News

Sharon Walsh has achieved a world first by producing a ten year benchmarking study on the health volunteering sector.

Sharon is Volunteer Services Director at Bendigo Health but she also heads the Leaders of Health Volunteer Engagement (LOHVE) Network. The network was established in 2011 for managers and coordinators working in health volunteering in Victoria but has since grown to include representatives from other states and overseas.

Research, spearheaded by Sharon, began in 2013. Questions were designed by volunteer coordinators for volunteer coordinators because they wanted to better understand their individual programs, see where their programs sat in comparison to others, and guide future health volunteer programs and improvements.

After 10 years of gathering and reporting data, the Leaders of Health Volunteer Engagement (LOHVE) Volunteer Sector Benchmarking Study has just been published. It collates and reflects on the previous ten reports and offers insights into changes over the years.

The report shows that the average age of volunteers is 60 and 77% are female. Each volunteer stays an average of 5.7 years in the role and contributes 26 679 hours each year to their service. There is so much information in the report and I encourage you to read it.

A staggering amount of work has gone into collecting, analysing, synthesising, and reporting this important data. Sharon and her team deserve to be recognised and lauded for this monumental achievement. What a boon for the health volunteering sector.

Click here to read the report.