Five Good Ideas to attract and keep volunteers
Volunteer participation has dropped since the pandemic – but community needs haven’t. If you’re struggling to recruit or retain volunteers, you’re not alone.
On March 30, 2026 Megan Conway, President and CEO of Volunteer Canada, shared five practical ideas on how to re-engage your volunteer community and attract new supporters. Drawing from the new National Volunteer Action Strategy, Megan looked at how to meet the changing needs and motivations of today’s volunteers, remove barriers that keep people from participating, and reconnect with those who have volunteered with you in the past.
You’ll leave with ready-to-use ideas – and help build momentum and passion for how we can collectively contribute to making volunteering something that’s core to Canada’s current nation-building efforts.
Five Good Ideas
- Design volunteering for belonging, not just help
- Treat access to volunteering as a design and equity issue
- Reframe volunteering as contribution, skill building, and participation
- Invest in volunteer infrastructure as a public good
- Make volunteering visible in civic leadership and policy
Resources
- National Volunteer Action Strategy. (2025). Findings.
- Statistics Canada. (2023). Survey on Giving, Volunteering and Participating.
- Volunteer Alberta and Volunteer Canada. (2025). Volunteer Participation Survey.
- Volunteer Alberta. (2025). Bringing Meaning to the Volunteer Experience: Insights on What Motivates, Sustains and Challenges Volunteers.
- Volunteer Alberta and InWithForward. (2025). (Re)Engaged: Volunteerism from the Ground Up.
- Tamarack Institute. (2020). Tool: Planning Your Backbone Support.
- Tamarack Institute webinar. (2020). Collective Impact Backbones: What We Are Learning.
- OECD. (2024). Survey on Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions – 2024 Results.
- OECD. (2024). OECD Youth Policy Toolkit.
- World Economic Forum. (2025). New Economy Skills: Unlocking the Human Advantage.
- World Economic Forum. (2025). Future of Jobs Report 2025.