The Importance of Community Engagement in Volunteer Work

People often argue that good service is good charity work, however, this can create an uneven power dynamic that results in the person providing service pitying the person receiving the service. I believe that good service is accomplished by building relationships with the individuals that you are serving because it allows charity to become an egalitarian act. It allows those receiving service to feel like a true member of the community, taking away any sense of stigma. By promoting equality through the formation of relationships, the simple relationship of giving and receiving becomes one of mutual respect.

Many people throughout the world face a variety of issues for a multitude of reasons. These challenges can result from natural disasters, diseases, mental health disorders, poverty, and much more (Bloomerang, 2024). When issues of this sort arise, it often affects people’s overall stability in life that allows them to remain content. These issues can morph into other issues that range from medical problems to homelessness. Volunteering, also known as charity work, is the act of participating in some form of unpaid labor in an attempt to benefit others. Volunteering can be both formal and informal, meaning that it can be done independently or through an organization (NCVO, 2024).

Volunteering has multiple benefits for both the individual providing the service and the individual receiving the service. When volunteering, the community receives positive benefits that include engagement with more fortunate members of the greater community as well as assistance in financial, physical, emotional, and mental needs. What many people do not realize prior to participating in volunteer work are the immense amount of benefits that it also provides them. Through volunteering, the individuals providing service also have the opportunity to develop new friendships, reduce stress, learn new skills, experience positive mental health benefits, such as combating depression, and more (Segal & Robinson, 2024).

People are driven by many incentives that lead them to volunteering, however, these motivates are not always rooted in altruistic values and principles. For example, many high schools implement a certain number of community service hours required for students in order for them to receive their diploma to graduate. When individuals are obligated to volunteer to satisfy requirements, they often do not put as much effort into the social connections and provide service in a mindless manner. This lack of engagement and little to no drive to form relationships often leads the individuals receiving the service to feel stigmatized or marginalized.

I argue that there are multiple ‘types’ of charity work. The ‘type’ of charity work is dependent on the mindset you have when volunteering. I believe that ‘good’ charity can only be done by building relationships with members of the marginalized communities that you are supporting as they allow volunteers to build a sense of empathy and lessen the systematic power dynamic that have arisen from societal stereotypes.

Traditional charity work does not stress the importance of supporters forming interpersonal relationships with the beneficiaries. This model regards the individuals being served as the only party that is benefiting when volunteering. Joe Jenkins, the director of fundraising and supporter engagement at the Children’s society, discusses how supporters must begin to focus on the social sector of volunteer work: he stresses the importance of “creating ‘social movements’”. The traditional charity model is typically utilized by older generations and Jenkins argues that “new generations are much more involved” (Radojev, 2016). Older generations would often view charity work as a “duty” to society rather than a choice and an opportunity to engage with diverse communities. When viewing responsibility as something you owe rather than something you choose, it is challenging to make the beneficiary party feel as though they are equals. Rather they end up feeling as if they are placed within a societal hierarchy where they are somewhere below the supporting party.

Throughout my experience volunteering, I have participated in both traditional charity work and connection-based charity work. I would often volunteer in fundraisers, mindlessly organizing activities and raising money with little in mind surrounding the people of whom I would be helping. Instead of engaging with the members of the community that I was supporting, I was spending time and building relationships with those who were helping raise the money. I knew barely anything about who I was helping aside from the small amount of information that we were provided by the organization we were raising money for. The organization was an intermediate party involved in charity work who was responsible for collecting, investing, and distributing the money to a specific group of people. In this case, I was raising money for children whose parents had a child in the hospital and could not take care of the siblings or afford for anyone to take care of them. This money went towards sending them to a camp, however, I was never able to meet any of these children or their families. In this experience, I felt a sense of disconnection between myself and the party that I was supporting. Therefore, it caused me to feel a sense of pity for them and look down at them rather than seeing eye to eye.

When partaking in another volunteer opportunity, I was able to be directly involved with the individual that I was supporting. I volunteered for a tutoring organization that focused on helping children living in poverty who had recently immigrated to Canada. Many of these children did not speak English and were very unfamiliar with the country. I was paired with the same few children weekly which allowed me to build deep and meaningful connections with them. Through this experience I was able to better understand their learning styles and cater the way that I taught towards each individual child. In doing so, we were able to make personal connections and comparisons between our lives, which made them feel comfortable and valued in their new environment. This was a much more valuable experience than volunteering for a fundraiser because I was able to see from a new perspective and we were able to experience mutual benefits.
Therefore, community engagement is a key part of any community service project as it promotes relationships which enable collaboration and mutual understanding. When participating in impersonal charity work, you leave individuals in the beneficiary community feeling isolated. Engaging with community members in the process of volunteering avoids the dehumanizing aspect of traditional charity work.