Volunteers Australia defines volunteering as “time willingly given for the common good and without financial gain”. Volunteers tend to contribute in areas such as caring for elderly/youth, caring for animals, and supporting cultural activities such as art or sport.

Until recently, volunteering was often regarded as occurring through or within an organisation, now called formal volunteering. This include structured roles and activities and may include some training. Formal volunteering currently faces challenges of declining participation rates. This is exacerbated by cost-of-living pressures: around 25% of people 18-34 indicate financial reasons for why they do not volunteer.

Informal volunteering occurs outside the structure of an organisation, which includes helping people in the community (except family) providing home or personal assistance; or giving someone professional advice. Informal volunteering can also include episodic and spontaneous volunteering.

Episodic volunteerism is short term, time limited, often project based volunteering on irregular or periodic or recurring basis. Individuals might participate in diverse periodic, non-committal volunteer opportunities.

These volunteers are motivated by wanting to contribute but are time poor and do not want to commit to more time intensive or regular opportunities. Key is making the experience meaningful, so they are encouraged to come back to volunteer again. The disadvantage for an organisation is the amount of training required for what may be limited rewards in terms of the time a volunteer may stay involved

These opportunities can include anything from grey nomads helping in remote communities, to individuals helping at mega sporting in events like the Olympics. Coastal examples include beach cleanup days. or citizen scientists monitoring particular species, for example during sea turtle breeding seasons.

Spontaneous volunteerism is a type of episodic volunteerism that is now a key feature of disaster events. For example, in major floods in Queensland and New South Wales, where ‘tinny armies’ have stepped up to rescue trapped residents during floods or ‘mud armies’ that help clean up residential areas or support community resilience organisations.

Digital volunteerism increased dramatically during the COVID19 pandemic. These are often called expert or skilled volunteers or technical assistance volunteers.

These volunteers offer specialised skills that align with their interests or professional expertise. This may offer more interesting and meaningful experiences to the individual. However, they also require special skills and sensitivity in how these volunteers work with the in-house experts and systems!

There are advantages in digital volunteerism for both participants and the organisation. It enables flexibility of who, when, and how volunteers provide their skills and labour and so can broaden and diversify participation. It enables people with restricted time or mobility to contribute at a time and place that suits them.

Disadvantages of digital volunteerism include security concerns as the volunteers may handle sensitive data or other aspects of projects that require confidentiality: organisations (and volunteers) need to ensure effective training in digital security.

Volunteers also need to ensure that they are signing up to real opportunities and not scam organisations.

Australians volunteer primarily to express their values, build social connections, and engage in meaningful personal or environmental causes, often combining altruistic intentions with personal growth. The key reasons include the following.

• To help others and make a difference: Most volunteers are driven by a desire to contribute to society and support causes they care about, especially community and environmental issues. Some volunteers are driven by strong environmental values and a sense of responsibility to protect nature.
• To give back: Volunteering is also a way for people to give back to communities or causes that have positively impacted them.
• For personal growth and learning: Volunteering offers chances to learn new skills, gain knowledge, and grow personally—particularly in conservation and nature-based roles.
• For social connection: Many people volunteer to meet others, build friendships, and feel part of a community.
• To develop new skills and improve opportunities: Younger volunteers in particular are often motivated by opportunities to boost employability and gain experience.

Participation in volunteering can depending on an individual's resources (mostly but not only time) as well as their motivation, satisfaction, and rewards. Young people’s volunteering may be influenced by their socioeconomic circumstances, education levels, gender, location, ability and cultural identifications

Holtrop et al. (2024) study of why volunteers leave their voluntary organisation has identified and described a series of the most common factors. They suggest that volunteer organisations can keep track of these factors through regular surveys or discussions with their volunteers. In this way they can better act upon these factors before turnover occurs.