It’s Time To Create A New Generation Of Volunteers—And You Can Help
While filming “The New Volunteers” — our latest YouTube series exploring youth-led community service across the U.S. — a woman approached our huge green RV to learn about the project.
We told her we were traveling to meet young adults improving their communities in new and exciting ways. In fact, we were in her small town in Virginia that day to meet two high school students who’d started a nonprofit to fight local food insecurity…and now supported over 43,000 volunteers throughout the U.S. and Canada.
Almost immediately, she asked us: “After talking to so many impressive young adults, have you found that these kids are just rockstars…or did they have all the right forms of support along the way?”
It’s a great question — one we explored throughout the trip! But our answer was probably a little unsatisfying: “It’s really a combination of both.”
Almost 80% of young people in America recognize the benefits of community service — and this generation of youth wants to create change! But many say they don’t know how to get started, or how to help out in the areas they care about most. They need on-ramps to connect them with service opportunities that speak to their interests and values.
So using case studies from “The New Volunteers,” we’ve put together a short list of recommendations for how educators and schools, parents and caregivers, and nonprofits and organizations can become “all the right forms of support,” and empower the next generation of volunteers.
For educators and schools
Create a culture of service
We’ve been asking all the youth volunteers we meet, “Did you ever feel like you were ‘too young’ to make a difference?”
Time and time again, these young people — who were motivated to start service-based clubs, join service projects, or even form their own nonprofits — gave us the same answers: “I’ve never felt that way.” “I never heard that from anyone.” “You’re never too young to start!”
We heard similar answers from Adam Belouad and Grace Calabrese — founders of Hand to Hunger, the nonprofit mentioned above. And their fellow volunteers/classmates went even further, telling us that their high school’s enthusiasm for altruism and innovative thinking actually helped mold them into changemakers.
When Adam and Grace told their teachers that they wanted to combat local food insecurity, the educators didn’t handle their interest with kid gloves.
Instead, they took them seriously, encouraging them to start a club at school, mentoring them through the process of forming a nonprofit, and connecting them with grants through programs like the International Baccalaureate’s Global Youth Action Fund.
That’s what a culture of youth-led service looks like: It’s not just requiring students to earn a certain amount of hours and check a box on their resume. It’s about encouraging young people to engage with the world and find the issues they truly care about — and then using empowering language and positive modeling to show them what’s possible, or even tapping into your own social capital to create space for them to execute their vision of change.
Schools are already the #1 pathway that youth take into volunteering, with 41% of youth engaging in service through their schools. But we can only imagine how high that number could go if every educator embraced and rewarded service in the way that Adam and Grace experienced at their high school.
For parents, family members, and support systems
Support takes many forms
Since creating the Rise N Shine Foundation at the age of 13(!), Shrusti Amula has received plenty of well-deserved accolades. After all, the teenager’s nonprofit has turned tons of potential food waste into over 200,000 meals for food-insecure folks in her community.
But when we visited Shrusti to volunteer with her org for the day, it was clear that this was no one-person show — because Shrusti’s family had her back, every step of the way.
Some examples:
- Since most of the Rise N Shine volunteers are under 16 years old, Shrusti’s parents regularly drive the crew to pick up and drop off food throughout their Maryland community.
- The bottom floor of the Amula home has transformed into Rise N Shine HQ, with their garage and basement now dedicated to food storage.
- Shrusti’s younger brother Vayun has helped out from day one, brainstorming the name for the nonprofit, and now acting as their COO.
But don’t worry; you don’t need to spend a mint on gasoline, or completely renovate your house to be an equally supportive caregiver! Because what matters most is the simple stuff — doing small acts to make service slightly more accessible, and giving youth the encouragement and assurance they need to know they’re on the right path.
When we asked Shrusti’s parents how other families and caregivers can mirror their level of support for Shrusti and her work, they said simply, “She has this passion, so we let her lead the way.” They were careful not to dictate her next steps, and tried to be helpful, not overbearing.
“We do what we can,” Shrusti’s parents told us proudly. “But in the end, it’s alllllll her.”
For community organizations and nonprofits
Meet young people where they’re at — then let them blaze their own trail
Most young people find volunteer opportunities through school, faith-based organizations, or from their immediate circle of family and friends. So if you’re an organization trying to recruit volunteers, how can you break into these spheres?
By meeting young people where they’re at — starting with social media.
A few social media success stories we saw out on the road:
- Exposure Skate’s Instagram account paints a colorful picture of what it’s like to volunteer with their org, enticing Gen Z with photos of fun events and shared community.
- Glass Half Full’s co-founder Franziska Trautmann has accumulated almost 300,000 followers on TikTok, where her day-in-the-life-style videos resonate with young audiences.
If you don’t feel comfortable entering these youth-driven digital spaces, our recommendation is simple: Recruit young people to help! Appeal to young people interested in writing, marketing, social media, etc.—and show them the (perhaps surprising!) impact their skills can make.
In addition to using social media to reach young people, think about how youth can reach you…literally. Young people often don’t have their own means of transportation; plus, many youth need to prioritize paid opportunities over volunteer efforts, in order to support their families or their own futures.
To tackle both of these hurdles, Groundswell Community Mural Project in Brooklyn told us they’ve helped subsidize public transportation costs for volunteers in their art programs, easing the cost of service and attracting young folks from boroughs across New York. And Common Ground Relief in New Orleans offers free housing for a number of committed volunteers.
“Youth deserve a voice at the table, and youth will be more inclined to participate when [service] programs are designed with their input in mind.” — Center for Expanding Leadership and Opportunity (CELO)
Finally, entrust young people with leadership positions, and embrace their ideas! Input from older and more established leaders is invaluable at any nonprofit, but young people are also entirely capable of recognizing and taking on local issues.
Take Paw Plan, for example — an Austin-based nonprofit, founded by a high school student who wanted to help support overflowing animal shelters and keep Austin a “no-kill” city. Although it’s run entirely by high school students — who hold positions ranging from “VP of Operations” to “Director of Marketing” — the org has been able to raise thousands of dollars and positively impact several local shelters.
This doesn’t mean you have to hand over the keys to your organization — just bring youth to the table. If young people are empowered to co-design volunteer projects or events, they’ll be more likely to participate with passion…and tell their friends about their experience!
Looking for more ways to empower young people to pursue service? CELO and The Allstate Foundation collaborated with over 3,000 young people and service leaders from across the United States to produce Leveraging the Potential of Youth Service, a report introducing a new definition, model, and design considerations to guide the next decade of youth-led service.
Read the report and explore their Youth Service Resource Library to find next steps.
You can also watch our brand new YouTube series “The New Volunteers” to meet the youth leaders featured in these case studies, plus even more amazing young people who are redefining service across the country. (It’s great for classroom viewing!) Thank you to The Allstate Foundation for fueling this series — just one of the many ways they work to empower youth to serve and improve their communities.
