International Volunteer Day: give happy, live happy!

Posted on 5 December, 2014

What do you think of when someone says ‘volunteering’? Mums on canteen duty? The voice at the end of the phone looking for donations? People manning the Salvo’s clothing stalls? As I recently discovered, volunteering goes far beyond these traditional perceptions…and with volunteers contributing $1.5billion to our economy annually, it’s a really big deal.

To celebrate their 25th anniversary Volunteering ACT invited 25 well-known Canberrans to take part in their 25 Days of Volunteering Campaign. The aim of the campaign was to raise the profile of volunteering in the region by partnering individuals with volunteer-involving organisations to show the diversity of volunteering opportunities available in the community.

Chief Minister, Katy Gallagher, provides some ‘virtual volunteering’.

The range of people who showed their support was astounding: The Chief Minister, Katy Gallagher, undertook some virtual volunteering supporting an organisations social media, today Minister Joy Burch was down assist St Vincent de Paul in their Tuggeranong Centre, Senator Zed Seselja lent a hand at the Intensive Care unit at The Canberra Hospital and Minister Shane Rattenbury facilitated a strategic planning session for The Down Syndrome Association.

I was paired with Karralika Programs, a residential and outreach drug treatment programme for families and individuals. My volunteer role was to assist Karralika with their digital marketing strategy, drawing on my 20 years in PR and communications (and more recently, social media and the web) to guide their thinking around how to engage with stakeholders online and further afield.

Over the 25 days of the campaign the participants and the organisations all documented their experiences on social media using the #more2volunteering hashtag. The total social media reach of the campaign was over 400,000 people, with the potential to reach every Canberran 1.08 times. The combined social media reach of the participants in the campaign was 260,000 Facebook likes, 150,000 Twitter followers, and 6,000 Instagram followers. The campaign also made local news.

And although I spent just a few hours with Karralika last week, we’ve arranged for my assistance to be on an ongoing basis, so that they can get the most out of my involvement.

The highlight of my day was attending a performance of selected pieces of the Shakespearian tragedy King Lear by Karralika TC and Nexus residents. Seeing the sense of achievement on the faces of the participants at the end of the performance was truly wonderful – you could see that it was an experience that really made a difference to their lives.

And I think that sense of being able to make a difference is something at the heart of volunteering. If we can contribute our skills and knowledge, whether that’s helping run the school fete, or helping charities distribute food and supplies to those in need, or providing professional assistance to organisations who wouldn’t otherwise have access to such services – then the whole community will benefit.

Mary Porter MLA, Brett Williamson, CEO, Volunteering Australia, and Rikki Blacka, A/g CEO, Volunteering ACT seen here posing with their smiles!

So today, while we celebrate International Volunteer Day, and acknowledge all those people who have given their time and skills to make our city a better place, we also look forward to 2015. And with a fitting theme of ‘Give Happy, Live Happy’, there’s never been a better time to get involved. As this campaign has shown, volunteering is incredibly diverse – there really is a role for everyone!