When we spoke to young people, three barriers emerged:
The image of “who” a volunteer was, didn’t represent them
- The image of a “volunteer”, was of the perfect, selfless, saint-like person.
- Young people want to give back through volunteering, but they also want to get a little out of volunteering too.
- Because this saint-like persona was unattainable, it didn’t resonate them.
There were already too many competitors for a young person’s time
The next takeaway was one most volunteer managers are familiar with.
Whenever we do a survey to volunteers or prospective volunteers, TIME was always the biggest barrier.
- The way young people framed it … was that there were too many competitors for their time.
- There was always an opportunity cost of choosing to volunteer OR […insert other activities].
- They said “People my age know how important rest and recovery is and that we’ll burn out if they do too much”.
Young people are conscious of not overcommitting, and when they do commit to an activity they want to make sure they tick off multiple motivations/needs.
There are already so many incredible adverts vying for a young person’s attention
Our third takeaway, whilst we were developing our own advertising campaign, was ironically that there were already so many incredible ads vying for a young person’s attention.
- We are ALL competing for a young person’s attention. ‘ALL’ doesn’t just mean every organisation and volunteer program; it means every brand, experience, or service that’s also advertising to a young person.
- The stereotypical volunteering adverts they were seeing (or scrolling past) were of people wearing blue shirts with ‘volunteer’ written on them; a love heart with ‘volunteer’; or helping hands in a circle.
- When 5… to 50…. organisations are using these same messages/ads how can they possibly compete with others’ audio/graphic/video adverts for new restaurants, shopping experiences, festivals, clothing sales, Sunday beach swims and saunas that are trying to steal their attention.
