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In the aftermath of the First World War, governments and a range of international voluntary organisations including national Red Cross societies were engaged in the development of a range of public...

The Australian Assistance Plan (AAP), Gough Whitlam’s controversial programme of social welfare reform in the 1970s, was promoted as a national experiment in “people power.” But the outpouring of o...

There are ongoing management and societal challenges affecting volunteering participation. These place a premium on organizations identifying individuals that currently do not volunteer but have the willingness and capacity to do so, the “Potentials”. Supplementing the limited non-volunteer literature, we seek to quantify this potential volunteer pool using constructs aligned to the willingness, capability and availability dimensions from Meijs et al.’s (Volunt Action 8:36–54, 2006) volunteerability framework. Using binary logistic regression testing with a nationally representative sample of Australian volunteers and non-volunteers, we found partial support for the framework’s willingness and capability dimensions determining volunteer status. We then applied a predictive equation to the non-volunteer sample to calculate their percentage likelihood of volunteering, to identify a cohort of “Potential” volunteers. Further testing revealed statistically significant differences between this cohort compared to other non-volunteers based on various interventions for promoting volunteering. The implications of our novel study and an associated research agenda are discussed.

The League of Red Cross Societies (LRCS) – known as the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) since 1991 – has received little historical attention despite representing the world’s largest volunteer network and being an integral part of the Red Cross Movement. Formed in the aftermath of the First World War by the national Red Cross Societies of the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan, the LRCS aspired to lead in the promotion of global public health and welfare during peacetime. Through the lens of assemblage thinking and the five assemblage elements of exteriority, capacity to evolve, internal machinery, open systems, and desire, the paper seeks to understand the longevity and resilient humanitarianism of the LRCS. In doing so, the paper provides a new conceptualisation of the LRCS that helps to explain how it survived in the rapidly changing and increasingly contested international humanitarian environment of the twentieth century.

Within the context of the war on poverty and an acknowledgement of the wider global phenomenon of a ‘post-industrial society’, the Australian Labor Party under Gough Whitlam sought out a range of reforming and innovative social policy programs. This article explores the origins of one such program, the Australian Assistance Plan (AAP), and its connections, similarities and differences to the Canada Assistance Plan. Drawing on extensive archival and oral history sources, it offers a comparative analysis of both national programs, then outlines how international social planning and community development ideas, especially from Canada, infused the AAP and its predecessor, the Geelong Experiment.

Based on the four dimensions of volunteering (time, object, nature, and environment) and net-cost analysis theory, this article examines the conceptualization of volunteering among nonvolunteers and what could attract them to volunteer (attractors). Using flashcard images of volunteering activities among a nationally representative sample in Australia, we reveal nonvolunteers perceived the existing four dimensions of volunteering and, in addition, two new dimensions of volunteering emerged: ability (required skill level) and social (who one volunteers with). Of these dimensions, object, nature, and abilities were found to be the most attractive dimensions of volunteering to nonvolunteers. The study further partially supports the use of net-cost theory as a framework for linking nonvolunteer’s perceptions of volunteering to their likelihood of volunteering, with the findings suggesting that low net-cost activities are more attractive to nonvolunteers.

As volunteering and its benefits gain global recognition, social policymakers can sustain and increase volunteering through social policy, legislation and other types of involvement. A key performance practice is to measure the rate of volunteering based on the percentage of the population that volunteer or the number of hours donated. The focus of this article, however, is on the capacity to volunteer by non-volunteers as well as by volunteers. The concept and theory of volunteerability (an individual's ability to overcome related obstacles and volunteer, based on his or her willingness, capability and availability) offers a richer understanding of how people can be assisted to overcome barriers to maximize their volunteer potential and thus increase volunteering. The article details the definitions and benefits of volunteering and covers examples of related social policy, as well as explaining the concept of volunteerability and how it can be measured using existing and new scales. Based on a mixed methods study in Australia, the article offers specific measures to examine the concept of volunteerability and reveals important differences between volunteers and non-volunteers. The article also details major barriers to volunteering and how social policies can be developed to overcome them.

Australian Meals on Wheels (MoWs) is a well-known, traditional nonprofit organization operating for over 60 years in a mixed economy of welfare, where it is positioned between the increasingly comp...

To be invited to review this edited collection was a daunting proposition and it has taken me over twelve months to sit down and complete the task. I did have valid work reasons for my tardiness bu...

The Australian Assistance Plan (AAP) was an innovative yet largely forgotten social welfare program from the 1970s. A key platform of the Whitlam Labor government, which established a series of Regional Councils for Social Development across Australia, the AAP reframed citizens' participation in their communities, stimulated voluntary organisations and volunteering and attempted to transform engagement among all levels of governments and the voluntary sector. Through an analysis of three Regional Council case studies in Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia, this article focuses on the themes of regionalism and regional distinctiveness in order to assess how questions of regional difference can impact on the development of policy practices.

One of the lesser known stories of the Gallipoli campaign was the significant support provided to the Australian Imperial Force by the array of voluntary patriotic funds. Mobilized from the beginning of the war and operating both on the Home Front and in Egypt, the large support network of individuals and organizations varied from sandbag funds, the provision of recreational equipment and hostel accommodation, to foodstuffs and medical supplies. This article focuses on the Australian Red Cross, formed on the outbreak of war in August 1914 as a branch of the British Red Cross Society. Its considerable contribution as a humanitarian organization concentrating on sick and wounded soldiers in war included Wounded and Missing Bureaux. Using the records of the South Australian Red Cross Information Bureau, this article explores the beginning of this programme and its efforts to trace missing soldiers from the Gallipoli campaign for family members and friends. Through this case study analysis, we find an...

