Explore Indicators
Volunteering and giving time to the community
What is the indicator?
This indicator examines how many people are engaging in volunteering and giving unpaid time to the community. It can also explore whether volunteering is likely to be sustained, by examining whether volunteers are having positive experiences, and their intentions and capacity to continue volunteering over time.
What can this tell us about wellbeing?
Engagement in volunteering provides multiple insights into the wellbeing of both people and the communities they are volunteering in. At the community scale, being able to maintain sufficient numbers of volunteers is often critical to maintaining successful functioning of key community events, activities and services – particularly in rural communities. A rural community experiencing a decline in the rate of volunteering will often find it hard to maintain delivery of emergency services that rely on volunteers; community events such as festivals and shows; sports activities and events; and community groups. At the personal level, there is strong evidence that engaging in volunteering has benefits for wellbeing, for the majority of volunteers – although there are some limitations to this. Volunteering in roles that expose a person to trauma can have a negative impact on wellbeing, and some volunteers experience very high demands on their time and energy that can result in burnout.
Advantages and disadvantages of this indicator
Advantages: Measuring engagement in volunteering in your community provides an important indicator of both community and personal wellbeing.
Disadvantages: The rate of volunteering on its own may not provide a true indicator of whether current rates of volunteering are sustainable into the future. Understanding whether there is a risk of local volunteer burnout is also important, and whether overall volunteer experiences are positive.
What measures should I use for this indicator?
This indicator is measured by asking people if they have engaged in volunteering during a given period of time. Some surveys simply ask whether a person has or has not volunteered. Others ask how often they have volunteered, for how many organisations, and the types of organisations they have volunteered for. Some surveys assume a person is a formal volunteer, meaning they have joined an organisation and volunteer as part of being a member of the organisation. Others also ask about informal volunteering, which is common across Australia, and can range from informally helping out a neighbour, to volunteering for an event without being a member of an organisation, or helping out with an online group as a moderator, to name a few examples. It is critical to ensure a consistent definition of ‘volunteering’ is used when measuring change in volunteering. Ideally, both informal and formal volunteering should be asked about, with some evidence of a shift from formal to informal volunteering across Australia.
Volunteering and volunteer experience are examined in multiple surveys in Australia. While most of these do have a big enough sample to produce data for individual rural communities across Australia, the following do provide access to small scale data available for regions such as local government areas.
- The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Census of Population and Housing asks every household in Australia whether household members spent any time in the last year doing unpaid voluntary work
- The University of Canberra Regional Wellbeing Survey tracks how many people are volunteering
As well as using data from these two sources, you can access data from surveys that provide a picture of trends at national scale, or for large regions, and replicate questions in your own local survey. For example, the ABS General Social Survey asks questions about engagement in voluntary work, and provides data by state and territory. The State of Volunteering Surveys ask detailed questions about volunteering across Australia, with reporting for each state and territory.
One challenge is that estimates of rates of participation in volunteering vary widely across these different data sources. This is often due to use of differing definitions of volunteering, with some surveys focusing primarily on formal volunteering as part of an organisation, and others also including informal volunteering activities. It is important to identify what definition you will use of volunteering, and use this definition consistently over time.
Measures
The Regional Wellbeing Survey asks participants whether they have volunteered formally or informally in the previous 12 months. In some years, a panel of more detail questions is also asked, identifying the types of organisations a person has volunteered for, how frequently they have volunteered, barriers to volunteering, and whether they are experiencing any signs of volunteer burnout.
You can use data on volunteering from the Regional Wellbeing Survey in the following ways:
- Directly source data about your community or region from the results published each year in data tables and the Regional Wellbeing Dashboard
- Request access to detailed data from years in which more detailed questions were asked about volunteering
- Include the same questions in your own survey, and draw on Regional Wellbeing Survey data to provide comparison data that enables you to assess how your community is going compared to others of similar size, or to the average for regional areas in your state/territory, or across regional Australia, urban Australia, or Australia as a whole.
When interpreting this indicator, a decline in the proportion of people engaging in volunteering is considered to be a change indicating potential negative wellbeing trends, while an increase in volunteering is often associated with higher overall wellbeing. However, it is possible for an increase in volunteering to occur that is associated with reduced wellbeing, for example if many people are volunteering to support those impacted by a traumatic event, or are exposed to health risks in their volunteering.
The questions included in the Regional Wellbeing Survey annually on volunteering are described below; examples of volunteering questions asked less frequently in the survey are also provided.
| Question/item | Response options |
| Many people here give their time to contribute to the community (included in RWS from 2025) | 7 point scale from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 7 (Strongly agree), with a ‘Don’t know’ option also provided |
| I volunteer in my local community e.g. for groups like fire brigades, sports clubs, school canteen, meals on wheels, festivals | 7 point scale from 1 (Never or almost never) to 7 (All the time) |
| In the last 12 months, I have volunteered my time unpaid. This can include anything from being in a volunteer fire brigade to helping out at a sports club or school canteen | Response options:
Yes I used to volunteer but have not done so in the last 12 months I have never volunteered my time for a group or organisation |
| This work (volunteer or paid) is usually rewarding |
| This work (volunteer or paid) is often stressful |
| At times, it’s hard to stop thinking about some of the things I have seen or experienced while working in emergency response or disaster recovery |
| My mental health has been well supported by the organisation I work for |
| I sometimes feel overwhelmed by my emergency response or disaster recovery duties |
| I feel the work I do is recognised by others |
| I feel the work I do is respected by others |
| My physical health and safety is looked after well |
| My mental health and safety is looked after well |
| The work I do makes a real difference |
| The organisation I work for has values that are similar to my personal values |
| Most of my co-workers are great to work with |
| Some of my co-workers are difficult to work with |
| The organisation I work with does high quality, professional work |
| I sometimes feel the organisation I work for is doing some things poorly or lacking professionalism |
| I have had to do more of this work than I want to because there’s not enough people who will do it if I don’t |
You can include questions on whether people are volunteering, and their volunteer experiences, in your own survey. Use the examples provided for this measure, and for the indicator more generally, to identify questions you can include.
Every five years, the (ABS) Census of Population and Housing produces a comprehensive set of data on the number and characteristics of people living in every part of Australia, including data for every town, local government areas, and multiple other types of geographic region. The Census asks people if they have engaged in voluinteering in the last 12 months. This data can be accessed for every local government area, town and other small areas across Australia. CPH data are available in multiple forms on the ABS website.
CPH data provide comprehensive data on how many people have volunteered. Data are produced once every five years. However, the phrasing of the questions means that some types of informal volunteering may not be fully captured in responses. Despite this, the CPH remains the most comprehensive source of data on how many people are engaging in volunteering. The CPH does not ask questions about the types of volunteering a person does, or their volunteer experiences.
You can find out what proportion of volunteers are in different age groups, from different cultural backgrounds, and a wide range of other information, using the wide range of data tools available on the ABS CPH ‘Find Census Data’ webpage. These allow users to search for and access CPH data for regions across Australia including local government areas, towns and localities.
You can include the Census question on volunteering in your own survey, enabling you to track volunteering participation during years in which no Census data are available.
The State of Volunteering Surveys provide comprehensive data on volunteering in Australia’s states and territories. The reports from these surveys provide both data, and examples of questions that can be included in your own surveys of volunteering in your community.
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