Big Changes for Nonprofits That Rely On Volunteers

Social distancing and the heightened dangers Covid-19 poses are likely to disrupt volunteerism for months to come and could exacerbate a long-running decline in the number of Americans who volunteer. Especially worrisome for organizations that depend on volunteers: the people most likely to get sick are also a key segment of the volunteer force: older Americans.

But many organizations are now scrambling to find alternatives by developing virtual volunteer opportunities for people who are now required to stay inside to avoid spreading coronavirus.

The need to focus on virtual opportunities comes as the share of Americans who volunteer has dipped.

In 2005, nearly 29 percent of all Americans volunteered.

A decade later, that share was just 25 percent, according to the Corporation for Community and National Service.

The decline wasn’t all that noticeable in part because the people who did volunteer were giving a lot more hours. In 2015, Americans gave nearly 8.5 billion hours of volunteer service, up from slightly more than 8 billion hours in 2008.

Nathan Dietz, a researcher who studies volunteering at the University of Maryland Do Good Institute and co-author of the 2018 paper “Where Are America’s Volunteers?” notes that even though nonprofits have seen “declines in participation, at the organizational level they could make up for that by asking their mainstay volunteers to just dig in and give a little bit more time volunteering.”

Those mainstay volunteers are typically 75 or older.

While people in their 30s and 40s are more likely to volunteer overall, these older Americans typically give twice as much time than any other age group.

With estimates that the coronavirus will remain a threat for 12 to 18 months, that could mean major upheaval for many organizations that rely heavily on volunteers.

Discouraging people from volunteering in person for such a long time could have a long-term impact, says Dietz.

“If we’re being told we should stay away from other people, I think that’s going to have long-term impacts on the willingness of people to get out there and serve their community.”

Quick Adaptations

For organizations that rely heavily on volunteers, the crisis has forced quick changes in how services are provided.

Miriam’s Kitchen, a nonprofit that serves homeless people in Washington, D.C., suspended its volunteer program the first week government officials made clear that the virus had reached the region. It shifted from providing cooked meals in the church’s multipurpose room to distributing prepackaged meals in the church courtyard and telling clients to disperse before eating.

The goal was to limit the possibility of contagion harming clients, staff, and volunteers, many of whom are older.

“Our hope is that we’ll not have to be doing this for more than a month,” Scott Schenkelberg, chief executive of Miriam’s Kitchen, said that week. But just a few weeks later, it is becoming clear that closures will be needed for a long time.

And that means costs to provide meals are likely to keep rising without help from volunteers. What’s more, Schenkelberg lamented that without volunteer help, meals are lower quality, with a focus on dishes that are easy to prepare.

Virtual Volunteering

As more closures spread across the country, Greg Baldwin, president of VolunteerMatch, a website that matches volunteers with opportunities at more than 130,000 U.S. nonprofits, said a quick survey of nonprofits that used the site showed nearly 70 percent had suspended or canceled volunteer programs and events planned for the spring.

By late March, he said that only 30 percent of those organizations were actively trying to expand or launch a virtual volunteer program, though he expects that number to rise.

But the kinds of postings appearing in the past month show that nonprofits are thinking hard about how to enlist extra help for the coronavirus crisis. The American Red Cross, for instance, is posting volunteer opportunities to enlist medical professionals to volunteer at virtual health fairs. Crisis Text Lines, which helps young people who are suffering from depression and other challenges, was enlisting college students to respond to the deluge of messages it is receiving.

“For organizations that have done it before, they are in a much better position,” said Baldwin. “For many organizations, virtual volunteering is a completely new concept for them, so it’s going to be a work in progress.”