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Good afternoon and thank you for that very kind welcome.
And thank you for inviting me to this United Way Volunteer Marche – I am honoured to have been asked to participate. Lynda Kay is someone whom I have known for many years, and who does a wonderful job for her community, so I was pleased when Lynda asked me to participate. And my colleague Jackie Powell often tells me that Northumberland County is a really special part of the province.
At the Ontario Trillium Foundation, or OTF, we strongly recognize the value of community work at the local level. Here in Cobourg for example, OTF community grants have included support for the Cobourg Museum Foundation, Cobourg Dragon Boat Club, YMCA of Cobourg, Shelter of Hope, Habitat for Humanity of Northumberland and the United Ways Community Matters.
But there’s another reason that I feel a personal connection to Cobourg, and the story actually fits within the theme of my remarks today. I live fairly close to the downtown core in Toronto, and a couple of years ago, our neighbours of many years took early retirement from their careers as school teachers, and bought a beautiful historic home on College Street, here in Cobourg. Now for my former neighbours – I’ll call them Gary and Marie, to protect their identities – the word “retirement” does not exactly fit their new life in Cobourg. Between the two of them, they have joined the community theatre group, a book club, the Historical Society, a Quilt Guild, a Knitting Guild and the local chapter of the Council of Canadians. They belong to the Victoria Hall volunteers, and they raise money for the Stephen Lewis Foundation, and for Amnesty International. And they have time to travel and to play golf. When I retire, I want to move to Cobourg!
And this story of an active community is repeated in many ways. Last week I spoke with Cathy Lyons, of Habitat for Humanity Northumberland. Cathy told me about their YBuild initiative, a three-week project that is under way, even as we speak. I gather that some 250 young people, from Northumberland County and across Canada, are donating their time and skills to renovate a semi on Alexandria Drive. Habitat for Humanity Northumberland’s Women Build program last year was actually featured in the Ontario Trillium Foundation’s 25th Anniversary photo essay on outstanding examples of communities in action.
Now I was asked to talk about volunteerism today, and I’d like to expand that to talk about volunteerism and community action in small towns. For the last 20 years of my career, I have worked with many volunteers, both directly and indirectly, and of course the focus of my work, both at United Way and at the Ontario Trillium Foundation, has been actively engaged with the voluntary sector.
From the smallest of towns to the larger urban centres, volunteers inject their positive energy, their skills and most precious of all, their time, to enrich the fabric of our communities. I think it’s important that we take a moment to thank those who give back to their communities.
And the number of people who do just that is impressive. According to Imagine Canada’s latest statistics on volunteering, 11.8 million Canadians – or 45% of the population over the age of 15 – volunteered their time to charities or other not-for- profit organizations. That translates to almost 2 billion volunteer hours. Our province was slightly higher than the national average, with 50% of Ontarians volunteering their time.
And while the statistics are notable, in reality, as most of you in this room know, it’s often not easy to find volunteers…and it can be even harder to retain them. This may be due partly to the fact that the profile of a typical volunteer – if indeed there ever was such a thing – is changing. Baby boomers continue to impact our society by virtue of sheer numbers, and, let’s face it, we’re not getting any younger!
Since the volunteer spirit is what brings us here today, I thought you might find it interesting to hear some highlights of a study the Foundation just completed, called, Small Towns: Big Impact. As I believe most of you know, OTF is an agency of the Government of Ontario, and given our Ontario-wide mandate, we have an interest in the community health of small towns. During our study, we learned quite a bit about the challenges facing ‘small town Ontario’ and more specifically about volunteerism in smaller communities.
Some of what we learned was sobering, but I’m the type of person who always sees the glass as half full…so wherever there is challenge, there is also opportunity. And what our study saw, across Ontario, was not-for-profit organizations creating unique strategies to build bridges that span the challenges. I’m sure many of our findings will resonate with you.
We learned Ontario’s small towns face challenges in four key areas: economic re-structuring; demographic shifts; education attainment; and access to services. I’ll touch briefly on each.
