Introduction
This article investigates how volunteers in rural areas manage their volunteer commitments, of which there might be multiple, concurrent roles, in order to avoid burnout. Volunteers are essential to rural communities in many parts of the world. In regional and remote areas where there are few government or privately run services, volunteers are relied on for essential service delivery, including ambulances, bushfire management, and schools (McLennan et al., Reference McLennan, Whittaker and Handmer2016). They also play a critical role in providing activities that help create a livable community, including arts and sports (Davies et al., Reference Davies, Lockstone-Binney and Holmes2021). Indeed, volunteering has long been considered the backbone of the social and economic viability of rural communities, especially in Australia (Brueckner et al., Reference Brueckner, Holmes and Pick2017; Iversen et al., Reference Iversen, Lockstone-Binney and Ibsen2025; Munoz et al., Reference Munoz, Farmer, Warburton and Hall2014; Winterton, Reference Winterton, Oppenheimer and Warburton2014).
In Australia, as in comparative societies such as the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States, which all share similarities in terms of their political, social and cultural histories and volunteering ecosystems (Smith et al., Reference Smith, Holmes, Haski-Leventhal, Cnaan, Handy and Brudney2010), the importance of volunteering to rural communities has been augmented by the gradual withdrawal of direct and in situ government service provision over the past three decades (Davies et al., Reference Davies, Lockstone-Binney and Holmes2021; Iversen et al., Reference Iversen, Lockstone-Binney and Ibsen2025; Mettenberger & Küpper, Reference Mettenberger and Küpper2019; Munoz et al., Reference Munoz, Farmer, Warburton and Hall2014). This has occurred in parallel to increased demands on volunteer-involving organizations (VIOs) to professionalize volunteer operations and management (Milligan, Reference Milligan2007; Skinner, & Fleuret, Reference Skinner and Fleuret2011) and a shift in volunteer preferences to favor ad-hoc and informal volunteering over more traditional, regularized patterns of formal volunteering (McLennan et al., Reference McLennan, Whittaker and Handmer2016). Further layered on these trends is a population-wide decline in volunteer participation (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2023). For rural areas, the compounding impact has resulted in crises in rural volunteering and a growing risk of volunteer burnout (Holmes et al., Reference Holmes, Davies, Lockstone-Binney, O’Halloran and Ong2019).
Given its importance and the multifaceted challenges now facing rural volunteering, this article aims to provide critical insights into the issue of volunteer burnout. Volunteer burnout is a recognized concern in populations facing increased pressure on volunteer services (Holmes & Lockstone-Binney, Reference Holmes and Lockstone-Binney2014). Although researchers have examined causal factors underpinning volunteer burnout (Moreno-Jimenez & Hidalgo, Reference Moreno-Jimenez and Hidalgo Villodres2010; Morse et al., Reference Morse, Dik, Shimizu and Reed2022), limited attention has been given to understanding how volunteers themselves manage their activities to avoid burnout (Allen, Reference Allen2023; Huynh et al., Reference Huynh, Xanthopoulou and Winefield2013).
In summary, rural volunteers are experiencing increased risk of burnout due to an increased reliance on them to deliver essential services, while volunteer participation is in decline. This paper therefore seeks to answer the following research questions: How does burnout impact rural volunteers? And how do rural volunteers respond to burnout?
Literature review
Pressures on rural volunteers
Globally, there are a multitude of pressures experienced by rural volunteers, their VIOs, and rural communities. Many of these are structural and demographic challenges, which are beyond the immediate control of the responsible parties to address (Mettenberger & Küpper, Reference Mettenberger and Küpper2019). Faced with the loss of services that would undermine the viability of rural settlements, volunteers have stepped up to fill gaps over recent decades in Australia (Holmes et al., Reference Holmes, Davies, Lockstone-Binney, O’Halloran and Ong2019), Canada (Joseph & Skinner, Reference Joseph and Skinner2012), the United States (Torgerson & Edwards, Reference Torgerson and Edwards2012), the United Kingdom (Power, Reference Power2009), Denmark (Iversen et al., Reference Iversen, Lockstone-Binney and Ibsen2025), Germany (Mettenberger & Küpper, Reference Mettenberger and Küpper2019) and many other countries. Volunteers ensure that rural communities have access to a wide range of opportunities that would not otherwise exist, providing elements of social care (Iversen et al., Reference Iversen, Lockstone-Binney and Ibsen2025; Oppenheimer et al., Reference Oppenheimer, Warburton and Carey2014; Power, Reference Power2009; Whittall et al., Reference Whittall, Lee and O’Connor2016) and emergency services (Birch & McLennan, Reference Birch and McLennan2007; McLennan et al., Reference McLennan, Birch, Cowlishaw and Hayes2022; O’Halloran & Davies, Reference O’Halloran and Davies2020), as well as building community connections through sporting clubs and environmental groups (Lockstone-Binney et al., Reference Lockstone-Binney, Whitelaw and Binney2016; Tonts, Reference Tonts2005).
