What can we learn from the London games about volunteering..?

So LOCOG tells us 40% of 250,000 people who applied to volunteer for the 2012 games had never volunteered before. 


Think about that. 


And compare it with hundred of volunteer recruitment campaigns over the last 10 years. The London volunteers were prepared to pay for their own lodgings, travel and much more. The people who put together this programme were prepared to spend £1,000 a head. Not £8 a head on a Christmas lunch. Whatever you think of this - we are entering a very different world on volunteering. So why the marked difference between the do-gooding, and the feeling-part-of, the obligation and the celebration?


Ok, the pull of the games is different from the pull of helping out at a hospice, running a scout group or being a trustee of a user led organisation. I get a bit nervous working for the national trust that volunteering is a bit of fluff, that its not life-changing, wondering round some garden, or explaining conservation techniques in some peat bog. Also i find LOCOGs triumphalism a bit nauseating. So lets find somewhere between.  

• There are a large number of people who, when they volunteer their time, want to do something with more impact than holding a hand, or keeping a church door open. 
• Lots of these people don’t currently volunteer and beyond the baby boom bulge of the next 10 years (and increase of people with time on their hands, and in good health) 

As far as I know the national trust is alone in undertaking huge research into the motivations of its volunteers. When we know what they want, we can hopefully build a better offer. But lets not pretend we can sidestep a lot of the existing volunteer centres, and volunteer recruitment campaigns and succeed overnight. Lets stop asking people to put their hands up in obligation, lets get the data on what motivates people, give them more of what they want, and build a fun sense of mutualism that fits better with the 21 Century.