The iconic Australian voluntary organization, Meals on Wheels, has delivered meals to the elderly and those with disabilities for over 60 years and is currently facing considerable institutional change. These exogenous changes include a more regulatory environment, tighter funding restrictions and a move towards marketization and competition. These issues are affecting a traditional service delivery organization reliant on a predominantly older volunteer workforce. This paper draws on neo-institutional theory to explore the impact of these contemporary institutional changes on an organization heavily reliant on volunteers, leading to a clash between traditional values and market concerns with efficiency and productivity. Utilizing a case study approach, and focusing on interviews with the current Australian leadership, this article explores how Meals on Wheels is managing change, and more specifically how leaders perceive the impact, and responses, of its volunteers.

During the First World War Australian women were attracted to voluntary organisations such as the Red Cross, a transnational humanitarian organisation that focused on the sick and wounded in battle as well as civilians displaced by war. Red Cross work provided patriotic Australian women with meaningful wartime activities that not only gave them a purpose but importantly became an antidote against the rising anxieties of war. This chapter reflects on the fluidity of boundaries and borders of war as it affected a range of women’s experiences in the paid and voluntary domain. It features women who worked on the home front and those who found ways to travel to the war, to actively participate, to use their skills and expertise in creative and sometimes unorthodox ways. Through organisations like the Red Cross, Australian women created an imperial community, not imagined but very real, that offered them a space to feel fully involved in the war effort, actively and effectively. The chapter also suggests that exploring questions of self-identity and gender can help further broaden our understanding of Australian experiences of war.

When Australian soldiers returned from the First World War they were offered the chance to settle on 'land fit for heroes'. Promotional material painted a picture of prosperous farms and contented families, appealing to returned servicepeople and their families hoping for a fresh start. Yet just 20 years after the inception of these soldier settlement schemes, fewer than half of the settlers remained on their properties. In this timely book, based on recently uncovered archives, Bruce Scates and Melanie Oppenheimer map out a deeply personal history of the soldiers' struggle to transition from Anzac to farmer and provider. At its foundation lie thousands of individual life stories shaped by imperfect repatriation policies. The Last Battle examines the environmental challenges, the difficulties presented by the physical and psychological damage many soldiers had sustained during the war, and the vital roles of women and children.

Winterton R, Warburton J, Oppenheimer M. The future for Meals on Wheels? Reviewing innovative approaches to meal provision for ageing populations The global phenomenon of population ageing is impacting on how community care is delivered, and a key component of health and social care services for the frail elderly is Meals on Wheels (MOW), a service that has traditionally encompassed delivering meals to older people in their homes. However, aspects of this conceptualisation of MOW are being redefined in order to address challenges posed by tightening global financial contexts, a reliance on volunteers and increasing social isolation among ageing populations. Through a review of the literature and websites from selected countries (UK, USA, Canada, Australia), this article explores and critically evaluates models of MOW delivery addressing these challenges. Findings suggest that MOW services are utilising a marketised approach, moving outside of the home and incorporating diverse volunteer roles. These findings demonstrate how services such as MOW can develop sustainable approaches to service delivery in a contemporary context. Key Practitioner Message:•A review of innovative MOW highlights service models of broader applicability;•Varied delivery models and more diverse volunteer roles appeal to new sources of volunteers;•Research into the development of sustainable models with positive client social outcomes is now required.

This article examines the role played by ‘imperial girls’: daughters of vice-regal representatives, consuls and ambassadors despatched by British governments to represent its interests in the late Victorian and early Edwardian eras. Little is known about children's responses to their imperial childhoods and they are rarely considered in transnational and imperial history. It is argued that imperial girls had a more influential and practical education than their brothers who were often absent from the family circle at boarding school. Although they did not have formal educational opportunities, girls remaining with their families learned much more about the imperial mission, about how to act within the imperial space, and the expectations placed on imperial women through the organisational impulse of philanthropy, social reform and the transnational commodity of the imperial feminist mission. This article assesses the possible impact imperial childhoods had on later imperial women using one case s...

Uncontrolled and undirected people, in their patriotic exuberance, started to create a host of patriotic organizations. They all needed money and proceeded to try and get it from the public in a variety of ways. The public soon began to exhibit impatience and the Government realised that it had a problem which had to be solved.

This article examines the role and relationship of Lady Helen Munro Ferguson, wife of Australia's fifth Governor General, and the Australian Red Cross during a period of unprecedented social, economic and political upheaval in Australian history. It argues that Lady Helen brought with her to Australia special qualities and experiences which were to benefit the Red Cross, an organisation she established and ran during the Great War. The activities of Lady Helen also gave an imperial cast to some important aspects of federal development in Australia.

The Fabric of Welfare: Voluntary Organisations, Government and Welfare in New Zealand, 1840–2005, by Margaret Tennant, Wellington, Bridget Williams Books, 2007, vi+274 pp., NZ$49.99 (paper), ISBN 9...

This paper will examine aspects of voluntarism and the voluntary principle on the home front in Australia during World War Two. The general assumptions which pervade historical texts and public consciousness consistently refer to voluntary work as simply knitting socks and balaclavas and little else. In fact the voluntary work carried out during World War Two was far more encompassing, complex and multifaceted. It may be surprising to some, although not, I suspect, to those who lived through the war, that voluntary work was extensive, crossed class and cultural boundaries, and had the overwhelming support of the community. Although this paper will focus on the state of Queensland, it is important to give a general outline of the types of voluntary work carried out on the home front, and what was involved.