While “mandatory volunteering” is an oxymoron, it is a growing trend that is worth watching. The 2000 National Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating (NSGVP) posed this question to volunteers: was one of your reasons for volunteering because you were required to do so by your school, employer or the government? More than 7% answered “yes” and that 7% equaled 484,000 Canadians who gave more than 72 million hours of their time – a significant stat in light of overall declining numbers of volunteers.

It’s a trend that is important to Volunteer Canada. In fact, they recently commission author, trainer and consultant Linda Graff to develop a discussion paper to more thoughtfully and thoroughly examine the issue. “We felt it was timely,” says Ruth MacKenzie, Volunteer Canada’s director of programs and operations, “particularly in the context of affirming the definition and philosophy of volunteering as giving of one’s time and energy, without pay, for the benefit of others and of one’s own free will. From an advocacy perspective, it’s important that those who have an interest in volunteerism understand, embrace, and protect the inherent values of volunteerism.”

Maintaining the integrity of the term “volunteer”

First off, Graff wants a clear distinction made: “‘Mandatory service’ is the term that I use and I will never use the term ‘mandatory volunteering’. I’ve always believed that one of the fundamental, defining variables of volunteering is free will. Any type of mandatory service is, therefore, by definition not volunteering.” While the project started with a focus on court-mandated, workfare and school-related service requirements, it soon became clear that the topic was much larger than Graff or Volunteer Canada realized. As Graff puts it, “more or less coerced involvement takes many forms,” – from the “stick” variety that is all about penalty and punishment to the “carrot” variety that is incentive-driven (like some corporate days of service where the incentive is tightly tied to employment perks).

The problem exists when these activities are called “volunteering” and are confused with volunteerism. Do an Internet search of the term “mandatory volunteering” and thousands of entries pop up. Continues Graff, “If we have a thing that we know as volunteering and it becomes associated with a lot of other things that are not volunteering – that are in fact antithetical to volunteering – what are we doing to the notion of volunteering? We need to insist on a separation. That’s my number one concern and the number two concern is that we look at the consequences for the future of volunteering behaviour. I fear that we are actually living through an evolution in the social construction of volunteering, but we are too close to see it and the results and implications will only be truly understood in hindsight.”

Graff makes it clear that the message is not that these forms of service are all negative, but that it is important to understand their place and to distinguish them from volunteering. Volunteering is so important to Canada’s service system that anything that has the potential to damage it needs to be monitored very carefully. Graff warns that it would be a serious error to assume that volunteers will always be available in the numbers needed to sustain community life and that makes the stakes exceptionally high.

Graff also thinks it is important to pay attention to the many forms of mandated service in other countries around the world. There is the potential for programs piloted elsewhere to end up in Canada. For instance, Graff uncovered federal legislation in the U.S. that allows providers of public housing to tie community service to eligibility for public housing. In another example, an educational system handed out mandatory service as a penalty for truancy – including community service for the parents! But what is happening in our country? What are the thoughts from those on the front lines?

Financial incentive skews the picture

Jennifer Woodill, coordinator of volunteer and community relations at St. Christopher House, a Toronto-based neighbourhood centre, says she receives inquiries every day from people in the Ontario Works program. (Ontario Works is an employment program for people on social assistance. In order to remain eligible for social assistance, participants must choose to attend ESL classes, a job search program, to “volunteer”, etc.). The situation Woodill faces drives home Graff’s point about the blurring of the definition of volunteerism. In Toronto there is an extra $100 transportation allowance for those on Ontario Works who choose the volunteering option. Says Woodill, “People can’t live off of social assistance so when told there is $100 for volunteering, that’s a huge amount of additional money. I can understand that people want the $100, but I ask if there are other reasons they want to volunteer.”

Woodill believes that it’s discriminatory to prohibit people from volunteering if they are on Ontario Works. The assistance program may have brought them to St. Chris but they are treated as volunteers – Woodill doesn’t distinguish between other volunteers and those who are doing Ontario Works community hours. Since St. Christopher House is not a formal Ontario Works partner, Woodill doesn’t communicate with them, nor does she track hours for them. What she will do is provide a letter to the volunteer directly, which they can submit to their case worker – in the same way, for instance, that she would provide a letter for a volunteer to support a college application.

Making the most of the situation

Colin Thacker, coordinator of volunteer services at the Northeast Mental Health Centre in North Bay, Ontario did his masters of education thesis on the 40-hour community service required for graduation by Ontario high school students. The main problem, according to Thacker, is that the 40 hours of community service work is really not connected to any school curriculum; it’s a stand alone activity, done outside of school hours. Thacker promotes the community service learning model used in the United States where the service is directly tied to classroom learning.

On average, 15 high school students contact Thacker per month about fulfilling their 40 hours. He doesn’t make a big deal about distinguishing between volunteerism and community service. He prefers to look at the situation as an opportunity.”We have an opportunity under Ontario’s initiative to have our young people become more appreciative of volunteering, what it has to offer them, and what they can do to contribute to others in a meaningful way. We need to treat volunteers who surface from our educational program as volunteers, and they need to be part of the overall volunteer movement not in a class by themselves.” Thacker finds that the majority of the high school students stay beyond their 40-hour requirement.

Who is the volunteer?

Another form of mandated service is the community service order. Sharon Geoghegan, the community work services supervisor at the John Howard Society of North Island in Campbell River, BC, has a unique take on who the “volunteers” are in a court-mandated situation. From her perspective, even though youth who are court-mandated to do community service may work alongside volunteers, you can’t consider them volunteers at all. “The youth do not have the choice – they are court-ordered to do the service. The ‘volunteers’ are the ones accepting the placement [either a nonprofit organization, a senior, or a single parent on social assistance],” she explains. “They are the ones who choose to be part of the program. Therefore, they are the volunteers.”

Mandated community service is a huge topic with many variations and implications. It is a reality that needs careful thought to figure out where it fits into the landscape. Mackenzie hopes the soon-to-be-released discussion paper helps those who involve volunteers understand the implications of mandatory community service in order to appropriately adapt volunteer management practices and effectively recruit, engage and motivate individuals who are involved through those programs. (The discussion paper, an executive summary, a document focusing on the volunteer program management implications, and items for further research will all be available this spring at www.volunteer.ca.)

Louise Chatterton Luchuk is a freelance writer and consultant who combines her love of writing with experience at the local, provincial and national levels of volunteer-involving organizations. For more information, visit www.luchuk.com.

Linda L. Graff is an author, trainer, and consultant specializing in volunteer program and nonprofit management. She can be reached at www.lindagraff.ca.