In this image provided by the the United Nations Youth and Innovation Forum, Daniela Fernandez, left, founder and CEO of Sustainable Ocean Alliance, and actor and ocean activist Jason Momoa smile during a ceremony at the UN Ocean Conference where Momoa was made a United Nations advocate for Life Below Water in June, 2022, in Cascais, Portugal. Fernandez has no trouble attracting volunteers to her group Sustainable Ocean Alliance.
NEW YORK — Daniela Fernandez has no trouble attracting volunteers to her group Sustainable Ocean Alliance. Last month, she presided over the Our Ocean Youth Leadership Summit in Panama, where 77 participants from 45 countries volunteered their time to develop solutions to protect the oceans. The summit focused on participants between 18 and 35, the age group many in the philanthropic sector worry are not volunteering enough. It had to turn away more than 900 applicants.
“Young people crave having sustained impact and seeing how their time, their energy and their passion is actually moving the needle,” Fernandez said. “The problem is, a lot of organizations don’t have the process or the tools or the projects that will deliver on that need — that urgency that young people have.”
For decades, volunteerism in America has been declining. But according to a recent U.S. Census Bureau and AmeriCorps survey, it
...because of the pandemic lock downs?
People are tired of being “used”!
“Rich people wonder why the poors don’t want to spend their little free time working more”
You mean people having to work two jobs has affected their ability to volunteer? How weird that so many companies are now the charity they won't let their employees have time off for... at least not without claiming it as work-related volunteer hours.
What’s happening is that people can no longer afford to volunteer. We must earn wages to bolster our poorly performing 401K investments, pitiable social security & rising Medicare premiums, cost of fuel, food, & util. Our volunteer time budget has been squeezed to zero.
Who knew people wanted to get paid for working?
Capitalism.
Maybe also because we're evidently so pissed off at each other, nobody wants to give up their time to help their neighbor or community.
itstheguns
People are working to death. Jobs plus 'side hustles' and still not getting by. And so many are working in spite of on the job injuries. When do people have energy or time to volunteer? No able bodies adult is sitting around doing nothing anymore. Time is a luxury.
To volunteer you have to innately care. For various reasons, America has become a battleground of hatred for one another. I would be shocked to see any significant change in volunteer status in the future.
I know the Twittersphere is not representative of real life. But I find that when I suggest doing something that benefits others with a little bit of sacrifice (sacrifice of ego, usually), the pushback tells me there is a widespread lack of familiarity with 'the common good.'
All types of social/fraternal organizations are also shrinking. People are forgetting how to do stuff with others.