Diversifying your Volunteers
Overcoming obstacles to volunteering
Widening your range of volunteers is a bit like giving up smoking;it takes time, effort and commitment, and unless you’re convinced that the benefits outweigh the struggle to change you will not succeed.
Imagine you are the managing director of a theatre; you’re worried that your audience is too middle aged and middle class and you want to attract younger people. What do you do? Perhaps you could focus your advertising on media that younger people favour. After all, if you make them more aware of what you have to offer, surely more of them will come along?
Your marketing manager, however, decides to conduct some research by going out and talking to younger people. The results of the survey show that young people think your plays are boring, the auditorium is too cramped, and the tickets are over-priced and the drinks in your bar are too old fashioned. You begin to realise that diversifying your audience is going to involve more than just altering your advertising strategy – some major changes to the way your theatre is run and to your facilities are called for.
The same applies to your group or organisation, you need to understand the benefits that a diverse range of volunteers will bring, and be prepared to look closely at what you need to change in order to succeed.
Why diversify?
Different organisations and groups have their own reasons for wanting to attract a wider variety of volunteers, for some, it’s about being more representative of the community in which they operate or relevant to the services they provide, for example, how can a team of allfemale, white English staff and volunteers successfully deliver advocacy and befriending services to a community of Black West African male Elders?
In other cases, certain types of volunteers may bring a particular quality, people over fifty, for example, are more likely to volunteer with you for longer than younger volunteers who relocate more frequently. If your project exists to improve some aspect of society, how can you be successful if people from a range of backgrounds are not taking an active part in your work?
Setting targets
You need to assess the diversity of your current volunteers before working out how to recruit those who are under-represented. Armed with this knowledge you can determine whether or not you feel the composition of your volunteers is properly representative or appropriate. One way of doing this is to compare your volunteers with the local population.
Another criterion you can use is to evaluate your current diversity against the purpose or aim of your group, for example, if you are a disability rights group, then it would be sensible for a large proportion of your volunteers to have a disability. This assessment will help you to identify which members of the community you want to target.
Overcoming obstacles to volunteering.
People from some sections of the community may have reservations about volunteering with you, such as fear of discrimination or practical barriers such as accessibility.
You need to talk directly to the people you want to recruit, about what discourages them from volunteering with you. There is no point telling someone about the opportunities you can offer them without understanding and finding ways to remove the barriers they face.
Welcome
Your ability to embrace diversity hinges on how welcoming you are to new people. Whilst others may be different from you in terms of age, gender, race or sexuality, anyone you meet for the first time is “different” because they are unknown to you and unfamiliar. It’s all about how willing you are to be open to new people. Plenty of volunteers have felt unwelcome despite being the same colour, age and gender as the others around them. By learning to be more welcoming and accepting you cut across the obvious divides and see each new person as a unique individual who can add value to your work.
WHERE TO GET HELP WITH THIS
Ask your local Volunteer Centre for support and information about diversity and equal opportunities.
Visit the equalities and human rights commission website