Volunteering is a win-win situation for both individuals and organisations, Volunteer South community connector Steve Baker says.

With the United Nations International Volunteer Day on Tuesday (December 5), Volunteer South is taking the opportunity to highlight what it does to encourage people and groups to either consider volunteering or asking for help to find a volunteer.

“In a nutshell, we promote, support, and strengthen volunteering in communities,” Steve says.

There are two sides to Volunteer South’s role. It provides guidance for individuals or groups looking for volunteer opportunities, and connects them with member organisations needing help with volunteer recruitment.

“So basically we're there for both parties. We're not there any more for one side than the other, and we can help especially, with providing best practice advice, training, workshop engagement training for volunteer coordinators,” Steve says.

“They don't have to be registered as a charity trust as such, they could be like a startup sort of organisation, or some kind of action group that's come together for a particular cause and to do some work in the community.”

Volunteer South mostly works with non-government, not-for-profit organisations, although, if the nature of the business is community development, exceptions can be made.

“So there could be new retirement villages that are set up . . . and they might legitimately need volunteers to help with the running of that,” he said.

It helps to steer new organisations in the right direction making sure certain criteria are met, before they enlist the help of volunteers.

“Because sometimes, as you can imagine, organisations, they've recently come together, recently registered, and they're sort of still finding their way.

“We want people to think about health and safety plans, we want people to think about having a volunteer policy, and that could include thinking about things like what the volunteer agreement looks like, as differentiated from an employment contract.

“A volunteer agreement can be more loosely arranged, but we try and encourage those things . . . from the beginning, just so the parameters of the relationship are clearly defined. This can be really important further down the track.”

When people think of volunteering - they can associate it with an older demographic, or something to think about for when they are retired, but Steve says the younger generation has a lot to offer and Volunteer South is working with Otago University to “future-proof” and connect them with the idea.

“Youth have so much to offer, and it's really passing on the baton, sort of thing. So we are actively working with the universities and the polytechs and it’s just about finding out, where are our youth at at the moment? How can we raise awareness in that sector, and how can we introduce them to the benefits of volunteering?

“Because that, I mean, that's the thing, as far as community development is concerned, volunteering is fantastic.”

It provides people with the chance to gain new skills, experiences and opportunities. Job seekers, who may lack confidence, can gain it quickly in the right environment, Steve says.

It can also help break down barriers of social isolation. Following Covid some people have been reluctant to engage socially again. It can also provide an individual to connect with something they find meaningful and rewarding - especially if their paid employment doesn’t provide that.

“They can gain new skills and experience and actually actively help to forge a path, a direction forward in their lives, that perhaps they wouldn't have been able to do or they didn't have the opportunity to do. And so that's where you see a lot of volunteers really motivated because, especially if what they're doing is aligned with their own personal values and goals, it can really open doors and create opportunity where none previously existed.” 

Steve describes the Volunteer South website as the Trade Me for volunteer opportunities, with between 300 to 500 jobs on at one time, covering the southern area from Invercargill to the Central Lakes. People can search by category and location. 

“We've got a number of different categories, arts and culture, emergency services, whatever you're interested in, it'll be there and it's updated frequently as well.”

At the bottom of every roll description there's an application form and when people find a role that looks interesting, they can hit the “Apply” button at the bottom.

“It's literally an expression of interest, and so they can then have a more in depth talk.”

Volunteer South is based in Dunedin, but Steve travels to Ōamaru monthly. There are also community connectors in Wanaka, Queenstown and, until recently, Invercargill.

“It's great to be able to come through here to Ōamaru, and work with volunteers involved in organisations and local community.”

The Victorian Heritage Celebrations happen every year, thanks to a dedicated bunch of volunteers. Photo: Supplied