In 2021, Volunteering Australia’s CEO, Mark Pearce, highlighted that change would be a constant. An apt prediction as we move into 2022 and continue to live with unpredictability.
Despite the ongoing and “seemingly endless time-frame” of COVID-19, Pearce believes 2022 can herald a positive change for volunteering. He lists the following key trends that we should expect to see this year:
- Communities reconnecting: throughout the pandemic, people have been required to physically distance themselves from each other, whilst still needing to connect. Volunteers and volunteer-involving organisations have had to devise new ways to address the challenge of how volunteers and organisation will work for those who are digitally excluded, as technology plays an increasing role in our lives and in our society.
- Enhanced choice and control: we lost our grip on choice and control during the pandemic. One way to get these back is to volunteer. Pearce firmly believes that volunteering “serves as a dependable vehicle providing individuals with purpose, choice, and a sense of control over how they can shape the future.”
- Increased recognition of the strategic importance of volunteering: volunteers have always served an essential role in our community, but natural disasters and the pandemic have highlighted this even more. Many leaders report that if it wasn’t for the unpaid volunteer workforce, their paid employees would likely not have jobs.
It’s therefore now time to move from the notion that “things are changing” to acknowledging that change is a constant. We need to think differently and to create solutions that fit the new reality.
Volunteering Australia has developed the National Strategy for Volunteering which provides the government with the opportunity to engage and invest more in supporting the volunteering workforce.