Universal Declaration On Volunteering
What is Volunteering - Is it for you?
Who Benefits - What's in it for the Volunteer?
What's the benefit for the Community?
Who Volunteers?
Culture of the Organisation
Without Financial Payment
National Standards For Volunteers
How Do I Become a Volunteer?
Universal Declaration On Volunteering
Volunteering is a fundamental building block of a civil society. It brings to life the noblest aspirations of human-kind - the pursuit of peace, freedom, opportunity, safety, and justice for all people.
In this fast paced era of globalisation and continuous change, the World is becoming smaller, more interdependent, and more complex. Volunteering - either through individual or group action - is a way in which:
- Human values of community, caring, and serving can be sustained and strengthened;
- Individuals can exercise their rights and responsibilities as members of communities, while continuing to learn and grow throughout their lives, realising their full potential;
- Connections can be made across differences that push us apart so that we can live together in healthy, sustainable communities, working together to provide innovative solutions to our shared challenges and to shape our collective destinies.
At the dawn of the new millennium, volunteering is an essential element of all societies. It turns into practical, effective action the declaration of the United Nations that "We, the Peoples" have the power to change the world.
What is Volunteering - Is it for you?
Australians have the right to contribute to the society in which they live. Volunteers enhance the quality of services being provided by community-based non-profit organisations. Volunteers are people who help provide a service that benefits the wider community. They do this of their own free-will and without financial payment. The distinction between voluntary work and other types of work can appear hazy to some people. Some volunteering is structured; that is, it is administered through an organisation or association. Volunteering can also be informal, such as driving a neighbour to a medical appointment or fundraising by selling raffle tickets. The most popular areas of volunteer work are by contributing to: sporting, education, religion, health and welfare, community service, recreational, emergency services, arts, environmental as well as heritage organisations.
Who Benefits - What's in it for the Volunteer?
Volunteering provides an opportunity to become involved in your community, meet other people and make a positive contribution, it is a means of enhancing specific skills and talents, personal development and self-esteem. The experience gained doing volunteer work offers an advantage if you feel that you wish to pursue a paid career.
Do you need experience to get a job or a job to get experience?
The personal benefits to you as a volunteer are that you get to -
- participate and be actively involved in the community
- develop and share personal skills
- share in the life of the community
- develop and share work skills & knowledge
- feel needed by society
- gain valuable career experience
- help someone else
- build self esteem & confidence
- try something different
- network
- meet people and develop your social skills
What's the benefit for the Community?
Volunteering benefits the community as a whole. Volunteer work is based in non-commercial settings; that is, settings where the primary focus is not on making a capital gain. However, not-for-profit organisations are run like any other businesses, the difference being that any income received through sales and service or other means goes back into the organisation and back into the communities that support it. Volunteer work can either be through a non-profit organisation such as a neighbourhood centre, a museum or a sporting group, or volunteering can be as informal as driving a neighbour to a medical appointment or picking up their groceries. Everyone realises that funding buckets are getting smaller because these days they are being spread around more thinly by governments. Managing a tight budget for an organisation’s running costs is tough enough – excess money to pay volunteers a wage would be nice – just don’t hold your breath – not just yet, anyway! The reality is, not-for-profit organisations would be forced to close their doors if it were not for the assistance freely given by millions of generous, willing and caring volunteers.
Forget everything you’ve ever heard about the sorts of people who volunteer - It’s for everyone! About 1 in 4 adult Australians volunteer and this number is climbing. Volunteers are people who choose to share their time, knowledge, experience, skills and energy with the community for no monetary reward. People from as young as 15 to as mature as 95 years of age volunteer, although the majority of volunteers are from the 30 – 44 age group. They come from the full gamut of backgrounds, and collectively have a vast array of skills. Volunteers who may have special needs are also given the opportunity to participate in community life. Volunteers contribute to the smoother and more cost-efficient way of running organisations, but they in no way compete with the work of those in paid positions. Volunteers are not substitutes for paid workers. Society could not function effectively without volunteer efforts. Furthermore, over 60% of volunteers also work in full-time or part-time paid employment.
Roughly equal number of men and women perform volunteer work? Volunteering is an integral part of Australian society. Volunteers are found in schools, sporting and community groups, welfare agencies, search and rescue operations and political parties; in other words, all facets of society are improved by volunteers. Since the early colonisation days Australian culture has been historically linked to volunteering.
The importance of the ‘organisational culture’ is to treat volunteers fairly and equally. Additionally when a person is volunteering, the attitudes of people in key positions towards encouraging volunteer involvement in the organisation should never be under-rated. Traditionally, people who volunteer care about their fellow humans, they see value in a fair and just society for everybody, and up-hold the Australian way of life to ‘role up the sleeves and pitch in’ as active participants to ensure their communities prosper and grow. Wide Bay Volunteers aims towards encouraging a supportive environment that recognises individual volunteers’ needs, skills and experiences. In doing so, we endeavour to encourage and support through inclusion and involvement the ‘not so confident’ potential volunteer.
Volunteer work is never for payment. However, out-of-pocket expenses, such as travel costs, may be reimbursed. Once the volunteer position becomes a paid position, the work ceases to be voluntary. Some people are sometimes paid for a certain amount of hours a week to run a program for a not-for-profit organisation while still contributing volunteer hours.
At times, volunteer work can directly lead to paid employment. This should never be the sole motivation for volunteering though. Volunteering is also an invaluable pathway for gaining experience, improving and learning new skills, which will assist people in obtaining paid employment. It builds on skills and confidence and thereby motivates many volunteers to pursue further training and/or to apply for paid positions.
National Standards For Volunteers
National Standards have been developed by Volunteering Australia to ensure that all organisations using volunteers maintain a 'best practice standard', and that volunteers are not exploited. National Standards are in place to help protect and develop the industry and the workers within the voluntary industry. Volunteer management or coordination is now regarded as a legitimate and worthwhile career choice.
As volunteers make up the major portion of the not-for-profit sector's work force - a sector of the economy worth nearly $45 billion or 10% of gross domestic product - thus, the need for standards to protect volunteers' rights has become increasingly important.
If you wish to become a volunteer you can either Contact Wide Bay Volunteers by phone on (07) 4151 6644 or 1300 301 018 (regional areas) for more information, or to arrange an appointment to meet with one of our volunteer referral officers. If you are a resident of Bundaberg we will arrange a time for you to come in for a face-to-face interview. Or, alternatively if you live in a regional area we will contact you by phone and conduct an interview this way. At the interview, a volunteer referral officer will ask for details about your interests in volunteer work and what you hope to gain from the experience. You can then choose a volunteer position from the list of many and varied opportunities available.
Once you have chosen a volunteer position, you are given a job description form, which gives details of the job required and the contact information for the organisation. The interviewer will contact the organisation of your choice and forward your contact details onto the organisation, who will then make an appointment for you to meet them. It is then your responsibility to go to the nominated organisation and attend the appointment.
The amount of time required varies according to the type of volunteer position and the organisation requirements as well as considering your own time availability. As a general rule volunteer work should not exceed 16 hours per week, however this is a general guideline and it is entirely your choice if you choose to do more.