Today's volunteers less likely to perform perfunctory, mundane tasks and seek to build personal development goals

Volunteers are a fickle bunch it seems.

No longer content with being assigned a task and diligently undertaking it, today’s volunteers are expecting more from their experience and cherry picking charities of their choice as well as the roles they wish to undertake.

A new reportby nfpSynergy says expectations of volunteers have changed dramatically with many taking on opportunities to expand their skills and experience – rather than being motivated by a desire to change the world.

“The age of volunteers simply doing as they’re told are long gone,” said Joe Saxton of nfpSynergy.

“Volunteers now have a choice of how they spend their time, whether they are 16 or 60, so charities have to respond to these needs if they are to build and maintain a vibrant army of volunteers.”

Any organisation that wants to successfully find and keep their volunteers must understand what they want

They refuse to take on more mundane work tasks looking for more "personalised and flexible experiences” which they believe they can get more out of.

Based on in-depth interviews and surveys with 22 volunteer managers, nearly half of those polled said they felt that young people volunteer to develop new or existing skills, while over a third said the same about the middle aged people.

And some 80% of the managers said today’s volunteers are more aware of what they want to gain from their experience.

The report said that older people volunteer for “friendship and company” with skills being a less important factor. The older the volunteers, the more likely they were to want to ‘give something back’, the poll said.

“The needs and motivations of a young volunteer are completely different from a recently retired person. Any organisation that wants to successfully find and keep their volunteers must understand what they want,” said Saxton.