Time for a national discussion on the value of community

Posted on 27 Aug 2024

By Emeritus Professor Myles McGregor-Lowndes, Australian Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies, Queensland University of Technology

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It is time for all of us interested in the idea of community to reflect deeply, and a new report gives us a chance to do just that.

We have come to take community organisations – their activities, their missions, their contribution to our lives – for granted.

A new study, called Community Compass, gives us a critical insight into Australians' thoughts about their experiences of the community sector and their expectations of those who work and volunteer in it.

Community Compass report — Tap to access the full report

Commissioned by Our Community and the Community Council for Australia, and written by social researcher Rebecca Huntley, the study examines Australians’ attitudes towards community organisations.

This report is significant because it is anchored to the values of Australians and their beliefs about their community engagement.

Our values inform our trust in each other and our willingness to help each other, which is also our measure of social cohesion.

Nurturing a community space in Australia requires understanding where we agree and differ, what matters and what doesn’t.

The researchers were tasked with establishing what Australians care about and value when engaging with community organisations, and identifying specific opportunities and challenges for various societal groups.

The researchers surveyed over 3000 adults from all states and regions, giving the report a rare degree of authority.

Community Compass segments breakdown — The report found Australians' attitudes could be divided into six segments.

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.

Attitudes on the role of the community sector infographic — Each segment displayed a slightly different understanding of the sector.

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.