Lack of volunteers hurts city groups

Thousands of programs and services run by Edmonton non-profit groups are slowly being undermined by an erosion of volunteers.

The organizations say it’s getting more difficult to recruit reliable new volunteers to replace the base of retirees who are getting too old for the work.

"The baby boomers and whatnot, yes they're retiring, yes they've got more time, but they've also got a different lifestyle," said Coby Mokken, the co-ordinator for Volunteer Edmonton.

"They're not looking for something more ongoing. They're looking more for a project so that, you know, yes, we can go to Arizona, we can come back, and we can do our volunteering."

About 8,000 non-profits in the Edmonton area rely on volunteers for fundraising and unpaid labour. The recently-ended Fringe theatre festival had 1,300 people lending a hand, but it’s a job that’s short term and fun — typical of what today’s volunteers are looking for, according to Fringe helper Nancy Kerr.

"People like the come in, get-the-job-done, go home kind of thing, which for a lot of people, volunteering at the Fringe is like that," Kerr said.

Making a long-term commitment to an organization is another story. The Canadian Liver Foundation’s Northern Alberta chapter has been searching for a new volunteer president, so far without success.

"We've got a strong core of volunteers and they stick with us. They're always there, I know I can count on them," said Carmen Boyko, the chapter’s fundraising manager. "But we're not seeing a lot of new applications and a lot of new interest.

"The worry is that as volunteers move on, there's no one to replace them."

Last Christmas, Operation Red Nose — which drives people and their cars home when they've had too much to drink — had to suspend its Edmonton operations because of a lack of volunteers. The service needs at least 200 people to run.

"The generation that's retiring, really, from volunteering, they had a different attitude towards volunteering. I think it was more — it was something you needed to do, it was your civic duty to do it," Mokken said.

Statistics Canada’s most recent published data on volunteerism, from 2007, says 45 per cent of people countrywide lent a hand to a charity or non-profit at least once in the prior 12 months.

That was about the same proportion as in the previous survey, three years prior. The average volunteer contributed 166 hours of their time.