First, on the economic front, smaller communities are finding they can’t always rely on the old engines that have driven the local economy. This is particularly true in the North, where there are many one-industry, resource-based towns. In response, many communities are diversifying their economies or working to replace dying industries.
Second, demographics. We have become a nation on the move, and this mobility has impacted the make-up of both small towns and big cities. Our study showed that in many smaller communities, the population is declining, and it’s aging faster than the province as a whole. And I’m sure this will come as no surprise when I say there’s a continuing trend of younger people leaving small towns.
Third, on the education front, we heard concerns about access to education and training. We found, on average, lower levels of educational achievement – which probably connects with the access issue. And as a result, employers often find it difficult to find, attract and retain workers for newer, knowledge-based jobs.
And fourth, when it comes to access to services, the concerns include access to capital, particularly for infrastructure, access to health care, to public transportation and to technology, such as high speed internet…something many of us city people take for granted.
When we looked specifically at the issues around the volunteer sector in small towns, our study again showed four overall concerns: funding and sustainability, volunteer burnout, leadership retention and a lack of young volunteers
One, on the funding side, not-for-profits face limited funding options and frequently the Ontario Trillium Foundation is, or is perceived to be, one of the few available sources of funding. We identified a particular need for capital funding. Sustainability was also identified as an ongoing challenge, relating to the limited funding.
Two, Volunteer burnout is an expression we’ve all heard and probably at one time or another personally experienced! So we were not surprised when our study showed that a relatively small number of people do most of the volunteer work in rural areas. Recruiting new volunteers, and retaining them, is, for many, an ongoing struggle.
Three, just as volunteers burn out, so to do the leaders who sit on boards or take on other leadership roles. In order to retain these leaders, there’s pressure to spread the workload and to provide meaningful development opportunities.
And Four, it’s no secret that younger Canadians are leaving small towns in favour of larger cities. Our study indicated that rural populations have an under-representation of youth aged 15 to 24. Concern about this trend also cropped up during the Northumberland United Way’s Community Matters project – an initiative that we were also pleased to support.
That said, I thought you would be interested in what David Foot, the noted demographer and author of “Boom Bust & Echo”, has to say about this trend:
"While young people are indeed leaving small town Ontario for the bright lights of the big city, this is not a new trend. It has been going on for generations. Some of them will return. Communities would benefit by anticipating this, and staying in touch, then getting them involved in community life when they come back in their thirties to raise families or later when they reach retirement age".
So attracting and retaining volunteers, as well as developing the next generation of volunteer leaders, are real challenges. But as I said, challenge can open the door to opportunity. YBuild here in Northumberland County is one example. And there are others, across the province. I’d like to share some of those with you…
…stories that offer creative solutions to common concerns...
…stories that would not be possible without committed leaders and willing volunteers.
I’ll start with an example in Kenora, in Northwestern Ontario, where OTF supported the expansion and upgrade of cross-country ski trails and facilities, and this project led to an unexpected boom in tourism. The volunteer-run Kenora Nordic Trails Association applied for a grant to improve conditions for local skiers. Little did they know that the investment would help diversify and strengthen the local economy.
For starters, the improved trail system attracted a provincial level ski championship, the Manitoba Provincials. One hotel reported that during the Provincials, not only were they booked solid, they had to expand their banquet facilities to accommodate all their guests.
Thanks in part to the ski championship, the reputation of the trail system has grown such that Kenora now promotes itself as a ski vacation destination for Ontario’s north and into nearby Manitoba. With more and more people visiting Kenora on ski packages, retailers and hotels continue to benefit from the influx of tourists.
A bit further south, an innovative organization called Cottage Dreams Recovery is contributing to the economic buoyancy of Haliburton, while at the same offering cancer survivors an opportunity to rest and recover.
