Multicultural communities and inclusion in volunteering

April, 2026

There is an abundance of volunteering in multicultural communities. The 2020 General Social Survey showed that 15% of recent migrants and 22% of non-recent migrants have volunteered formally in 2020, while 37% of recent migrants and 31% of non-recent migrants volunteered informally.

Volunteering among multicultural communities helps facilitate their social and economic integration in society. It supports the settlement journey of newly arrived migrants and contributes to building a more tolerant and respectful society in Australia. Volunteering is also integral for the delivery of key support programs and services in relation to the settlement of individuals with a migrant or refugee background, with many people who volunteer in these sectors being from culturally and linguistically diverse communities. The presence of multicultural volunteers in an organisation helps to build a more respectful work culture, through the promotion of a more diverse and inclusive organisational structure.

A range of factors that impact on whether, and how, a person can volunteer, including age, cultural background, education and employment status, and socio-economic status. Addressing these and other barriers to volunteering is about ensuring that participation is inclusive for all people in our community

The breadth of volunteering within multicultural communities may actually be more extensive than the statistics show. This can be explained by alternative cultural understandings of volunteering in these communities, such as community obligation, or an act of service or religious duty, in which volunteering is undertaken. Given these different interpretations of volunteering, it is difficult to capture the breadth of multicultural volunteers leading to under-representation in statistical research.

While volunteering is a great mechanism to foster inclusivity, access to volunteering is not always equal and resources are not always available to allow volunteer involving organisations to meet their inclusivity aspirations. As a result, more work needs to be done to strengthen inclusivity in the volunteering ecosystem. Identifying barries to inclusivity, and finding ways to share lessons and bring in new knowledge are key factors to ensure a culture of inclusion in volunteering.

Volunteering Australia seeks to ensure that volunteering is inclusive to maximise the benefits. Culturally and linguistically diverse and First Nations’ communities must be considered in volunteering policy and outreach, to achieve inclusion and to learn about what the act of volunteering means to people in different cultural communities.

Inclusivity in volunteering is a strategic objective of the National Strategy for Volunteering. This is reflected in strategic objective 1.2, which describes the framework for achieving a volunteering vision and aim where volunteering is inclusive and accessible.

We have engaged with the Australian Bureau of Statistics on improvements to the Voluntary work module for the General Social Survey, in regards to the development of methodologies to improve the measurement of volunteering undertaken by culturally and linguistically diverse communities and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

Volunteering Australia’s Key Volunteering Statistics report details the most recent available data from the 2020 General Social Survey regarding the cultural and linguistic diversity of volunteers in our community.

We have published one submission on this topic since the beginning of 2023. You can access this submission, as well as all of our other submissions and positions statements on our website.