The changing landscape of disaster volunteering: opportunities, responses and gaps in Australia

Abstract

There is a growing expectation that volunteers will have a greater role in disaster management in the future compared to the past. This is driven largely by a growing focus on building resilience to disasters. At the same time, the wider landscape of volunteering is fundamentally changing in the twenty-first century. This paper considers implications of this changing landscape for the resilience agenda in disaster management, with a focus on Australia. It first reviews major forces and trends impacting on disaster volunteering, highlighting four key developments: the growth of more diverse and episodic volunteering styles, the impact of new communications technology, greater private sector involvement and growing government expectations of and intervention in the voluntary sector. It then examines opportunities in this changing landscape for the Australian emergency management sector across five key strategic areas and provides examples of Australian responses to these opportunities to date. The five areas of focus are: developing more flexible volunteering strategies, harnessing spontaneous volunteering, building capacity to engage digital (and digitally enabled) volunteers, tapping into the growth of employee and skills-based volunteering and co-producing communitybased disaster risk reduction. Although there have been considerable steps taken in Australia in some of these areas, overall there is still a long way to go before the sector can take full advantage of emerging opportunities. The paper thus concludes by identifying important research and practice gaps in this area.

Crisis Volunteerism is the New Black?—Exploring the Diversity of Voluntary Engagement in Crisis Management

“…McLennan et al () argue that the wider landscape of volunteering is changing in the twenty‐first century. They discern changes in the ways of organizing volunteering.…”

“…This argument can be further strengthened by the fact that researchers increasingly often claim that the landscape of crisis volunteering undergoes significant change. For example, Hustinx and Lammertyn () (cited in McLennan, Whittaker, & Handmer, , p. 2032) conclude that we experience “a decline in ‘traditional’, long‐term, high‐commitment volunteering and a rise in more diverse, fluid, and episodic styles of volunteering.”…”

Emergent groups in disaster research: Varieties of scientific observation over time and across studies of nine natural disasters

“…It seems almost paradoxical how researchers in this field continually discuss the need for more information and knowledge about emergent groups and their role in what McLennan et al. () have called the transforming “landscape of volunteering”. This side of the year 2000, there are signs of evolving conceptualization and marginal change.…”

“…They concluded that “…emergent citizens groups are likely to be even more prominent in the future than they are at present” (Stallings & Quarantelli, : 94). Much contemporary analysis seems to validate their prediction, bringing different forms of voluntary engagement and emergent groups to the forefront of both crisis research and disaster management policy (Barsky & Horan, ; Drabek, ; Heelsloot & Ruitenberg, ; Kendra & Wachtendorf, ; Lorenz, Schulze, & Voss, in press; McLennan, Whittaker, & Handmer, ; Rodriquez, Trainor, & Quarantelli, ; Scanlon, Helsloot, & Groenendaal, ; Wachtendorf, ). Whether or not this shift in empirical focus has also contributed to a conceptual common ground and better understanding in disaster research, however, remains an open question.…”

“…For example, there are few studies that address the development of emergent groups in disaster contexts over time (c.f Heelsloot & Ruitenberg, ; Whittaker, McLennan, & Handmer, for literature reviews). This also leaves an important knowledge area open as the landscape of disaster volunteering undergoes change, illustrating “a decline in ‘traditional’, long‐term, high commitment volunteering and a rise in more diverse and spontaneous styles…” (McLennan et al., ). The increasing emphasis on the diversity of disaster volunteering among disaster researchers, however, seems to be more related to its practical impact in different disaster contexts (McLennan et al., ) and less to how it might be conceptualized.…”