2008 Woodie Awards
New-wave volunteerism
Volunteering is up among youths in creative ways
By: Jesse Thiessen
Issue date: 5/20/08 Section: Opinion
"We're eager to help, but not to join."
That was the headline of an Oregonian article on Sunday, May 4, about new nationwide trends of volunteering. More often, people are choosing to volunteer their time in an a la carte sort of way. Instead of joining civic organizations such as an Elks or Rotary Club, altruistic individuals are spending their time day to day, here and there, dropping in on projects and causes when they can make it work.
"Volunteers might pull an all-nighter for an issue close to their hearts, but don't ask them to join a subcommittee," Laura Oppenheimer wrote. "It's about the experience, not the institution." "Episodic volunteering," as the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) calls it, is on the rise.
While the downswing of civic organizational membership is definitely due to a generational gap (a paltry 10 percent of the downtown Rotary Club chapter is aged 35 or younger), American adults are actually volunteering more than at any other time in the last 30 years, with a 28.8 percent volunteer rate in 2003-05, according to the CNCS.
That figure is up from a historic low of 20.4 percent in 1989, when, it's theorized, the "Me Culture" of the '80s helped people disconnect and lose touch with community. But a volunteering America has been resurgent in recent years, though it has taken a very different shape.
Not only are people volunteering their time under less bureaucratic and organized conditions, they're doing it in ways that fit their lifestyle. In true 21st century style, volunteers take interests or skills, from cooking to organizing to bicycle repair, and look for a way to make them useful when they can, streamlining selflessness into their busy modern lives.
In fewer places is this more evident than the Web-based organization Hands On Greater Portland (www.handsonportland.org), which connects volunteers with projects of their liking. You can browse through a master calendar of volunteer opportunities, or search through projects by region, time commitment and type of skill needed.
That was the headline of an Oregonian article on Sunday, May 4, about new nationwide trends of volunteering. More often, people are choosing to volunteer their time in an a la carte sort of way. Instead of joining civic organizations such as an Elks or Rotary Club, altruistic individuals are spending their time day to day, here and there, dropping in on projects and causes when they can make it work.
"Volunteers might pull an all-nighter for an issue close to their hearts, but don't ask them to join a subcommittee," Laura Oppenheimer wrote. "It's about the experience, not the institution." "Episodic volunteering," as the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) calls it, is on the rise.
While the downswing of civic organizational membership is definitely due to a generational gap (a paltry 10 percent of the downtown Rotary Club chapter is aged 35 or younger), American adults are actually volunteering more than at any other time in the last 30 years, with a 28.8 percent volunteer rate in 2003-05, according to the CNCS.
That figure is up from a historic low of 20.4 percent in 1989, when, it's theorized, the "Me Culture" of the '80s helped people disconnect and lose touch with community. But a volunteering America has been resurgent in recent years, though it has taken a very different shape.
Not only are people volunteering their time under less bureaucratic and organized conditions, they're doing it in ways that fit their lifestyle. In true 21st century style, volunteers take interests or skills, from cooking to organizing to bicycle repair, and look for a way to make them useful when they can, streamlining selflessness into their busy modern lives.
In fewer places is this more evident than the Web-based organization Hands On Greater Portland (www.handsonportland.org), which connects volunteers with projects of their liking. You can browse through a master calendar of volunteer opportunities, or search through projects by region, time commitment and type of skill needed.
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