feel like it helps them make a meaningful contribution.
• They want to give to a worthy goal.
• To support others.
• They want to support a cause that they’re passionate about
• To help them learn
• To help someone else feel value
• To grow personal skills in themselves and other people
• To make friends and be welcomed into a community.
Overall though, the overriding, resounding response ultimately was to feel useful.
They did it because they wanted to feel like that we’re making a difference somewhere else.
WHY DO PEOPLE STOP VOLUNTEERING?
Despite all of that, some people stopped volunteering and interestingly the top reasons cited by volunteering Australia align perfectly with the reasons that my network of people who have stopped volunteering their time.
Not being used to their fullest capacity
Many people who go to volunteer have never been asked what skills they have or what kind of work they’re interested in and ultimately end up feeling like these skills are going to waste.
Out of pocket expenses
Some organizations didn’t fully or even partially reimburse people for what they spent doing the job that they had to do.
A lack of training
Many volunteers as showing just the very basics of how to do the job and thrown in the deep end. Never giving any kind of context as to the bigger picture or what kind of impact their work that they are doing has on the organization as a whole.
A lack of appreciation
The major reason cited was that after being somewhere for a while, people felt like they would be taken for granted and no longer recognized or valued for the contribution that they make.
OUR RESPONSIBILITIES
We have some responsibilities when it comes to volunteers.
Insurance
We need to have the appropriate coverage to make sure that if something goes wrong, that person is looked after. So whether that’s your own public liability insurance or whether you’re able to step through someone else, make sure that you have something in place. Duck For Cover is a really great option for artists that’s offering low cost, public liability insurance. As a collective they can actually keep the costs low. So if you don’t have public liability the basic package starts at a very low rate and is worth checking out.
Teach them
Make sure you take volunteers through any processes and policies that you have in place to make sure that they understand how to do the job, how to do it properly, what not to do, what is unsafe. Make sure those parameters are really clear.
Create a safe work environment.
That involves not just physical safety, but emotional safety, mental safety, and all of the things that go around that safety culture. So make sure that you really think those things through and that can be quite simple. Don’t overthink it, but just make sure you are paying attention to that side of things as well.
LEARNINGS
So what can we learn from all of this when we’re working with volunteers for our creative businesses?
Ask
Ask the volunteer what skills they bring and what type of work they’re interested in doing because then you can align best the time that they’re spending with something that’s going to make them feel like they’re contributing something of value.
Cover required costs
Don’t expect them to spend their own money. Most people are happy to cover transport costs to and from somewhere, but if there’s is something that is required for them, be able to do the job well, then that’s up to us as the business owner to actually provide that for them.
Just make sure that they’re not spending their own money on something that you should actually be providing.
Communicate
If someone reaches out to you, make sure you get back to them. Even if you miss a message and it is now too late to use them, send them a note.
Show gratitude
Actually be thankful for what they’re offering as little or as much as it is. I know when people volunteer for me, if they can come and give me 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever. I’m grateful for that because ultimately it’s something that I don’t have to do myself. Every minute counts.
Every action counts. Every little bit of help that someone offers us is valuable. Please treat it like that. Show them the gratitude. Put something out on social media, privately in an email, whatever you can do to show gratitude privately and publicly will go a long way to helping volunteers feel valued and come back again.
Doing this consistently doesn’t just benefit that volunteer, it can have a wider benefit for your creative business because what you’re doing is showing publicly the culture that you operate within, the values that you hold high within your business, and that in itself can be the thing that attracts more volunteers to help you out.
I would like to thank everyone who contributed to my research on this topic. Your candid responses were an important part of breaking this down and I truly appreciate it.
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