Finding a new north: reflections on the Community Compass report

The latest research commissioned by Our Community – Community Compass: A segmentation of Australia’s views and engagement with the community sector – is a compelling report that rewards careful consideration and reflection.

Like all good research, it not only offers new insights, it provides a launching pad for ideas and possibilities to be further teased out and explored.

By way of background for those who haven’t yet read the report, it involved surveys and interviews with more than 3000 Australians.

The researchers, led by Dr Rebecca Huntley at 89 Degrees East, identified six categories or segments based on two key factors: attitudes, and engagement with charities and community groups:

• Enthusiastic Engaged (20%)
• Positive Preoccupied (16%)
• Indifferent Uninvolved (20%)
• Isolated Believers (16%)
• Active Traditionalists (17%)
• Begrudging Bygones (10%).

There is so much in this report deserving of more in-depth analysis and discussion, but for the purposes of this article, I want to highlight just four of the many issues that arose for me when reviewing the findings: indifference, volunteering, our shifting values, and community views on purpose.

And of course, there’s always the final question – so what?

Let’s start with some bad news: indifference.

The “Indifferent Uninvolved” category represented one in five Australians. Three-quarters of this group rejected the idea that people who were better off should help the less fortunate, equity and fairness were not highly valued. They were less likely to donate to or engage with charities and community groups, and tended to be younger, located in cities, more likely to use social media platforms and less likely to use traditional media.

This group alarmed me, not because they weren’t involved, but because in many areas they really didn’t care one way or the other.

It’s not as though they were loners, or socially isolated. They were generally well educated and connected to broader groups, but they appeared to have little interest in what was happening in the broader community.

While they were concerned about their own wellbeing (a good thing), they had little investment in others doing well.

In all my work with people, indifference has always been a red flag. If people don’t care about others, how do they find value and meaning beyond their own interests? What does this mean for democracy, for justice, for our many social institutions and support systems, our arts and culture?

Clearly, for this group at least, the connection between collective wellbeing and individual wellbeing is not apparent. And that presents a real and concerning challenge for all of us.

It also presents a real challenge for our politicians and governments when half of the community feel that people like them don’t have a say about what the government does (47%) and are doubtful that political leaders are working in their best interests (46%). So why bother?

There’s also a lot of good news in the report, including the finding that most Australians value community organisations, would like to do more in their communities and believe their community would be better off if there was greater involvement.

Many would welcome the opportunity to do more to support community organisations, including by volunteering.

Many Australians were open to engaging with the sector on an ongoing basis through regular volunteering (20%), becoming a member of a community organisation (18% no fee, 11% paid membership) and regular donations (16%). Only two in 10 Australians said they were not open to doing any of these activities in the future (22%).

If more people are willing to be more involved, what’s stopping them?

The report found that 55% of people aren’t aware of community organisations in their local area, or wouldn’t feel comfortable approaching an organisation to get involved (45%). Most also highlighted a lack of time for additional ongoing commitments.

This finding suggests that offering accessible and non-threatening ways to gently introduce the possibility of time-limited or one-off engagements in local community organisations might be a good first step in creating opportunities to increase engagement.

Another of the key findings in the report that raised concerns for me was the loss of fundamental community values. Dr Rebecca Huntley highlighted this issue in her researcher’s note as part of the report's introduction:

“The Community Compass also points to a slow but concerning shift in our broader values, reinforced by other recent research such as the Scanlon Social Cohesion Index, namely falling support for the value of ‘fairness and everyone having equal opportunities’.

"The most important value to Australians was feeling safe and secure, followed by personal freedom and caring for others. This has implications for a sector that has traditionally leaned into the messages around fairness and equality in its appeals for support from government and the public.”

I think the implications of this shift in values may be quite profound for our sector.

The fourth area I want to highlight is the issue of the purpose of community organisations: should community organisations be change-agents working on causes to make the world better, or good Samaritans helping those who experience misfortune or disadvantage?

Dr Rebecca Huntley suggests: "We are almost evenly divided on the role the sector should play in politics or whether it should speak out about issues of importance or ‘stick to serving their community’ and not be involved in advocacy of that kind."

This division is of interest to CCA because our own research conducted through Saatchi and Saatchi found a very similar divide, but what it also revealed was that young people are more likely to support causes and community organisations that are trying to change the world for the better, while older people are more likely to support helping-hand community organisations.

So what?

After reading the report several times and discussing its findings with Rebecca Huntley and her team, as well as others, I think the findings are an invaluable insight into how we can position both our organisations and our sector to better connect with the Australian community.

People are generally very supportive of our work, and happy to become more involved where possible, but if we really want more engagement and support, we’ll have to do more than appeal to values like fairness and equity that no longer resonate strongly with everyone in our communities.

David Crosbie has been CEO of the Community Council for Australia for the past decade and has spent more than a quarter of a century leading significant not-for-profit organisations, including the Mental Health Council of Australia, the Alcohol and other Drugs Council of Australia, and Odyssey House Victoria.