Young people volunteer their time, skills and enthusiasm in activities as diverse as chatting online to people who need help, planting trees for regeneration projects or fundraising for charities.
Table of contents:
Who are they?
Young people are generally defined as being between 12 and 25 years of age and represent the fastest growing group of volunteers in Australia.
Why involve young people in your organisation?
Young people can contribute:
- enthusiasm, energy, creativity and flexibility
- new perspectives, ideas, theories and knowledge
- to bridging the gap between generations
- to preventing your volunteer base from shrinking over time
- because people who start volunteering early tend to continue to volunteer for the rest of their lives.
Why do young people get involved?
Young people volunteer to:
- reach out and make a difference to others and a cause
- obtain work experience and new skills, particularly ones that can be included on a resume
- have fun and meet new people.
What changes can your organisation make?
Organisations can attract young people by:
- Accepting young volunteers as equals.
- Being more flexible. Can you do things outside of normal working hours? Could you use online volunteering online volunteering more effectively?
- Ensuring policies and practices are not discriminatory. Can you abolish age limits by changing the kind of activities available?
- Reassessing your volunteer programs. How would they change if young people were involved? How could they be done differently? Do you have any projects that specifically target young people?
- Not assuming what young people can or can't do — think of what they could achieve if they had adequate support and mentoring. How can they use their knowledge and life experience?
- Having young people in decision-making roles.
- Listening to young people and helping them build upon their ideas.
Tips for finding and keeping young volunteers
To find and keep young volunteers:
- Be strategic with your advertising e.g. university campuses and music magazines
- Identify the benefits associated with your volunteering opportunity — a reference, something to add to their CV, training, meeting new people or learning new skills.
- Try to offer reimbursement for travel expenses, social occasions or other incentives.
- Use youth-friendly language, such as 'retail experience' instead of 'shop duties' or 'marketing experience' instead of 'fundraising'.
- Talk to local schools and education and training institutes — they often look for volunteering opportunities for students.
- Be flexible about timing. Many young people are juggling work and study so may need to adjust their volunteering hours as their study or work commitments change.
- Look for a shorter commitment from young people, such as project-based tasks.
- Get your young volunteers to help evaluate the program to improve and develop it.
- Check your insurance policy covers younger volunteers.
- Acknowledge and reward volunteers.
Links
Act Now
Our Community
Volunteering Queensland
Volunteering Australia
Resources
Fact sheet - Engaging young volunteers
Experience Volunteering video
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia License