Beyond Goodwill: Rethinking Volunteering in Nigeria

Every year on December 5, the world marks International Volunteer Day. It is a day set aside to recognise the millions of people who give their time, skills, energy, and heart to causes bigger than themselves.

But this year, I do not think we should only celebrate volunteers. I think Nigeria must rethink volunteering.

For too long, volunteering has been treated too casually. In many places, a volunteer is still seen as someone who is available for free labour. Someone to fill a hall. Someone to carry chairs. Someone to usher guests. Someone to show up for an outreach, take pictures, and disappear after the event.

But volunteering is much deeper than that.

Volunteers are often the invisible hands holding many communities, nonprofits, churches, social impact projects, and humanitarian efforts together. They are the people who show up when there is no big budget. They are the people who help distribute food, teach children, mentor teenagers, support health outreaches, clean communities, collect data, manage events, mobilise people, and sometimes enter places where formal systems are too slow to respond.

In Nigeria, we have seen this many times.

During floods, volunteers are often among the first people helping families move, distribute relief materials, and support displaced people. In health emergencies, community volunteers help with sensitisation, patient follow-up, and door-to-door awareness. In schools and low-income communities, volunteers teach, mentor, read to children, run clubs, and help young people see possibilities beyond their environment.

Sometimes, the work of volunteers is not loud, but it is life-saving.

A recent example from Benue State showed how volunteer HIV champions went door-to-door to help people living with HIV return to treatment after disruptions in aid affected access to medication. That is not “free labour.” That is service. That is public health support. That is community resilience in action.

And yet, despite how important volunteers are, many volunteers in Nigeria still serve without structure, proper onboarding, clear roles, training, records, or recognition.

That is where the problem is.

It is not that Nigerians do not want to volunteer. Many people want to help. Many young people want to serve, learn, build experience, and be part of something meaningful. Many professionals are also willing to give their skills to causes that matter.

But too often, people do not know where to find credible volunteer opportunities.

On the other side, many nonprofits, social enterprises, and community organisations need volunteers, but they do not always know how to find the right people, verify them, manage them, or keep proper records of their contribution.

So we have two groups looking for each other.

People who want to help.
And organisations that need help.

The missing link is structure.

If we want volunteering to grow in Nigeria, we must move beyond “please come and help us” to a more organised system that respects both the volunteer and the organisation.

Volunteers deserve clarity. They should know what role they are signing up for, what is expected of them, how long the work will take, what skills are needed, and who they are reporting to.

Volunteers deserve training. We cannot keep sending people into communities without preparing them. Whether someone is volunteering with children, women, displaced persons, health projects, or public events, they need basic orientation on ethics, safety, safeguarding, communication, and respect for the people they are serving.

Volunteers deserve dignity. They may not be paid, but they should not be treated poorly. Their time has value. Their effort has value. Their transport, data, energy, and sacrifice have value.

Volunteers deserve records. If a young person spends two years volunteering across different projects, that experience should not disappear. It should count. It should be documented. It should become part of their growth story, their CV, their leadership journey, and their proof of service.

This matters especially in a country where many young people are looking for work experience, skills, networks, and a place to start.

For many of us, volunteering opened doors before paid work did. It gave us a chance to learn by doing. It helped us build confidence, understand communities, meet mentors, develop leadership skills, and discover the kind of work we wanted to do.

I know this personally.

Volunteering helped me when I did not have everything figured out. It gave me access to learning, people, places, and opportunities that shaped the work I do today. It taught me that service is not always convenient, but it is powerful. It showed me that you can start with willingness and grow into capacity.

But I have also seen the other side.

I have worked with volunteers. I have recruited them. I have managed them. I have seen amazing volunteers show up with passion, and I have also seen what happens when there is no system to guide that passion. I have seen nonprofits struggle to find committed people. I have seen volunteers give their best, only for their work to go undocumented. I have seen organisations run good projects but lose momentum because they could not build a strong volunteer structure around the work.

That is why this conversation is important.

Volunteering should not be treated as an afterthought. It should be part of how we build communities, develop young people, support nonprofits, and strengthen civic participation in Nigeria.

This International Volunteer Day, we need to ask better questions.

How do we make volunteering easier to find? How do we make it safer and more structured? How do we help nonprofits manage volunteers better? How do we ensure volunteers are not exploited? How do we document volunteer service properly? How do we help young people use volunteering to build skills, confidence, and leadership? How do we make sure that when people show up to serve, their contribution counts?

This is part of why we are building Voluserve.

Voluserve is being designed to make volunteering in Nigeria easier to find, easier to manage, and easier to document. The goal is simple: connect people who want to volunteer with credible organisations that need volunteers, while creating a better record of service and contribution.

Because the future of volunteering in Nigeria cannot be built on scattered WhatsApp broadcasts alone.

This International Volunteer Day should therefore be more than another day of appreciation posts and photo captions. It should be a moment for government institutions, nonprofits, development organisations, private sector partners, and communities to ask how volunteering can be better structured, protected, and sustained in Nigeria.

A country with many social challenges cannot afford to treat citizens who are willing to serve as an afterthought. Volunteers are often the bridge between good intentions and real community impact. They help ideas reach people. They help programmes move from paper to the field. They help organisations extend their hands into places where resources are limited but needs are urgent.

But goodwill alone is not enough. If volunteering is going to contribute meaningfully to national development, then it must be supported by systems that make service easier to access, safer to practise, and better documented. Volunteers need proper orientation, clear expectations, ethical guidance, recognition, and records of their contribution. Organisations also need better tools to find, manage, and retain the right volunteers.

This is the gap Voluserve is being built to address: a platform that connects Nigerians who want to serve with credible organisations that need volunteers, while helping to create a stronger record of volunteer service.

The future of volunteering in Nigeria should not depend only on random calls for help, scattered WhatsApp broadcasts, or informal arrangements that disappear after one event. It should be intentional. It should be organised. It should respect the time, skills, and dignity of the people who choose to serve.

Nigeria does not lack people who care. What we must now build are the systems that help care become action, and action become lasting impact.

– Raquel Kasham Daniel
Social Entrepenuer, ED Beyond the Classroom Foundation