Toronto needs a volunteer strategy

It’s National Volunteer Week in Canada, an opportune time to ask ourselves where volunteering fits into our lives, and into the life of our city.

According to a 2007 report prepared by Statistics Canada, 12.5 million Canadian volunteers give more than two million hours of their time per year.

Despite this impressive statistic, the rate of volunteering is declining in Ontario (from 50 per cent in 2004 to 47 per cent in 2007). There are fewer willing to give of their time, energy, ideas, influence and/or money to good causes. This is concerning, given that volunteers are the lifeblood of many charitable organizations and deliver many vital social services.

Although it is recognized by the City that volunteers play an instrumental role within various Toronto communities, there isn’t a city-wide volunteer strategy in place to promote volunteerism, connect potential volunteers to suitable opportunities, nor celebrate and recognize their contributions (Toronto’s last set of Community Service Volunteer Awards were handed out in 2006).

Vancouver has extensive online resources for its citizens to learn how and where to volunteer, and Montrealers are offered a comprehensive guide to volunteer opportunities, as well as volunteer bureaus to consult throughout that city.

Why volunteer? Apart from the feel-good aspect of contributing to the community, there are real skills to be learned and networks to be built.

And there is interest in engaging. For example, in a recent survey, Business for the Arts found that young professionals expressed interest in learning about, and spending time, volunteering in the arts and culture sector. What’s missing is a guide to what volunteer opportunities are available.

For someone early in their career, volunteer opportunities offer the opportunity for skill development and learning. Often skills learned while volunteering can be applied to professional endeavours (I’ve found that to be particularly true).

For newcomers to Toronto, volunteer opportunities potentially offer social connection and the ability to build networks, thereby supporting professional aspirations, or fulfilling other needs of the volunteer.

In short, volunteering can offer citizens invaluable building blocks for future success. And our city is built for the better in the process. Toronto needs a volunteer strategy to harness our diverse talent and put it to (pro bono) work.

About Gillian Hewitt Smith

Comments

[Jeff Wood]

I agree that the city of Toronto needs a better strategy for promoting volunteerism. I also think that the city could do better at promoting innovation in the broad, and increasingly important, field of social entrepreneurship (i.e. charities, not-for-profit, and social purpose businesses).

Fortunately, some of the slack is currently being taken up by other organizations.

When it comes to those looking to volunteer, work with, or otherwise support existing non-profit organizations, Toronto is fortunate to have an incredible online resource in Charity Village (www.charityvillage.com), which has an extensive listing of the hundreds of non-profits in the city, as well as job and volunteer opportunities, support events, and online resources. Other organizations also help match potential volunteers with deserving non-profit organizations, like Altruvest (www.altruvest.org), which has a BoardMatch function that helps those looking to volunteer on non-profit boards match up with non-profit organizations that are looking for assistance.

The Ontario government is also getting into the act. It's new Social Innovataion Generation incubator, located at the MaRS discovery district (http://www.marsdd.com/aboutmars/partners/sig), is actively looking to foster innovation in the field of social entrepreneurship.

There are lots of incredibly devoted and talented people working and volunteering in the field of social innovation. Toronto already has lots of resources available to help move this sector of our economy along. If Toronto's municipal government can tap into what already exists, then the the city, and its citizens, will benefit.

[Jessica Reynolds, PR + Comm Director]

http://www.volunteertoronto.ca

This article is extremely misleading as to the state of the voluntary sector in Toronto and heavily distorts many of the issues.

Volunteer Toronto is the product of a city-wide strategy to address matters related to volunteerism in Toronto. For 37 years, VT has promoted volunteerism and connected people with volunteer opportunities. We provide support for individuals, corporate volunteer programs and training for non-profits / charities in Toronto.

Far from operating in isolation, we are partially funded by the City of Toronto, are partners with a wide variety of organizations and public bodies and are the main source for volunteer opportunities in Toronto.

Those looking for volunteer opportunities have but to make a nominal investment of time and effort to volunteer by going to our website to look for opportunities or accessing one of the many other resources online for volunteerism. Far from being marginal, ours and other organizations work closely with thousands of Torontonians a year to connect them with volunteer opportunities.

Recent media includes:
The Toronto Star, Helen Henderson April 3rd, 2010

http://www.metronews.ca/toronto/local/article/506522--inspiring-young-people-to-seize-community-spirit--page0

http://www.globaltoronto.com/video/index.html?releasePID=zHHZlLD73_bnD5GlxPW_l5LsqV9FGBgE

http://www.insidetoronto.com/news/local/article/802659--ontario-youth-volunteer-challenge-launched-at-northern