In 2004, the Foundation funded a project to build community support and volunteer programming. Cottage Dreams provides opportunities for patients coming out of treatment to spend a relaxing week at a cottage in the Halilburton area, with their family. This OTF grant has touched over 100 cancer survivors and engaged over 100 volunteers.
Cottage Dreams measured their impact on the area and reports that families who come to a cottage spend between $400 and $600 over the week. As well, the organization hires local labour for housekeeping and other support services.
Elsewhere, volunteers are building bridges both literally and figuratively. Earlier I noted that capital to build infrastructure was much sought after. So I’d like to tell you about the volunteer-run Menesetung Bridge Association in Goderich, in western Ontario. Their infrastructure project served to preserve historic architecture and strengthen civic pride.
OTF funded restoration work for the Menesetung Bridge, which by the way, celebrated its 100th birthday last year. In addition to being an architectural gem, the bridge connects the town with a well used walking trail that extends more than 13 miles. Apparently, each year, some 12,000 bikers, hikers and walkers use the bridge.
While the restoration work was supported by OTF, it also benefited from considerable local community support. Every plank and railing has a name on it. Talk about taking ownership of a solution! With luck, and with dedicated volunteers, hopefully the bridge will be around for at least another 100 years.
Sometimes the solutions are tied to objects, like the Menesetung Bridge. Sometimes they’re tied to people. People like my former Toronto neighbours who now call Cobourg home. Or the young people who are participating so enthusiastically in the YBuild initiative.
Speaking of creative solutions, I was sitting beside someone from Saskatchewan at a conference last week, and he was telling me about the severe labour shortages in many parts of their economy, resulting from the growth in many of their industries. Finding it hard to recruit staff attendants at a small-town gas station, it dawned on the owner that the six retired farm workers who gathered at the Tim Hortons across the street every morning might be helpful. He approached them with an offer to buy their breakfast each morning, if they would be willing to job-share the attendant’s job. The result? Six retirees who now have a couple of paid hours of work each day, a social network, and happy customers!
What are some of the themes that emerge from these stories? Well, as I start to wrap-up, I’d like to suggest a few questions we might all do well to ask ourselves:
1. While it’s challenging to retain volunteers for ongoing leadership and governance roles, there are many stories of people who flock to support innovative, engaging, time-limited projects. How can some of these same people, once engaged in their project, be encouraged to stick around for the long haul? How often do we ask them this question?
2. There’s no doubt that major demographic shifts are under way. David Foot sets us the challenge of remaining connected with residents who move away (the internet could be a useful tool here), and working to re-engage them when they come back to have a family or to retire. Are we doing enough to identify and recognize these potential opportunities?
3. Attracting a new and younger generation of volunteers is one of the most important investments in our future…even if they don’t always stick around for a long time. Can we come up with meaningful volunteer assignments that teach them new skills, provide social networking opportunities, and engage them in the community? Do we know enough about what would appeal to them? Have we asked them?
4. Sharing volunteer resources – a form of Job-sharing – can be enormously powerful, if a spirit of collaboration exists between organizations. It strikes me that an occasion like this Volunteer Marche could be a terrific opportunity to talk between ourselves, in the sector, about how we might better share our resources. Can stronger collaboration lead to better deployment of community volunteers?
And lastly…
5. Are we actively thinking about the changes that we know are coming? A continually aging population in Canada… continued immigration from other countries… rapidly evolving new technologies…higher fuel prices… climate change… these will all happen. We may choose to see these as insurmountable challenges, or we may see them as opportunities to work together, to continue the job of building healthy communities.
So in closing, this is of course National Volunteer Week, and I’ll once again salute the volunteers who make all our successes possible. Innovation is very much alive and well in the not-for-profit sector. Across Ontario, organizations like yours are blending social conscience and economic revitalization with fantastic results.
The organizations in the sector may vary in size, mission and location, but they share three essential ingredients: strong leadership, a collaborative style, and an innovative approach. All of those qualities exist in you…and in the organizations you work with. Thanks to you, amazing things are happening every day, in large and small communities across Ontario.
Thank you.
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