In this article, I want to tap into the knowledge, insight, and experience of all of you wonderful Volunteer Engagement Professionals who read this blog. You see, I have an idea, and I’d like your feedback on it.
Back in 2023 I did an online course in Exploratory Writing. Led by Alison Jones — who wrote a book with the same title — one aspect of the course encouraged me to develop my own visual model to convey a concept.
What I came up with was the Volunteer Role Matrix. And I’ve sat on it ever since, nervous about sharing it with anyone in case it isn’t any good, or of any help to people. The Volunteer Role Matrix has never left the safe confines of my hard drive. Until today.
I want to put this visual model out there for you to look at, think about, and give me feedback on.
I think it could be helpful for us in conceptualising and communicating the different volunteer roles we engage with in our organisations and communities. This could help us to see where we may have gaps, where we might develop our volunteer journey, and how we might influence colleagues around support for volunteer engagement.
So, with all that in mind, here it is.
Rob Jackson’s Volunteer Role Matrix
Hopefully, it’s pretty simple and self-explanatory; otherwise it isn’t doing its job.
It’s a four-by-four matrix, split vertically between formal and informal volunteering (top and bottom), and horizontally by occasional and regular volunteering (left and right). That create four quadrants:
- Formal regular volunteering — top right
- Informal regular volunteering — bottom right
- Informal occasional volunteering — bottom left
- Formal occasional volunteering — top left
NB. When I use the terms formal and informal I am using them in the typical research sense, where formal volunteering is that done through a group or organisation, and informal is more, well, informal.
In each quadrant, I have included some examples of the kinds of volunteering that could sit within that category. So, volunteers with the Samaritans might be formal regular volunteers, whilst those cheering runners at the London marathon would be formal occasional volunteers. Similarly, lockdown mutual aid groups might be considered informal regular volunteers, and helping the proverbial older person across the road would be informal occasional volunteering.
This role mapping could also be made more sophisticated by locating different volunteer roles in different parts of each quadrant to illustrate their formality or regularity within the relevant section of the matrix.
Over to you
What do you think of the Volunteer Role Matrix?
Is it helpful?
Is it useless?
Have you seen this before somewhere (there is every chance my subconscious has inadvertently copied this and sold it to me as a new idea!)?
Could you see value in applying it in your work?
What examples would you add to each quadrant?
How could it be improved?
Please let me know what you think and, together, let’s potentially build a visual model to help us all in our work.
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What I like about this is that it points out what informal volunteering can be. Any non-structured volunteering that benefits others counts. This includes helping your neighbors, or just stepping in to help. (This would be been very helpful during the pandemic when teachers wanted their kids to work in structured settings, except that no one was working that way.)
In the case of the event worker, they are a Regular volunteer. It’s just that their cycle is a full year instead of once a week. This is a great introduction for someone to understand what volunteering could include (everything). It also serves as a wonder cross-cultural explanation of what volunteering can be.
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Thanks, glad you like it Susan
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Hi All
This is very thought provoking and would be a great round table discussion. The distinction between formal and informal is something that seems to me to be fluid as in a few years ago (pre Covid) this would have been defined in a different way and I suspect will change again as society changes in future although at present I can’t imagine how. It is the same with the concept of light touch volunteering which seems to mean different things in different places.
I like the ideas of informality and light touch as these are great gateways into regular social activism and yet so much voluntary activity is heavily regulated and influenced by people outside volunteer involving organisations.
In addition to identifying routes through volunteering, perhaps a matrix could help those who are not experienced in this field to better understand some of what we do?
Looking forward to the round table!!
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In Canada it was recently announced that our federal government is investing in a national volunteer strategy. I’m not directly involved, but it occurs to me that your model would be a clear and simple way to help everyone – the public, and also government at all levels – understand volunteerism. Bringing everyone to the same level of understanding is always the first hurdle; I think your matrix would be a valuable tool.
I do think a few more examples would be helpful, for example ‘regularly mowing an elderly neighbour’s lawn’ for informal regular.
You may want to consider clarifying the following type of role, eg: a volunteer spends a week or two involved in a few prep meetings and then supports an event. They do set up, they take tickets, they man the popcorn booth, and they help with take down. They do this once a year. Where do they fall in the matrix? The public may not interpret ‘regular’ in the same context that I – as an administrator of volunteers in a healthcare setting – interpret ‘regular’. The person in the example I gave might consider themselves formal regular whereas I might put them in ‘formal occasional’. Providing some additional examples and/or definitions might help… or maybe it’s okay to have roles that sit on ‘the line’…
Thanks for your work!
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Thanks and great thoughts on it’s applicability. I’m really relaxed about where people might put their volunteers – and where volunteers may put themselves – in the model. What I love is that dual perspective. It’d be great to see an organisation map their roles and then have the volunteers do the same and see how those maps match.
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It is similar to the concept we use at CFCS but this is a lot more logical and would make it easier for articulating the business approach necessary to adequately service and maintain a structured volunteering approach within organisations. Nice job Rob.
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Thank you!
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