Across rural communities in Australia, there is an increased burden of service responsibility falling on a dwindling number of volunteers (proportionally) who are often already overcommitted in other community roles (Brueckner et al., Reference Brueckner, Holmes and Pick2017; Holmes et al., Reference Holmes, Davies, Lockstone-Binney, O’Halloran and Ong2019; McLennan et al., Reference McLennan, Birch, Cowlishaw and Hayes2022; Paarlberg et al., Reference Paarlberg, Nesbit, Choi and Moss2022; Wilson et al., Reference Wilson, Mirchandani and Shenouda2017). On top of this, higher rates of volunteering in rural communities may mean that the capacity for further recruitment is minimal (Holmes et al., Reference Holmes, Davies, Lockstone-Binney, O’Halloran and Ong2019; Munoz et al., Reference Munoz, Farmer, Warburton and Hall2014).
Globally, demographic shifts are taking their toll, with small, isolated communities being the most affected (Birch & McLennan, Reference Birch and McLennan2007; Iversen et al., Reference Iversen, Lockstone-Binney and Ibsen2025; Torgerson & Edwards, Reference Torgerson and Edwards2012). These communities are often characterized by static or falling populations, outmigration of young people to larger population centers, and a rising proportion of people over the age of 55 years (McLennan et al., Reference McLennan, Birch, Cowlishaw and Hayes2022; Mettenberger & Küpper, Reference Mettenberger and Küpper2019). This results in a smaller and older pool of volunteers, with further attrition expected as people terminate their involvement in volunteering due to age (Holmes et al., Reference Holmes, Davies, Lockstone-Binney, O’Halloran and Ong2019).
The work of rural volunteers is further complicated by factors associated with living outside of metropolitan areas. These include issues such as poor infrastructure, problems attracting skilled personnel, time taken to travel, and a lack of access to specialist services (Birch & McLennan, Reference Birch and McLennan2007; Davies et al., Reference Davies, Lockstone-Binney and Holmes2021; Whittall et al., Reference Whittall, Lee and O’Connor2016). Furthermore, the physical distance separating metropolitan policymakers and rural volunteers can foster feelings of disconnection (Holmes & Lockstone-Binney, Reference Holmes and Lockstone-Binney2014; Whittall et al., Reference Whittall, Lee and O’Connor2016). This sense of disconnection extends to structures that surround volunteering, with those in rural areas being concerned that standardized procedures dictated by centralized bodies do not reflect the flexibility needed to respond to on-the-ground tasks (Whittall et al., Reference Whittall, Lee and O’Connor2016).
The increased professionalization and formalization of VIOs (Brueckner et al., Reference Brueckner, Holmes and Pick2017; McLennan et al., Reference McLennan, Birch, Cowlishaw and Hayes2022) has manifested itself in a focus on accountability and has included “increased training, safety practices, liability and government oversight” (Holmes et al., Reference Holmes, Davies, Lockstone-Binney, O’Halloran and Ong2019, p. 24). This formalization creates a tension as VIOs attempt to balance operational effectiveness and their volunteers’ satisfaction levels (Benevene et al., Reference Benevene, Dal Corso, De Carlo, Falco, Carluccio and Vecina2018). Volunteers who deliver services across several essential portfolios are particularly affected, with an additional burden in learning and applying the formal obligations of each role (O’Halloran & Davies, Reference O’Halloran and Davies2020; Pick et al., Reference Pick, Holmes and Brueckner2011). The effects of this increased pressure can be stark, with Holmes and Lockstone-Binney (Reference Holmes and Lockstone-Binney2014) observing that volunteers who hold formal leadership or committee roles are at higher risk of burnout.
