Volunteer Opportunities Would Have to Find Me: A Hospital Marketing Plan to Attract Baby Boomer Volunteers

Between 1946 and 1964, 77 million children were born, creating a “baby boom.” In 2007, the oldest members of this generation will turn 61 and edge nearer to the traditional retirement age. Yet just as this generation has changed American cultural expectations by attaining higher levels of formal education, higher income, and better health, the baby boomers may very well change our traditional expectations for those who are 60+, by redefining retirement. Volunteer organizations that have traditionally relied on retired volunteers to conduct helpful but menial tasks may find not only fewer retirees to fill these roles but that many of these retirees want a meaningful experience in a role that requires greater skill and life experience. Many nonprofit organizations are not properly equipped for this redefinition of senior volunteering. The United Hospital Fund identified the tensions around baby boomers’ work lives and organizations’ volunteer needs as a problem for which solutions were needed now. The United Hospital Fund engaged a Capstone team to find ways that hospitals could overcome baby boomers’ barriers to volunteering, identifying specific language that hospitals should use and should avoid, along with strategies the organizations can use to connect with boomers and specific tools that can make those strategies work. Research design included a literature review, program review, analysis of the boomer generation, focus groups with the Directors of Volunteer Service from eight hospitals, focus groups with members of the boomer population, and a survey distributed online and in hard copy.