Canadians have seen tremendous change these last two months. Whether it was the stock market collapse, the renewed Conservative government (slightly larger version), or the resounding election of President-elect Barack Obama in the US last week, our world is being altered and a generational shift is taking place.

Such is also the case in Canada’s voluntary sector. A major push was begun last week with an initiative by Volunteer Canada that takes aim at the baby boomer generation – or, as they are increasingly calling themselves, the “Zoomers” – asking them to seriously consider the benefits of volunteering and not just retiring away once their previous careers are over.

According to the statistics, there are now more than 11 million baby boomers in Canada.

The other side of 50

At a recent “Zoomer” expo in Toronto, Volunteer Canada set up a booth and advertised their “Volunteer 50 Plus” campaign to thousands of passersby.

Working off internal studies that show volunteering can actually benefit one’s health, the first phase of the campaign is to get the word out to boomers that they may be both physically and mentally rewarded by engaging in volunteer activity.

Their flyer states: “When you volunteer, you are actually improving the life of your own community, by strengthening community ties. As we grow older, volunteering can give new meaning to our lives, reducing anxiety and depression and increasing life satisfaction. Feeling connected to your community can also play a key role in how healthy you feel.”

Volunteer Canada literature also points to their new website, Volunteer50plus.ca, which contains a wealth of information for the boomer cohort to peruse.

Though the information is bountiful, James Brophy, project manager for the campaign, admits that there is still much to qualify. “Thereís a lack of hard evidence [with regard to health benefits of volunteering] because a lot of it has to do with well-being versus actual health,” he explains. Still, the trend for the last decade has seen boomers gravitating toward more volunteer activities, Brophy adds. “You canít quantify how people feel about this [but] as boomers get older they now have the skills, money, and abilities” to make a significant impact in the voluntary sector.

But beyond the appeal to health and lifestyle, Volunteer Canada has also concluded that the old paradigm of volunteering out of a sense of “civic duty” is in the twilight of its effectiveness.

Instead, Brophy says the old guard of volunteers, many now in their 70s and up, will make way for a generational change wherein organizations will need to entice boomers to act out of a sense that they can “improve the world, find personal fulfillment, and maybe start a new career.” To do this, nonprofits need the mechanisms and organizational vision in place to make it work, no matter what size of organization.

“The people are out there, and if you can find them, you can get them,” Brophy states. And they donít all have to be grabbed up by the bigger charities. “The same principles in attracting skilled individuals apply to any size organization. People who are willing to offer their skills to an organization are less concerned with the size [than with] what they’ll get from it and what benefit they’ll give to it. In general, [boomers] like to see things happen when they volunteer.”

For many boomers, in their younger days “all they were doing was making money,” Brophy says. But with their retirements and lifestyle changes now staring them in the face, he says they can now look forward to “making a community” in the nonprofit sector. “In the nonprofit industry, there is absolute potential for [personal] fulfillment,” Brophy declares.

Organizational change on the horizon

Speaking to CharityVillage earlier this month, Volunteer Canada’s Don Lapierre, senior manager, programs and voluntary sector relations, offered his view on the absolute necessity for change in organizational thinking on the subject of volunteers.

“We aim to help organizations to make a stronger connection between the goals and aspirations of the baby boomers to engage in activities with social purpose, and the obvious need of volunteer-involving organizations to thrive and survive. We call this an “integrated HR approach”,” Lapierre says.

Lapierre points to a study done by Volunteer Calgary, explaining what this approach means. The description from that organization”s 2007 document Integrated Human Resource Strategy: Learnings & Implications from the High Skills Volunteer Research Pilot Project is as follows:

“An integrated human resource strategy is a strategically planned approach to identifying the work functions that need to be accomplished in organizations and involving people, whether paid or unpaid, to perform the work needed to achieve the organization’s mission. An integrated human resource strategy assumes that “high skilled” or “professionally skilled” individuals can be engaged in organizations by offering their skills and knowledge in both a paid and volunteer capacity. [This] strategy is not only viable, but will increasingly become a necessity for voluntary organizations to be sustainable. Organizations will have to attract and retain both paid and volunteers and further create a reputation for offering a workplace where people can gain satisfaction from their work regardless of whether they are paid.” — Volunteer Calgary

“We know that boomers want a challenge and a variety of options from which they can choose that best suit their interests and availability,” Lapierre says. “In order to do that, organizations must create a climate that is accepting of organizational change through steps such as development of a work plan for volunteer services with solid position descriptions, creating high impact positions, analyzing and better understanding motivations, giving volunteers the resources they require to get the job done, and of course, sustaining collaboration.”

As such, organizations interested in this can also consult one of Volunteer Canada”s existing resources in a document called A Matter of Design: Job Design Theory and Application to the Voluntary Sector. (PDF)

Lapierre says the paradigm shift is required to create opportunities for high-skilled boomer volunteers to come in and lead as they know how: to create “business plans” or strategic plans for nonprofits for “short-term, high-skilled” commitments of three to five years at a shot.

“Organizations need to be thinking more about engaging this cohort instead of just chasing that next fund development piece where they can just find some resources to pay someone to do that sort of thing,” Lapierre says.

Looking at boomers now, Lapierre says that the notion of full-time education or training and full-time work, followed by “full-time retirement in some sort of lock-step convoy…that notion is gone, out the window for this particular cohort. Therefore, nonprofits have to tap into that, knowing that boomers will be looking more for part-time engagements that will use their vast knowledge base. The people who preceded the boomers, the sort of über-volunteers who are out there…are stepping down from their positions. So we need organizations to engage this next group in a way that will be relevant to them.”

Boomers with skills

Brophy says Volunteer Canada has identified several types of primary volunteers that will be needed in the sector in the coming years. These include: presidents, board members, supervisors, and “skilled volunteers that can help build capacity/support through public image” with skills in web design, communications and fund development.

“The kinds of volunteer jobs that the generation that came before the boomers [did by rote] are not going to work anymore,” Lapierre asserts. “The boomer cohort is really passionate and will want to see some sort of impact they’ve made.”

Additionally, he says Volunteer Canada”s public policy committee is looking into the possibility of allowing volunteers to claim worked hours as tax exemptions or tax rebates.

“We”re looking for the government to recognize the value of the volunteer contribution. We”re not ready yet to make any public statement or stand on whether this is a good or bad thing to do,” he says. “A lot more research has yet to be done, but we’ve started down that path. We”re definitely taking a look at what the benefits and challenges would be to following that path with the government.”

Future forward

Lapierre hopes to have Volunteer Canada”s full marketing plan to reach out to voluntary sector organizations ready to roll out by December of this year.

“All the folks that came by our booth at the Zoomer show told us they were keenly interested in our [idea],” he says. “They said, “this is exactly what we are looking for” and our site will help them see how they can have a positive volunteer experience.”

Though it’s still in its inception, Volunteer Canada”s “Volunteer 50Plus” campaign seems to have the potential to remake volunteerism in Canada. Evidence of this can be found not only in the organization”s literature, but also by the fact that numerous major sector organizations are part of the campaign’s steering committee. These include the Division of Aging and Seniors Public Health Agency of Canada, the Canadian Association of Retired Persons (CARP), the National Office of Federal Superannuates National Association and the Active Living Coalition for Older Adults (ALCOA).

It’s a new volunteer landscape and it appears that boomers will be leading the way. All they need is the right incentive.

Andy Levy-Ajzenkopf is president of WordLaunch professional writing services in Toronto. He can be reached at andy@wordlaunch.com.

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