While new generations are ready to join the ranks of volunteers, their relationship with the organizations they serve will likely be different than what has been seen in the past.

More and more frequently, volunteers aren't prepared to commit to the long haul. And when they do get involved in charitable work, they want their talents and skills to be used more effectively -- and their efforts have to make a significant impact.

"We all have to change the way we think about volunteerism," said Mark Delluomo, executive director of Corning Meals on Wheels. "Times have changed, and people have less time to spend on volunteering."

That is particularly evident among baby boomers, the generation of 77 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964. They're expected to stay in the work force longer, are well-educated and have higher expectations of the volunteer experience.

"Boomers are going to be demanding a different kind of volunteering experience, and nonprofits need to be ready," said Sandy Scott, spokesman for the Corporation for National and Community Service in Washington, D.C.

"The old model would be maybe the volunteers would be licking the envelopes. But now the boomers could be the ones who do the fundraising strategic plan, and you could hire people to lick the envelopes," he said.

"That's kind of the paradigm shift that has to take place."

Leaks in volunteer bucket

About 60.8 million people volunteered at least once between September 2006 and September 2007, the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last week. The proportion of the population that volunteered during that period was 26.2 percent, a decline of 0.5 percent. That follows a decline of 2.1 percent the year before, the bureau reported.

"Volunteering still remains at quite high levels compared with a couple of decades ago, but it has declined," said Robert Grimm, director of research and policy development for the Corporation for National and Community Service in Washington, D.C.

"There is a growing number of people who are dropping out of volunteering. I call that the 'leaky bucket phenomenon.' What I mean by that is one out of every three people on average who volunteer in a year don't volunteer the next year," he said.

"When the volunteer rate dropped a good amount between '05 and '06, it was because there was a spike in the number of people dropping out. Part of that is I think organizations have to re-imagine the roles and opportunities they provide for volunteers."

Locally, some nonprofit groups say they have not had a shortage of volunteers.

"We've been very fortunate," said Carol Menihan, co-director of the Corning Community Food Pantry. Part of the reason may be the ability to match tasks with each individual.

"We might just use some of those people in a different way, more of a short-term project or to come in on a weekend or over the holidays. We kind of just mesh all of our retirees and our high school kids and our working volunteers," she said. "They want to do something, but they have a 9-to-5 job, so we work them in where we can."

The American Red Cross Sullivan Trail Chapter that's based in Elmira also has not had too much trouble getting volunteers, particularly those who become involved in disaster response, Executive Director Joel Robinson said.

"It's a commitment to do the training and everything else, so if you're not really interested, I don't think you'd get heavily involved," he said. "The only time we have trouble keeping volunteers is if there's not opportunity for them to be engaged, if they get special training and there just doesn't happen to be a call for them."

Appeals must be tailored
It's not impossible to get baby boomers to volunteer, but the approach to attract them has to be completely different than for the older generation, said Phil Goodman, president of Generation Transitional Marketing in Carlsbad, Calif., north of San Diego.

"Nonprofit groups looking for volunteers are going to have to throw all of their thoughts about the senior mind-set completely out the window," he said.

"They're going to have to re-invent themselves. They're going to have to make it more attractive, more appealing and realize that they're going to have to understand which generations they're dealing with."

Baby boomers, for example, are a long way from retiring and likely will stay in the work force into their early 70s, Goodman said. Agencies need to emphasize the impact that their volunteering would have. You would never approach a boomer with a proposal to get involved in a worthwhile cause just to fill their time.

"That would be disastrous," he said.

Baby boomers often have very strong philanthropic, social involvement concerns, desires and wishes to make the world a better place, said Ron Hatch, president of the United Way of the Southern Tier.

But instead of agreeing to a long-term commitment, a lot of boomers as well as those in younger generations prefer very concrete tasks that they can complete and move on.

"There's a desire to get involved to do things, and often they are looking for more specific kinds of tasks where they can either use their professional skill sets or pick up other kinds of skills," he said.

"But there seems to be a growing interest in a different way to volunteer."

Trying to find what works
Southeastern Steuben County Habitat for Humanity in Corning has been struggling with volunteer problems that started surfacing about a year ago, President Jan Harvey said. And while other local agencies have not yet experienced a problem recruiting or retaining volunteers, it's coming, she said.

"We are having a very difficult time finding the long-term volunteers who are the organizers and the planners," she said.

In the past year, Habitat had close to 500 volunteers who helped build a house, but only 10 percent returned for more than one day, Harvey said. Most took part in project days -- a church project, a team project, a service club project, or a "blitz build."

Volunteers will "own" a specific project, such as putting on a roof or painting. The next time you see them is at the next house to put a roof on or paint, she said.

"They're not willing to commit every single week or even once a month," Harvey said.

She used to have a "call bank" of 200 volunteers she could rely on "whenever, whatever, however," she said.

In the past year or so, however, that has dwindled to a total of 25 people.

"We used to pull 25, 30 people a weekend. Now I'm lucky if I pull more than four," Harvey said. "I can tell you this -- it's happening everywhere."

Habitat is trying to analyze the situation by asking volunteers from the past year if there might have been something the organization did that turned them off or whether there is something they could have done to have improved the experience, she said.

Observers say the most effective approach for organizations is to do a better job matching volunteer skills with opportunities. That is particularly important with baby boomers because research shows they are mainly interested in putting their skills to work, Grimm said.

For example, a group of management consultants were recently recruited to sort clothes for a day at a thrift store in Dallas. When they got there, they said they know a lot about marketing and proposed offering guidance on how to set up the store to get more sales.

The result was the thrift store was able to increase its sales substantially, he said.

About three-quarters of people whose volunteering includes some kind of professional skills or management assistance continued to volunteer the next year, while half of the people who do general labor activities drop out, Grimm said. Baby boomers given mundane tasks are not likely to come back.

"Organizations need to re-imagine the roles of volunteers and think about how any role in the organization could be done by volunteers," he said.

"If an organization does that, I think that they'll actually achieve greater benefits for their organization and at the same time, they'll be more likely to keep people volunteering."

Opportunities are there that can plug holes in the leaky bucket. Recent studies show 90 percent of nonprofits really could use support with technology, and a lot could use support with strategic planning, he said

Far-reaching consequences
The impact of connecting potential volunteers with volunteering opportunities that really matter to them can be more extensive that you might think. It can even make a difference in deciding whether to move.

When it comes to young professionals, the key is finding out what areas they are really passionate about and then matching them up with the right volunteering opportunity, said Michael Fuller, chairman of the Steering Committee of Pipeline4Progress, a network of young professionals in the Southern Tier.

"That way, if they happen to be looking for different job opportunities, they're going to think twice before packing up and moving to a different part of the country if they're very involved, if they're having an impact in the area," he said.

"A large number of young professionals want to volunteer and get involved in the community. They just need to be asked. They need to know where to go, where to find volunteer opportunities," he said. "The thing with young professionals is they can get busy, and they just don't know how or where to find the opportunities."

Those opportunities must include nontraditional approaches, such as virtual volunteering, said Carol Houssock, director of RSVP of Chemung County.

"People can work at home if somebody's creative and handy with a computer," she said. "There's a group that will assemble a newsletter. Well, maybe the new volunteer would be the one that would compose it and do the layout and the design and run a Web site and do some of these other things that they could easily do at home."

The notion of volunteers having loads of free time is outdated, Houssock said.

"They're already juggling three and four things. They're not necessarily retired. They're working. They're raising a family," she said. "A lot of the opportunities down the road have to be nontraditional."

Studies show there are new volunteers coming who will roll up their sleeves and get some work done, she said. "It's just going to be a different type of relationship."