Are volunteers becoming harder to find? Local organizations struggling to find help

WELLINGTON COUNTY – When a child between five and 17 is referred to Big Brothers Big Sisters Centre Wellington, they’re immediately placed on a waiting list, with some waiting up to three years before being matched with a mentor. 

There simply aren’t enough volunteers.

The local Big Brothers Big Sisters branch currently has 40 volunteers spread across its mentoring programs, with some committing to mentor a “little” for at least an hour per week for a year.

Around 20 children are on the waitlist – about half of them for at least 18 months.

It’s not for a lack of trying, said mentoring coordinator Nick Clarke and community programs director Ashley Winterburn.

Clarke recently tried offering $50 gift cards for mentorship referrals. “We’re not receiving much response,” he said.

“I think all organizations are struggling,” he added, noting he’s noticed “a very steady decline” in the amount of volunteers at any given time.

The Advertiser spoke with more than 14 organizations relying on volunteers to provide everything from front-line crisis services to community barbecues.

Across the county they’re advertising with news media, posting on social media, paying for billboards, tacking up posters, handing out free swag, hosting free dinners, offering gift card incentives and talking directly to people to try to recruit.

Some are faring better than others, but many report  local challenges with recruitment and retention amid a shift in changing societal attitudes and expectations around volunteerism and surrendering free time.

It’s a situation that has worsened across the country since 2018, according to Statistics Canada’s Survey on Giving, Volunteering and Participating, released last year.

The total number of hours volunteered formally and informally across Canada between 2018 and 2023 dropped by 18 per cent, from 5 billion to 4.1 billion hours in the five-year period covered by the survey.

That’s about 33 fewer hours per person.

The top 10% of volunteers with the most hours disproportionately bore the weight of volunteering, accounting for 61% of all hours volunteered in 2023.

Volunteer rates and hours decreased most significantly for people aged 25 to 34.

‘A vital part’

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Wheels of Hope, the Canadian Cancer Society’s volunteer driving program, has faced difficulty getting new volunteers. 

“It is a struggle,” said recruiter Mark Kahan.

There were 41 volunteer drivers throughout Wellington County in 2025, according to Kahan, who noted, “We could always use more.”

Wheels of Hope provides rides to and from appointments for a low fee to people diagnosed with cancer.

“If someone can’t find a ride they don’t go,” Kahan said. “It happens everywhere.”

“If it was just us, I’d be wondering why that is, but I talk to other organizations and they’re feeling the same thing,” he added, referring to the challenge of finding volunteers.

Victim Services Guelph Wellington executive director Liz Kent said the organization is down to 16 volunteers in the county.

“At one point we were sitting around 40,” she said.

The service provides on-scene support from volunteer responders around the clock for victims of crime, tragedy or disasters in Wellington County and Guelph.

“We could never do what we do without our volunteers,” Kent said.

100 Women Who Care Rural Wellington donated $11,300 in 2024 to help Victim Services pay for volunteer recruitment advertising within the county.

“It’s a struggle for us to get enough volunteers in a training (session) to do one in the county,” Kent said.

At the Canadian Mental Health Association Waterloo Wellington and The Grove Youth Wellness Hubs, volunteer coordinator Brittany Bogaert said she’s facing challenges adding to a roster of 130 volunteers, particularly for the youth hubs and for children’s services.

“Anything with a longer commitment, it’s a bit more challenging to fill right now,” Bogaert said.

“There’s a lot of intention around volunteering, it’s not as perhaps passive as it would have been in the past.”

At Hopewell Support Services, which helps people in the county and Guelph with developmental disabilities, staff are targeting local high schools and post-secondary institutions to recruit volunteers.

In a statement emailed to the Advertiser, Hopewell CEO Jessica Johnston noted volunteer roles requiring consistent, ongoing commitment are challenging to fill.

“At the same time, volunteers remain a vital part of how we strengthen our programs and respond to growing community needs,” she stated. 

The Elora Cataract Trailway Association is trying to recruit volunteers for 12 events scheduled throughout the year, including a cycling event in September benefitting the future Aboyne Rural Hospice facility.

