The Decline of Rural Volunteerism
Posted on | September 21, 2009 | No Comments
Did you know …
- rural residents are more likely to have a strong sense of belonging to their local community;
- rural residents are more likely to attend public meetings; and
- rural residents are more likely to do volunteer work?
It’s true.*
It’s also been documented that rural volunteerism helps nurture community sustainability.
Yet there are signs that volunteering rates may be moving into a decline. In many rural and rurban communities, evidence is already visible … with many organizations reporting difficulty finding – and keeping – enough volunteers to continue operating.
“It’s a paradox,” says Linda Graff, noted author and non-profit sector specialist. “Every Canadian is deeply affected by the contributions of thousands of volunteers and yet the efforts going on all around us remain below our consciousness. Each of us might occasionally notice when a volunteer’s effort touches us directly, but we don’t add it all up to see the enormity of what volunteering provides to our way of life – or the impact of what we will lose when volunteering declines over the next few years.” Graff is deeply concerned. “There is a fundamental shift on our horizon. None of us will escape its impact.”
In a wake-up call to Canadians, Linda Graff and Dr. Paul Reed have examined the data and are speaking out to citizens in effort to highlight this far-reaching trend. Their website – canadawhocares.ca – is well-presented, easy to navigate, and has relevant downloads and media tools to support their calls to action.
So … why haven’t I heard of this project until now? Have you? Is there something about the word ‘volunteer’ that people tune out?
In my experiences as a volunteer and working both for and with not-for-profit organizations, many rural and rurban residents choose to participate in their communities, not volunteer, even though many of those activities – coaching a sports team, sitting on a Board of Directors, or baking for a fundraiser, for instance – can be considered volunteer activities.
Rural residents have long nurtured their sense of independent purposefulness … of just getting things done, and getting on with it … and volunteer organizations evolved, in part, as support mechanisms necessary for rural life.
What hasn’t changed, however, is the importance of these groups to the basic level of operation in a rural community. Without the capacity of municipal governments to deliver programs and services, rural communities have relied upon their service groups’ work as a backbone to basic survival. And if the trends suggested by Graff and Reed come to pass, this may result in major structural changes in rural communities and further pressure residents to migrate to urban areas.
Rural communities need to take action to ensure this doesn’t happen. Click on canadawhocares.ca to find out more.
*Source: Rural and Small Town Canada Analysis Bulletin, Statistics Canada
***
The small community of Didsbury, Alberta, has taken this message to heart and is offering a two-day conference on rural volunteerism with Linda Graff. Click here for more information.
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