Burnout and stress
Maslach and Schaufeli (Reference Maslach, Schaufeli, Schaufeli, Maslach and Marek1993) define burnout as the occupational stress that results from work-related tasks and relationships. They developed the Maslach Burnout Inventory, which focuses on three elements that together can lead to burnout: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and perceptions of low personal accomplishment (Holmes & Lockstone-Binney, Reference Holmes and Lockstone-Binney2014). It is posited that work-related stress develops into burnout through unsuccessful management and happens most frequently in high-pressure environments (Chirico et al., Reference Chirico, Crescenzo, Sacco, Riccò, Ripa, Nucera and Magnavita2021). From a medical perspective, while burnout, with symptoms including exhaustion and demoralization, can lead to significant health problems including disturbed sleep, poor brain function, and heart problems (Kakiashvili et al., Reference Kakiashvili, Leszek and Rutkowski2013), there is no clinical scale to differentiate between when stress becomes burnout and varying measures are used (Hewitt et al., Reference Hewitt, Ellis and Hu2020). Much of the existing literature focuses on burnout in the context of the paid work environment. However, Holmes and Lockstone-Binney (Reference Holmes and Lockstone-Binney2014) noted that volunteer stress and burnout can be considered a distinct research area.
While volunteers in high-pressure roles such as the emergency services face intense stressors, Holmes and Lockstone-Binney (Reference Holmes and Lockstone-Binney2014) observed that volunteers across all sectors must deal with stress. Holmes et al. (Reference Holmes, Davies, Lockstone-Binney, O’Halloran and Ong2019) observed that the combined pressures facing rural volunteers are resulting in a higher rate of burnout, challenging the viability of rural operations. The extant literature documents three main sources of volunteer burnout: organizational factors (Allen, Reference Allen2023; McLennan et al., Reference McLennan, Birch, Cowlishaw and Hayes2009; O’Halloran & Davies, Reference O’Halloran and Davies2020); factors related to the type of volunteering (Berry & Jones, Reference Berry and Jones2018; Chirico et al., Reference Chirico, Crescenzo, Sacco, Riccò, Ripa, Nucera and Magnavita2021; Vagni et al., Reference Vagni, Maiorano, Giostra and Pajardi2020); and factors external to the organization (Cuskelly et al., Reference Cuskelly, Hoye and Auld2006; Davies et al., Reference Davies, Lockstone-Binney and Holmes2021; Kelle et al., Reference Kelle, Kausmann and Simonson2024).
The structure, organization, and regulation of volunteer activities can considerably impact volunteer experience and, in turn, burnout. Ultimately, the resignation of volunteers from an organization is an indicator that volunteers have negative experiences of organizational structures (McLennan et al., Reference McLennan, Birch, Cowlishaw and Hayes2009). Organizational elements of volunteering that can lead to burnout include lack of training, role ambiguity, lack of organizational support, lack of recognition for the work done, inadequate supervision, and inadequate leadership (Allen, Reference Allen2023; O’Halloran & Davies, Reference O’Halloran and Davies2020; Studer & von Schnurbein, Reference Studer and von Schnurbein2013). Benevene et al. (Reference Benevene, Dal Corso, De Carlo, Falco, Carluccio and Vecina2018) found that when an organization’s expectations were in line with the volunteer’s motivations, volunteer retention and satisfaction could be more effectively managed.
While organizational factors play a key role in people’s decision to cease their volunteering (Studer & von Schnurbein, Reference Studer and von Schnurbein2013), pressures experienced across their lives can also contribute. Researchers have found that the time needed for employment, study, family, and social or leisure commitments can all contribute to overload being experienced by volunteers (Cuskelly et al., Reference Cuskelly, Hoye and Auld2006; Davies et al., Reference Davies, Lockstone-Binney and Holmes2021; Kelle et al., Reference Kelle, Kausmann and Simonson2024). In particular, paid work pressures have emerged as a core concern for volunteers (Wilson & Musick, Reference Wilson and Musick1997).
