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Written by Cara Eaton and Kasandra James, Volunteer Toronto Staff   |   Estimated reading time: 7-minutes

The emotion and motivation behind volunteering are important. They impact how we show up to a role or task, and influence how we engage with an organization’s mission or the persons that we may be supporting along their life journey. Volunteers can hold empathy and sympathy during their engagement but understanding the impact of each feeling could mean the difference between showing up in community as an ally or perpetuating harm.

At Volunteer Toronto, we are reflecting on the differences between empathy vs. sympathy and the meaning of “Empathy in Action” in preparation for National Volunteer Week 2022. Here’s how we perceive the role of these two motivations in volunteerism, as we work to enable anti-oppressive community engagement.

Definitions to Note

Sympathy involves understanding from your own perspective. Interactions rooted in sympathy can lead to disconnection, and the amplification of the differences between two people as you look to engage from your own perspective and experiences.

Empathy involves putting yourself in the other person's shoes and understanding why they may have particular feelings or circumstances. Interactions rooted in empathy can fuel connection between two different people, as they are not looking to relate but to understand one another.

Source: Merriam-Webster 2022

How Sympathy Can Lead to Harm in Volunteerism

Many volunteer roles involve supporting people who are different from yourself—different ages, races, ethnicities, gender identities, abilities, socio-economic status, systemic influencers, and life experiences. For example, volunteers who do not experience food insecurity often volunteer at a food bank serving persons who struggle to access food regularly. Today we’re asking: How can showing up with sympathy rather than empathy for service users cause harm?

Often, Volunteer Toronto receives an increase of requests from people looking to volunteer during the holidays for one day at a food bank. This trend can feel like a harmful cycle of those who experience safety, security and privilege, reaching out to help others who do not experience those things in order to feel good about themselves. The level of commitment (one day), the type of volunteerism (at a food bank), the activity (transactional meal exchange), and the service user (someone seeking a human right), is often rooted in sympathy and lacks empathy around how another person came to be food insecure.

Without examining how society has put a person into a position of “need” and others into positions of “helpers” or “savers”, volunteers can develop a sympathetic response that leads to a harmful disconnect with the humanity of service users. Viewing the serving of a meal as a short-term, transactional exchange to be done once a year treats the symptom of food insecurity without addressing its roots or the human right to food.

To exercise more empathy, volunteers can consider the systems that impact the challenges service users may be facing, such as the ways racism, colonialism, homophobia, sexism, and other factors lead to someone experiencing food insecurity or lack of access to human rights and meaningful community connection. Leading with empathy may mean finding ways to advocate for food security rights year-round, in addition to signing up to volunteer at a food bank.

White Saviourism in Canada

White saviourism describes the disconnect and harm white-passing bodies cause when trying to “help” a racialized person from a place of privilege, feeling as though they can save that individual from the socio-economic impact of racism. White saviourism comes from a perspective of sympathy, where the solutions to a complex problem are assumed by those who do not experience them.

An example of systemic white saviourism is the federal approach to safe water access for Indigenous communities. Powerful decision makers, who have access to clean drinking water, have delayed action through lengthy research and assessment phases that last years. Regulations on water quality haven’t been adhered to, and the responsibility of providing clean drinking water is facilitated through heavily administrative annual grant applications that are intended to fix the problem. There is a lack of accountability, action and understanding, of how to truly address this systemic issue which continues to be prevalent for many people living on government-mandated reserves today.

Source: The Water Crisis in First Nations Communities

Examples in the volunteer space include organizational models based on “voluntourism”—whereas often white, privileged youth pay to travel to another country under the perception that people or children living in poverty “need their help”. Volunteer roles in this model can involve building a school, a well, or teaching children—all of which do not address inequities in access to resources. These models communicate only white, North American-based volunteers can provide lifesaving services by travelling to another country.

Another example can be found in the mentorship space. Some Ontario-based programs have anecdotally reported high populations of minority youth seeking mentors, and high populations of white mentors looking to share their wisdom. Some organizations have sought to change this imbalance of racialized representation by researching why male, Black mentors are not filling mentorship roles through their traditional recruitment strategies. Recognizing the value of lived experiences, and working to welcome those individuals in mentorship spaces, is one way to build empathy into program design.

Leaning into Empathy and Away from Saviourism

As each of our identities is unique, sympathizing with everyone is impossible – but empathizing with anyone is achievable! Leaning into empathy in volunteerism can help us move away from a saviourism mentality. Empathizing is especially important as many non-profits engaging volunteers, many who are white-identifying, are providing access to human rights (food, shelter, connection) for community members who may be racialized or systematically disadvantaged by racism or colonialism.

What are the ways that white bodied volunteers can put empathy into action? Read our complimentary blog, 10 Ways to Put Empathy into Action for more action steps.

Envisioning an Empathetic Volunteerism Sector

What would volunteerism look like if every volunteer came to their role with empathy? What if volunteer programs were designed to avoid saviourism and sympathetic mentalities? And what is the role of Volunteer Toronto in enabling this future? We don’t have all the answers, but we continue to pose these questions to ourselves and our community.

One potential direction could be increased support for solidarity movements and mutual aid groups, and away from traditional volunteerism in non-profits. In this model, empathy is facilitated through connections with fellow community members, compared to ‘help’ from a sympathetic volunteer. We have seen the effectiveness of this type of resource sharing during the early days of COVID-19, however, the sheer quantity of needs that exist in our society, and society’s lack of prioritization for taking empathetic actions (like getting to know your neighbour), means this type of organizing must be supported by real change at the systems level of our social supports.

An empathetic volunteer sector could also see volunteer roles that are dually embedded in addressing symptoms and tackling systems. For example, volunteer-engaging programs would include rights-based advocacy to build new systems that would address access to food, while addressing immediate food security needs. This would require more volunteers to step up for causes they care about with an empathetic lens and actively consider the necessary changes to dismantle harmful systems. At the very least, volunteers should be aware of how to empathize before they are in front of people who face different realities than they do.

For Volunteer Toronto, we know our touchpoints with both volunteers, organizations and institutions influence how roles are designed and what perspectives volunteers hold when choosing to engage with community. As a bridge—and our city’s major educator and advocate for volunteerism—we will continue to take steps to actively enable solidarity movements, build our sector’s capacity to address necessary systemic changes in traditional volunteerism and provide access and opportunities for community members to shape the future of volunteerism through empathy.