Time for a national discussion on the value of community

Community Compass shows that Australians broadly value the community sector, and the importance of community organisations, because they make a positive difference in the world. So far, so good.

A more detailed analysis reveals six population groups, not all of whom are enamoured with the community sector. I list them here in order of decreasing levels of interest:

• “Enthusiastic Engaged” are strong supporters of the community sector.
• “Positive Preoccupied” are also supporters of the community sector, but not as active because of time and resource pressures.
• “Isolated Believers” are supporters, but social vulnerability makes them feel side-lined.
• “Active Traditionalists” believe in actively giving back to those deserving of support.
• “Indifferent Uninvolved” are not interested in the community sector and are disengaged.
• “Begrudging Bygones” are pessimistic and feel powerless, but still provide community support.

As all seasoned fundraisers and volunteer seekers know through hard experience, a person’s values predict their engagement. The identified shared values of each of the six groups help us to understand them. For all groups, the top shared value is feeling safe and secure, followed by personal freedom, caring for others, and having economic security and wealth.

For the grandparenting Baby Boomers who provide childminding for their working children, and who dole out loans from the Bank of Mum and Dad, family and security come first. This goes a long way to explaining their decreased involvement in formal volunteering and their reduced donations to charities during challenging times.

The community sector has been shaped, financed, and resourced by the Baby Boomers. It may be that the community institutions they fashioned will require modification or even abandonment to meet the challenges of the new environment.

Further, new technology, preference for episodic forms of community engagement, and hybrid community organisations are challenging the declining membership-based institutions beloved by Baby Boomers, such as faith-based organisations, unions and service clubs. The community may be organised differently in the future, and trying to resurrect all Baby Boomer associational life is ill advised.

Ordinary Australians will decide the future shape of community organisations independently by their actions, provided that the government does not place barriers in their path, such as shambolic fundraising laws and grants funding in starvation mode.

Suppose governments fail to remove barriers and fail to facilitate pro-social behaviours. In that case, disengagement from and dissolution of community organisations may bring about a landscape of echo chamber caves, with few of the social benefits of a functioning community sector. Living without local football and netball competitions, neighbourhood houses, food banks, op shops, bowls clubs, churches, community-run childcare, locally run hospitals, community gardens and surf lifesaving is a bleak prospect.

Not-for-profit organisations (including charities) have inherent characteristics that make them more ethical, more trustworthy, more independent, and better at delivering community value for effort than for-profits. Other sectors seek to ‘nonprofit wash’, trading on the not-for-profit brand’s superior ‘trust’ attributes. While the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission may patrol ‘greenwashing,’ no one is tasked with protecting the community sector from impostors.

The report provides critical information about how the general population and various segments of it perceive the community sector. It gives peak organisational leaders the information they need to be able to communicate sympathetically with different community segments.

There has never been a more critical time for Australians to reflect, engage in open discussions, listen, and develop consensus strategies to bring about the community sector that it deserves.

Community Compass will help more of us do just that.

More information

Proof we've got to do more for the community sector

Reaction to the Community Compass from NFP sector

Study reveals what Australians really think of the community sector

Comment: “Whatever your attitude towards community groups, one day you’re going to need them”

Finding a new north: reflections on the Community Compass report