Volunteering: A decade of change and continuity in Australia

Volunteering plays a vital role in Australian society and in its economy. The substantive datasets of the Giving Australia 2005 and 2016 projects provide insights into how volunteering has changed - and how it has stayed the same - over a decade for individuals and businesses. Recognising the limitations of comparison across datasets with variations in their methodologies, the indications are that volunteering is changing in ways that are simultaneously encouraging and cautionary. It appears that while volunteering rates and hours have increased between 2005 and 2016, the ways in which people are expressing interest in volunteering have changed, with a rise in interest in episodic and virtual volunteering as time pressures and technology access grow. Business interest in volunteering is higher and activated increasingly as part of community business partnerships.