2026 is the International Year of Volunteers for Sustainable Development. The University of Victoria (UVic) Volunteer of the Year Project is bringing together students, sector leaders and community organizations to better understand, strengthen and reimagine volunteerism in the context of sustainable development goals.
Led by students Maddie Grout and Sydney Pilot, in partnership with Volunteer Victoria, the project represents a significant collaborative effort. Funded by the Victoria Foundation, the initiative is embedded within UVic’s Community Engagement courses and engages more than 75 students alongside over 250 local volunteer managers, organizations and more than 100 youth and emerging professionals aged 17 to 29.
At its core, the project seeks to answer the question: What does volunteerism look like now, and what does it need to become to effectively support sustainable development?
“We are mapping the current and future state of volunteerism locally so organizations can better recruit, retain and mobilize volunteers to address sustainable development challenges,” says Emma Kirkland, executive director of Volunteer Victoria.
A Sector at a Turning Point
The timing of the project is critical. Volunteer-led organizations are navigating increasing pressure in a rapidly changing social landscape. Data from the 2023 General Social Survey on Giving, Volunteering and Participating indicate an eight percent decrease in volunteerism between 2018 and 2023. At the same time, organizations face growing demands tied to poverty reduction, climate action, education access and building inclusive communities.
One of the project’s most striking early insights challenges a common assumption.
“The biggest issue may not be ‘lack of volunteers,’” says Kirkland. “The system has volunteers, but organizations lack the capacity to effectively engage and retain them.”
This finding reframes the problem. Rather than focusing solely on recruitment, the project highlights systemic barriers such as onboarding challenges, coordination gaps, burnout and limited volunteer management infrastructure.
The implications are significant. If the constraint lies in capacity rather than supply, solutions must shift toward strengthening systems, training and organizational design.
Listening at Scale
To build a comprehensive picture, the project is conducting more than 250 interviews with volunteer managers and volunteers, analyzing over 1,100 local charity listings and engaging youth-led groups to identify both gaps and success stories. This large-scale data collection is paired with a focus on storytelling, particularly from young people whose perspectives are often underrepresented in traditional volunteer structures.
“Youth interest is high, but mismatched with traditional volunteer structures,” says Kirkland.
“Young people are highly motivated for sustainable development goals (SDGs) aligned impact, but disengage from rigid, time-heavy or poorly defined volunteer roles.”
This insight underscores the importance of redesigning volunteer opportunities to align with evolving expectations, particularly among younger generations who are eager to engage in meaningful, flexible and impact-driven work.
All About the People
Despite its scale and analytical depth, the project remains grounded in a simple principle: volunteerism is fundamentally about people.
“At its heart, this initiative is about understanding and supporting volunteers—what motivates them, what challenges they face and how we can help them make a bigger impact in their communities,” says Kirkland.
The emphasis on lived experience—particularly youth voices—ensures that the project remains responsive, inclusive and forward-looking.
“Young people are shaping the future of volunteering,” she adds.
“We’re capturing their ideas, stories and needs to make volunteerism more accessible, meaningful and impactful for the next generation.”
At the same time, the project recognizes that volunteers are already making a difference.
“Many local volunteer programs are contributing to sustainable development goals, even if they don’t always recognize it,” says Kirkland.
“This project shines a light on that work and helps it grow.”
From Research to Action
While the project is grounded in research, its ambitions extend far beyond analysis. A central goal is to produce practical, actionable tools that organizations can use to improve volunteer engagement and program design.
“I hope the project produces actionable outputs—training resources, frameworks and insights that organizations can use,” says Kirkland.
These outputs will include training materials, strategic resources and an evidence-informed roadmap to help forecast local volunteer trends. The findings will also inform youth engagement pathways, improve coordination across the sector and support strategic planning and funding decisions.
“The findings will be used to improve volunteer program design, strengthen recruitment and retention strategies and build targeted training and support tools for organizations,” says Kirkland.
In this way, the project bridges the gap between research and implementation, ensuring that insights translate into meaningful change.
A Phased Approach
The initiative is structured across multiple phases, beginning with project setup in August 2025 and moving through data collection, analysis and output development before culminating in publication and sector-wide implementation in late 2026.
However, the project’s impact is intended to extend well beyond. Short-term outcomes include improved understanding of the sector, increased youth engagement and the development of new data-driven strategies. Intermediate results aim to enhance volunteer recruitment and retention while enabling organizations to respond more proactively to community needs.
In the long term, the vision is a more resilient volunteer sector—one that contributes meaningfully to SDGs at the local level, sustains higher levels of engagement and empowers communities with the tools needed for ongoing participation in sustainable development.
Building a Shared Future
Ultimately, the UVic Volunteer of the Year Project is about creating alignment—between data and action, between volunteers and organizations and between local efforts and global goals.
“I hope this project helps create a shared, evidence-based understanding of local volunteerism,” says Kirkland.
She adds that it can strengthen the alignment between volunteer expectations and organizational capacity and help organizations better recognize and scale their contribution to sustainable development at the community level.
By fostering collaboration, building capacity and amplifying voices across the sector, the initiative positions Volunteer Victoria and its partners to respond more effectively to emerging challenges and opportunities.