The type of volunteering is also related to burnout because certain types of volunteering are inherently more stressful. This is apparent in the emergency services sector. In rural areas of Australia, most, if not all, emergency service personnel are volunteers (Berry & Jones, Reference Berry and Jones2018; McLennan et al., Reference McLennan, Birch, Cowlishaw and Hayes2022). Emergency services volunteering is highly demanding and can be dangerous and harrowing (Vagni et al., Reference Vagni, Maiorano, Giostra and Pajardi2020). Researchers have also identified that those in health and community care sectors experience burnout (Chirico et al., Reference Chirico, Crescenzo, Sacco, Riccò, Ripa, Nucera and Magnavita2021; Dein & Abbas, Reference Dein and Abbas2005).
Research indicates that the most important period to focus on when attempting to reduce volunteer turnover is the first 6 months (Benevene et al., Reference Benevene, Dal Corso, De Carlo, Falco, Carluccio and Vecina2018). With a lack of organizational support linked to volunteer burnout (Morse et al., Reference Morse, Dik, Shimizu and Reed2022), it follows that organizations have a key role to play in ensuring the wellbeing of their volunteers. Research has revealed that when VIO leaders create positive relationships and perceptions, these can positively impact volunteer experiences (Wilson et al., Reference Wilson, Mirchandani and Shenouda2017).
An important limitation of the volunteer burnout literature has been a focus on why volunteers leave one organization. Rural volunteers typically have multiple and simultaneous volunteer roles with different groups and organizations (Davies et al., Reference Davies, Lockstone-Binney and Holmes2021). This portfolio approach to volunteer participation is more complex for the individual volunteer to manage, with competition emerging between roles (Holmes et al., Reference Holmes, Davies, Lockstone-Binney, O’Halloran and Ong2019), making it more challenging yet important to understand the burnout of rural volunteers.
Reflexive volunteering as a lens for understanding volunteer portfolios
Rural volunteers may have formally defined roles; others will be less defined and more ad hoc or informal. Impacting the challenge of managing volunteer burnout is the emergence of these newer forms over recent decades. These changes in the way people volunteer have given rise to reflexive and individualized ways of volunteering, transforming the traditional volunteering outlook from a collectivist to an individualized activity (Hustinx & Lammertyn, Reference Hustinx and Lammertyn2003). While the fundamental volunteer motive of altruism stays constant, the push factors driving volunteerism have significantly evolved to underscore the concept of “individual choice” (Shachar et al., Reference Shachar, von Essen and Hustinx2019). According to Hustinx and Lammertyn (Reference Hustinx and Lammertyn2003), reflexive volunteering is self-directed volunteering emphasized by self-awareness and flexibility, and reflexive volunteers have weaker ties and attachment to their volunteer organization(s).
Understanding how individuals see the world from a sociological perspective is crucial for interpreting reflexivity in volunteering. Hustinx and Lammertyn (Reference Hustinx and Lammertyn2003) attributed these changes in volunteering to late modernity. Biographical changes, such as personal experiences, developments, and priorities resulting from societal changes, dictate the choices of modern-day reflexive volunteers (Hustinx & Lammertyn, Reference Hustinx and Lammertyn2003; Shachar et al., Reference Shachar, von Essen and Hustinx2019). Sanghera (Reference Sanghera2016) stated that autonomous reflexivity portrayed by many volunteers is directed at achieving personal satisfaction from charitable work. The goal here is self-satisfaction. Thus, these volunteers tend to be mobile in searching for a fitting match between their goals and the societal good.
The move to reflexive volunteering presents challenges for conventional volunteer management practices that are rooted in organizational behavior principles. There is a need to redirect attention toward nurturing individuality as a means of promoting volunteer wellbeing. This has seen sectors that continue to rely on the traditional volunteering model, such as emergency services in Australia, struggle to recruit and retain adequate personnel (O’Halloran & Davies, Reference O’Halloran and Davies2020).
The issue of addressing volunteer burnout has become more challenging for organizations as new preferences in volunteering have emerged (Holmes et al., Reference Holmes, Davies, Lockstone-Binney, O’Halloran and Ong2019). In rural settings, where there is a heavy reliance on services that require traditional forms of volunteer engagement, where volunteers typically hold multiple volunteering roles, changing volunteering preferences present a complex scenario for those seeking to manage volunteer burnout. We use the reflexive lens to explore how rural volunteers are self-managing and negotiating their volunteer portfolios to avoid burnout.
