ON THE RADAR People who give
State of Volunteering: common challenges, New report provides benchmark to compare results of our membership survey.
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new study of volunteering in NSW has found nearly 4.9 million residents across the state gave more than 1.5 billion hours of volunteer time in 2020, with a value of $127 billion. The NSW State of Volunteering Report, commissioned by The Centre for Volunteering, in conjunction with the NSW Department of Communities and Justice, was released on August 9. It found more people volunteered for more hours in 2020 compared with 2019, up from 4.7 million to 4.8 million, each for an average 25 hours a month. The report provides a timely statewide, cross-sector comparison to MRNSW, which recently completed its own survey of its volunteer membership. Centre for Volunteering Chief Executive Officer Gemma Rygate
said the findings of the report reinforced the fact that volunteering was irreplaceable, delivered substantial return on investment and was a vital ingredient for strong, connected, resilient communities. “The benefits of volunteering are reciprocal and multi-layered - for individuals and groups receiving services from volunteers, for communities, for government, for volunteer-involving organisations and for volunteers themselves,” she said. Commissioner Stacey Tannos said it was a fact that MRNSW could not exist without its volunteer members. “We have more than 3,200 volunteers today and there’s no way we or the Government could afford a
10 MARINE RESCUE NSW | SOUNDINGS
paid workforce of that size,” he said. “There’s no way I could put a dollar value on that contribution to our community - it’s beyond measure. “The Centre for Volunteering study comes at an interesting time, providing us with a benchmark albeit across different areas of the volunteering sector and with a much larger sample size - to compare our volunteers’ views through our own recent survey. “It confirms what we instinctively knew - we face the same challenges as all volunteer organisations and the various impacts of a global pandemic over the past 18 months.” The Centre for Volunteering report analysed the results of a survey randomly sent to NSW residents and “volunteer-involving” organisations. Almost 76 per cent of the adult NSW population volunteered in 2020 and of these, 10.2 per cent did so exlusively in formal settings - such as Marine Rescue NSW. The typical vounteer in this capacity gave 14.8 hours a week. This was by far the smallest proportion, with 30.3 per cent giving their time informally, without organisational support and 59.5 per cent volunteering both formally and informally. In our survey, 58 per cent of respondents estimated they spent between one and eight hours a week on their duties and a further 27 per cent spent eight to 15 hours. An overwhelming 62.4 per cent of the broader volunteering community said they volunteered to help others, with 31.5 per cent for social connection. MRNSW members were motivated by a range of factors, including helping their community, saving lives, learning new skills and meeting new people (73 per cent chose ‘all of the above’). Asked about barriers to volunteering, 55.6 per cent of
Graphics: NSW State of Volunteering Report
existing volunteers and 41.2 per cent of those who did not volunteer nominated a lack of time, due to family, work or study commitments. This is an issue of even greater significance to our volunteers, with 64 per cent of respondents to the MRNSW survey of members identifying personal, work and family considerations as the major impact on their volunteering commitments. Almost 28 per cent of respondents said Covid had had a negative impact on their
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volunteering, including being unable to meet up due to restrictions and stopping the social interaction of volunteering; 7.4 per cent said it had been positive, enabling people to develop new volunteering opportunities closer to home and making people more empathetic. The Centre for Volunteering report highlighted both the diversity of those who give their time to the community across different age groups and employment and life contexts. These ranged
Why do you volunteer?
Moving from Melbourne to Bermagui a few years ago, I still had that desire to help people who are in a spot of trouble. Marine Rescue was a good fit, even down to replacing the blue scrubs with the blue uniform. I have enjoyed learning new skills and befriending many interesting members.” Andrea Wakefield, MR Bermagui
NSW State of Volunteering Report https://www.volunteering.com.au/sovr/
