Exploring the Economic and Social Value of Present Patterns of Volunteering in Australia

This report begins by exploring grey areas at the edges of the definition of volunteering. The term ‘volunteer’ generally designates a person who provides services or benefits to others for motivations other than financial or material reward. Volunteering has also been seen as an activity taking place within the confines of formal organisations promoting a range of good causes. This report sets out the case for expanding the definition of volunteering to include not only formal activity within charitable organisations but also volunteering for emergency services, informal charitable acts undertaken outside the bounds of organisations, and unpaid care of adults with disabilities and the frail elderly. Through the remainder of this summary, the term volunteering should be taken to encompass all these forms of voluntary activity. Nevertheless, the majority of analysis in this report explicitly separates volunteering within organisations (formal volunteering) from other forms of volunteering (unpaid care, unpaid work in the emergency services, and informally helping other people from outside one’s household or the wider community).