Recognising barriers and celebrating difference for volunteers

This year’s Volunteers’ Week gives us an opportunity to focus on diversity and inclusion

There’s a lot of information out there about practical steps to widen volunteer engagement. But it’s worth taking a step back and considering how we approach this.

We can think of people as being in different groups. Some groups in society face systemic disadvantages and under-representation. It’s important to recognise this, and carry out monitoring to see the barriers people can face because they’re in a certain group.

But everyone is an individual. People have differing needs and experiences. If we think of people as just their social group, we risk creating our own stereotypes and ignoring the individuality that makes each volunteer’s contribution special.

People as members of a social group

It’s important to recognise the different social categories people can be divided into — especially as some face discrimination and oppressions based on them. This can be because of race and ethnicity, disability, gender, age, sexual orientation and gender identity.

There are specific barriers for groups that might affect access to opportunities. Widening participation means recognising that these barriers exist and taking action to remove them.

These might be psychological, based on impressions, stereotypes or assumptions. For example, our Witness Service may appear to be part of a criminal justice system that some people have negative feelings towards. People may assume they need some kind of legal or academic background to be able to participate in local Citizens Advice.

The barriers could also be practical — access in older buildings might be poor. A major barrier to volunteering is not being aware of the opportunity to be involved — as recruitment messages might not be reaching all parts of the local community.

There are also overlooked disadvantages around income and social class. These can have a big impact on the ability to get involved in social action. It’s important to be aware of who is and who isn’t volunteering.

People as individuals

Work around inclusion often stops here — we address certain barriers, make efforts to attract underrepresented groups. But groups are made up of individuals, with differing experiences, outlooks and backgrounds. One person with African heritage is not the same as another. Not all young people like grime music. We need to bear this in mind when reaching out and trying to encourage participation.

Recognising both structural inequalities and individual needs and experiences means thinking about the support we provide for volunteers. People have different backgrounds and skill levels. Their expectations of, or previous encounters with, the workplace might vastly differ.

Listening to volunteers and being flexible enough to meet their needs is important to tailoring the training, guidance and day-to-day support they need.

This is relevant to the ways we say thank you. This Volunteers’ Week many organisations will have some kind of formal recognition of volunteers — coffee mornings, certificates, thank you postcards, or volunteer awards.

It’s great to do this, but for some volunteers it’s the informal acknowledgement they’ll appreciate more. A thank you at the end of the day speaks volumes.

Saying on the one hand we can see people as being alike and on the other they are all different doesn’t sound earth shattering. But it’s easy in the context of wanting to increase diversity to stay in the ‘groups’ model.

This risks missing out on what diversity truly has to offer us — the unique contribution that each volunteer can make.