Volunteer organizations in North America have their earliest roots in social services and health care. Benjamin Franklin formed the first volunteer firehouse in 1736. Faith-based organizations like Society of Saint Vincent de Paul were introduced in Eastern Canada in the 1800s to provide assistance to the elderly and penniless following deadly epidemics. Ladies' Aid Societies provided medical supplies and treatment to soldiers during the American Civil War. When Senior Centers were first formed in the mid-1900s, they were a natural environment for continuing this spirit of caring and support.
Although April was officially Volunteer Appreciation month, we believe that volunteers should be celebrated anytime and every time you want! In this issue we explore volunteerism rates, the number of hours donated, preferred volunteer activities by age group, and the profiles of volunteers from across the MySeniorCenter Network. Plus, there's a downloadable word cloud at the bottom of this column that shows some popular ways that volunteers help Centers.
Welcome to...Fun Facts
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We're lucky that volunteers exist. They're the people who support you and your participants by choice, with no concern for monetary benefit. Volunteers help us survive and thrive. Across the Network, there are, on average, 3.5 volunteers for every 100 Center participants. That average had a low of 3.1 in 2015 to a high of 3.86 last year. The graph below shows the percentage for each over the last 10 years.
Many of those volunteers start out as participants and convert to volunteers over time. For those who are inclined to donate their time, the average number of days until conversion is 417. The opposite is also true. Volunteer programs can be a great way to recruit new members. 65% of all volunteers become participants or cash donors at the Center.
There were over 50M hours (yes, that's million) of volunteer work captured across the Network in 2024. See the sidebar Weight Of Gold to see the in-kind $ value of that donated time.
About half of all volunteers contribute 1-40 hours per year. The other half make up the lion's share of hours. This next graph breaks out volunteers by hours worked.
The 2% out to the right of the graph equates to 10 hours per week. There are some people in that number who work 30 or more hours per week! As some of you know, Tina's mother, Priscilla, volunteers at her local Center and was recently recognized as the Volunteer of the Year for the entire town. Congratulations Priscilla!
There are a few sweet spots in life for volunteering. Certainly for young parents, volunteering comes in the form of helping at school or youth activities. As we get older and the demands of work and family lessen, there are spare hours to dedicate to preferred causes like the Center. The graph below shows the percentage of volunteers by age range.
The activities that are of interest to volunteers also change with age. Although there are thousands of jobs that you offer, we did our best to boil the majority of them down to five categories for the purpose of this next graph.
HDM, or home-delivered meals, decreases as age increases. Front desk and board membership both increase with age.
We've created an updated version of the popular "profile of a giver" which shows how the average volunteer compares to the average non-volunteer participant:
So, the next time you see a 70-ish year old married person carrying a yoga mat and sending a text, make sure you tell them about the great opportunities to volunteer at your Center!
We worked with our designer to come up with a couple of different images (dark on light and light on dark) showcasing the amazing things that volunteers do to support you and your participants. Feel free to download these and use them however you see fit. Speaking of fit, these would make for a great t-shirt design at your next volunteer appreciation party.
To Download the light on dark version shown above, click here.
For the dark on light, click here.
As volunteer programs grow in number and importance, keeping track of everything can be daunting. There's the need to document all of the tasks, recruit and assign volunteers to do the work, manage volunteer requirements, keep track of hours for reporting, and much more. At MySeniorCenter, we've been hard at work to make all of that easier for you. Later this year, we'll be rolling out a new Volunteers section, with an optional dedicated app for your volunteers to use on their own devices.
Some key elements:
- Dashboard showing open activities where volunteers are still needed
- Invite volunteers to sign up for activities through a dedicated app
- Assign volunteers to different tasks
- Create volunteer profiles with interests
- Manage volunteer requirements like drivers license and insurance
Before the new version is available, we'll hold a series of public web-based trainings to get you ready.
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