Volunteers

Saeed, one of our 31,623 volunteers, uses his skills in horticulture to help newly-arrived asylum seekers to learn about growing their own food. Photo: Australian Red Cross/Morné de Klerk

Voluntary Service is a fundamental principle of the international Red Cross Movement, and so it has been a core component of Australian Red Cross since our founding 100 years ago. This year we updated our Voluntary Service Strategy, which includes various goals in engaging and supporting a diverse group of volunteers.

Our current organisational policy is to measure the value of volunteer contributions not in dollar amounts, but by client feedback. A monitoring and evaluation framework is currently being developed to measure the social capital delivered by our volunteers.

We want our volunteers to reflect our broader society in age, gender and cultural background, and are pursuing this goal by recruiting volunteers who identify as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, have disabilities and live in regional areas. We will also ensure our volunteers are involved in community-led solutions, and consult them to ensure that they find their work meaningful.