WHO'S MAKING THE ARTS WORK?
A National Survey of Nonprofit and Voluntary Organizations
conducted in January 2005 indicated that “non-profit
and voluntary organizations reported a combined volunteer
complement of over 19 million that contribute more than
2 billion hours of volunteer time, or the equivalent of
more than 1 million full-time jobs.” The value of
this volunteer is worth $14.1 billion annually. Volunteer
labour clearly contributes a lot to the arts.
Volunteers are fantastic but relying on volunteer help
can put organizations into a vulnerable position. 67% of
arts and culture organizations indicated that they have
difficulty recruiting the kind of volunteer needed. This
is higher than the non-profit field as a whole and indicates
particular challenges for the arts and cultural sector which
might not be able to attract as many volunteers because
they are rarely able to convert volunteer experience into
job prospects.
A study, released in August 2003 that surveyed volunteer
patterns in arts and culture organizations between 1997
and 2000, indicated that the volunteer pool for arts and
culture organizations decreased by 22% during that time
period but average hours per volunteer increased significantly.
This report notes that “a core group of culture volunteers
contributed almost three quarters of the total volunteer
hours for culture organizations.” The rise of volunteerism
and particularly committed volunteers is related to job
markets. At times when unemployment drops off so do the
number of qualified and dedicated volunteers leaving the
sector without needed human resources. The arts and culture
sector feel the ups and downs of these trends and have lobbied
for more secure funding in order to guarantee staff positions
and not leave themselves dependent on volunteers to fill
key positions.
Many groups have not been able to secure the kind of on-going
operational funding necessary to provide a full contingent
of trained staff. The sector is very ingenious at sourcing
a variety of short term grants, internships and mentoring
positions to fill staffing needs. Although valuable as training
opportunities this is often a series of stop gap measures
to keep an organization running.
In the end dedicated administrators and artists take their
paid labour and stretch it even further by working more
hours than they are paid for or working for very low wages.
This kind of unofficial subsidy of the arts is not taken
into consideration when studies survey volunteerism in the
arts and culture sector.
Data taken from:
Arts Research Monitor – January 2005 (Volume 3 Issue
No:7)
Arts Research Monitor – August 2003 (Volume: 2 Issue
No: 2)
www.artsresearchmonitor.com
|
