Peak volunteers..?

In a few years will we will reach peak volunteers..? (like peak oil).

1. Current volunteering participation rates have been pretty flat for more than 10 years.
2. More than 50% of volunteering is done by less than 10% of the population.
3. With Baby boomer retirement numbers peaking in 2030 the situation when it changes will change fast.

So what will it change to..?

1. Gen x-ers have less time, less disosible income, less security, less of an asset base. They also think about their leisure time in very different ways.
2. They have a commercial outlook on many things and have less firm ideas on community and association.
3. They equate membership with transactions (and anyway membership has been plummeting anyway)
4. They are still committed to social causes, but won't use the mechanisms of the last generation to achieve them. 

Remember 30% more baby-booomers retired in 2012 than in 2011.  

So anyone planning services should not be thinking about today but should be thinking about memebership, donors and volunteers when  the wheels start to fall off in 10+ years time. The baby boomers will change a lot about everything (they will do to healthcare & care homes what they did to civil rights and individualism) which will need sorting out in itself, but remember its their sheer numbers that make things inevitable.

We can ride the good times over the next 10 years, but let's also have a plan for the worse..