Volunteering isn’t dying — it’s drifting

I have volunteered for charities most of my adult life. I’ve done street outreach for sex workers, sat on the board of an organization that serves women involved with the criminal justice system, cooked lunch for resident alcoholics in a managed alcohol program and currently help to collect and distribute used furniture to vulnerable people in need. I even went to Tanzania about a dozen years ago as a volunteer writer for an international development agency.

Volunteering can be tedious, draining, time-consuming and stressful. Working conditions are rarely optimal; you’re often scrounging for supplies and making do with haphazard structure and direction. So why do it? Everyone has a reason and here’s mine: I’m a Lefty and the world disappoints me with war, cruelty, intolerance and hate. My cure for despair is not staying in outrage or endlessly refreshing bad news. For me, it’s doing something tangible in and for my community. When my shift is done, I think, there, I made something better, and the bullhorn of disappointment is temporarily muted. In other words, volunteering gives me hope; it makes me feel better.

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Which is interesting because people often falsely equate volunteering with altruism. I’m hardly selfless. Helping others is part of it, of course, but so is curiosity, hunger for novel experiences and my desire to pay a tax, however small, on white privilege. “From each according to his ability,” goes that famous socialist phrase, “to each according to his needs.” I have the ability right now. Others don’t.

All this got me thinking about motivation. According to people who study volunteering, I might be motivated by hedonism — volunteering as a way to prioritize my own pleasure and enjoyment — or perhaps eudaemonia — prioritizing growth, virtue and authenticity. Anyway, does the “why” matter if the job gets done? Years ago, I volunteered at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival to get free passes, but I still contributed to its success. A volunteer I met in Tanzania was providing specialized advice to a nascent credit union, but he was clearly a volun-tourist, there to see giraffes and climb Mount Kilimanjaro.

Regardless of motivation, volunteers do substantial heavy lifting in Canada. We fight wildfires, save whales, collect litter, serve soup, sustain theatre companies, coach basketball, care for animals, teach people languages, get politicians elected and help newcomers settle in — all for free. In 2023 alone, total formal and informal volunteer hours in Canada exceeded four billion. By comparison, the total number of paid hours worked by Canadians aged 15 and up is about 8.2 billion, meaning volunteers did the equivalent of half that — for free. Sounds amazing, right?

Here’s the bad news: a recent Statistics Canada survey covering 2018-2023 shows the number of volunteers in Canada, and the number of hours volunteered, is declining. One of the most significant decreases was among 25 to 34-year-olds whose rate of volunteering dropped 24 per cent, compared to the previous survey, and the total number of hours they volunteered fell by 42 per cent.

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Analysts say it’s likely due to factors such as COVID-19 and the rising cost-of-living which forces people to work more. But perhaps our virtual lifestyles, polarized opinions, social media distractions and ad-fuelled entitlement are disconnecting us from real neighbours and communities. This might be especially true for young people alienated from the messiness of physical interaction by new technologies and a global pandemic — both of which were beyond their control.

And yet, implied realities and algorithmic “communities” are exactly what’s prompting middle-agers like me to feel the opposite, to crave the human interaction and real-time stimulation we once had.

Not all of us though.

That StatsCan survey also said women are volunteering less. Canadian cities are struggling with burgeoning needs and chronic underfunding — while many of us continue to post about Gaza or Greenland. It’s worth remembering that platforms profit from our attempts to signal concern.

If life makes you anxious, skip the meme machine. Walk a shelter dog, coach your kid’s soccer team, practice English with a newcomer or visit an elderly person who’s forgetting everything they once knew.

Trust me, doing good feels good. And who knows? It might actually be fun.

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Lisa Gregoire is a freelance writer in Ottawa.