Boomers

Baby boomers have been rewriting American culture for decades. Now, as the first wave of retiring boomers leaves the work force, they are redefining yet another great American institution – volunteerism.

More than half of non-volunteers 55 and older express interest in volunteering, with many viewing retirement as a time to begin a new chapter in their lives, according to the report “Great Expectations: Boomers and the Future of Volunteering.” Professionals and women aged 55 to 64 are most likely to be interested in volunteering, the report says.

Read this post by Guest Blogger Robert Rosenthal of VolunteerMatch.

We spend a lot of time touting the value of skilled volunteers – advocating the engagement of entrepreneurial volunteers who can take an idea from conception to implementation – and championing the capacity-building potential of high impact volunteer teams. And yet, this week I sat and marveled at a team with whom I’ve been working for the past ten months as we met to discuss how to transition a pilot project into an ongoing program offering at our local volunteer center, Metro Volunteers in Denver, CO.  The best part of the meeting? The point when this productive group was scheduling the next gathering and I was able to say, “Here’s my offer: I won’t come to that meeting.” In other words, congratulations – this program belongs to you and the most helpful thing I can do is get out of the way as you take it and run.

In recent weeks, we have spent a great deal of time sorting through the implications of the Volunteering in America report released by the Corporation for National & Community Service - only to have the newest report America's Civic Health Index: Civic Health in Hard Times released by the National Conference on Citizenship report some seemingly different statistics.... Have things changed this much in the intervening months? Are these reports in conflict? Most important, what does this mean for you and the many others whose organizations rely on volunteers for mission-fulfilling work?