“We’ll need a ton of volunteers for that,” membership coordinator Renée Hadenko said of the ride. 

“We haven’t found it easy … every event we’re at we’re gathering a few more.”

‘Generic volunteerism’ losing appeal

Ryan Gibson researches the future of rural places, including volunteerism, as a professor of rural planning and development at the University of Guelph.

Historically under-serviced rural communities have needed volunteers to step up and bridge service gaps, such as with volunteer fire departments or parks and recreation.

“Volunteerism in rural communities has always been driven by strong social ties, a strong sense of place, and a strong sense of belonging,” Gibson said.

That’s changing as people without strong social connections and community ties migrate to rural areas, Gibson said, adding the decline in volunteerism is also driven by an ageing population and relatively smaller populations from which to pull new volunteers.

There’s also an attitude shift away from the idea that “any help is good help,” Gibson said, toward volunteerism aligning with professional or personal passions.

“People have less time than maybe they had before, people are holding multiple jobs, people are commuting longer distances to get to work when living in rural places,” he said.

“[People] don’t want to be involved in long-term, generic volunteerism.”

Organizations contacted by the Advertiser that reported strong volunteer rosters – including Guelph Wellington Women in Crisis, Hospice Wellington, the Groves Volunteer Hospital Association, Habitat for Humanity Guelph Wellington and Compass Community Services – each have highly specific roles for volunteers.

Compass Community Services telephone support and crisis line manager Colten Ura said the roster for its telephone support program has grown from just four volunteers in 2020 to a list of 155 over six years.

The Guelph-based social services provider studied what population is best suited for the role, identifying post-secondary students in health care, policing and social services programs. 

Compass pitched volunteering to students as a resume-builder and added in skills training components and talks from local community partners. Hour requirements were dropped and Compass actively solicits feedback from volunteers and incorporates it.

Gibson said rural organizations need to reflect on volunteer resources moving forward and strategize how to reach new help as traditional volunteerism models disappear.

Service clubs in particular, Gibson noted, are especially susceptible.

‘Backbone of the community’

Senior members of three service clubs in Erin and Harriston told the Advertiser a shrinking membership base is carrying the load in the small communities.

“It’s the same six [to] eight of us that do everything,” said Erin Optimist Club vice president Judy Smith. “It’s a struggle to keep people participating, there’s no doubt about that.”

All three said younger people aren’t opposed to volunteering, but resist the ongoing meetings and long-term commitments that come with service clubs.

Harriston Kinsmen past president Zach Leslie said the club is exploring a shift from several individual events to a major yearly event.

Clifford Rotary Club president Trish Palmer said service clubs need to change before “the old guard that have been doing it for the last while have gone.”

She noted the Clifford Horticultural Society ceased to exist after it could no longer attract new members.

“It’s a challenge for older groups that have been doing the same thing for the last 50 years or so to understand that young people aren’t interested in doing things the same way,” Palmer said.

Smith, Leslie and Palmer said without service clubs the social fabric of communities will suffer.

“There’s so many things that we can do to make this community better, and it all goes much easier if we can get some help,” Palmer said.

They emphasized numerous infrastructure projects that service clubs have long contributed to in communities, such as parks, arenas, pools and fairgrounds, along with financial donations to food banks, hospitals, schools and student bursaries.

“Volunteers are the backbone of the community,” Leslie said.

‘Invisible component of the future of rural places’

Gibson said when volunteer organizations close, “often what happens is the service simply just gets discontinued.”

That happened with the Mount Forest Fall Fair when the 160-year-old Mount Forest Agriculture Society was brought to an end in 2023 due to a lack of volunteers.

Volunteer organizations deliver critical services, the true scale and value of which most people never see, and no level of government has the capacity to replace them, Gibson said. 

If people truly realized their contribution, the conversation around volunteering would be very different, he added.

The ultimate consequence of reduced volunteerism, he said, is “quality of life changes for rural places,” including livability, prosperity and sense of attachment to a community.

“People have less service provisions, they have less recreation and leisure opportunities, and really they have less reasons to stay in that rural community at the end of the day,” he said.

Volunteerism, he added, is a “critical but often silent, invisible component of the future of rural places.”