Methods
Research design
To understand how individual rural volunteers manage their volunteer participation, particularly related to burnout, we adopted an interpretivist approach. Interpretivism seeks to understand individuals’ lived experiences of a phenomenon (Sandberg, Reference Sandberg2005). We further selected a case study research design. Case studies are particularly suited to examining phenomena in-depth and for answering “how” and “why” questions (Yin, Reference Yin2017).
With the research team based in Australia, we chose three adjacent communities in rural Australia’s southwest as our case studies. These communities were selected as they were diverse in size and in economic profile, thus enabling the inclusion of a variety of volunteer experiences within the study. It was important to include communities with different economic bases as previous research has identified significant differences in volunteer participation based on work, with higher rates of volunteering reported by farmers and self-employed respondents (Davies et al., Reference Davies, Lockstone-Binney and Holmes2021). The three communities were coded as follows: Town A, the main regional town, had the largest population of the three sites at 1,450 people (ABS, 2017) and a mixed economy. Town B was primarily an agricultural community with 530 residents. Town C had a population of 360, and its economy was based around a large mine.
Sampling and data collection
To ensure consistency in data collection, we developed a case study protocol (Yin, Reference Yin2017). The first stage of the case studies involved desk research to identify the scale and range of volunteer participation. We used online searches and local media to identify both groups and key individuals involved in volunteering in each community. This phase identified 177 VIOs across the three cases. Some of these organizations operated in only one community, while others had a broader geographical remit. Of these organizations, the largest sectors represented were emergency services (32) and sports clubs (35), but also included a wide range of activities such as tourism, events and festivals, school-based activities, environmental groups, and support groups for local businesses.
In-depth interviews were primarily used as the data collection tool, which enabled us to explore in detail with participants their volunteering histories and the ways in which they managed their volunteer participation (King, Reference King, Cassell and Symon2004). This involved a detailed examination of all the volunteering they had done or currently did, why they volunteered for these roles and organizations, when they started and stopped each role, and how their volunteering may have changed over their lives. We did not use the term “burnout” unless introduced by the participant. Instead, we asked whether their volunteering had ever become too much or whether they had stopped volunteering due to any pressures. To select interview participants, VIOs identified in the first phase were approached to seek recommendations for volunteers who could be considered key informants or experts about volunteering in each community. We sought maximum variation (Miles et al., Reference Miles, Huberman and Saldaña2014) in terms of sector in our sample, including schools, festivals, human services, and youth services, while ensuring that the largest categories of emergency services and sport clubs were represented. This generated a list of 11 interview participants. We then asked these participants to recommend further volunteers from their communities (we again asked for people who would be key informants) following the approach of snowball sampling (TenHouten, Reference TenHouten2017), which generated a further 16 interviews. In total, 27 interviews were conducted, with 19 females and 8 males. The interviews were all conducted face-to-face in the communities and took place at convenient locations for participants. The interviews varied in length, and the mean interview length was 63 minutes. All interviews were audio-recorded with permission and transcribed for analysis. At the completion of the 27 interviews and following a thematic review of the data, the research team identified that theoretical saturation had been reached, whereby no new concepts emerged from the data (Low, Reference Low2019).
The participant profile is presented in Table 1. The research team received approval from the lead university’s Human Research Ethics Committee prior to data collection commencing. Processes included obtaining informed consent and ensuring participant anonymity in any reporting of the data.
Table 1. Interview participants
Data analysis
The data were analyzed using inductive thematic analysis with support from NVivo V.12 (King, Reference King, Cassell and Symon2004). First, transcripts were read and re-read multiple times by one member of the research team, who conducted the initial open coding (Miles et al., Reference Miles, Huberman and Saldaña2014). Second, two other members of the research team read through a sample of interviews to confirm the consistency of these initial codes. The third stage involved condensing the initial codes and developing a code tree to convert the codes into a narrative (Miles et al., Reference Miles, Huberman and Saldaña2014), which would enable us to identify how volunteers were experiencing volunteering and managing the associated demands on their time. As an exploratory, qualitative study, the data provided detailed insights into the experiences and challenges of rural volunteering based on the participants’ subjective accounts, but they do not enable causal dependencies to be proven.
We sought to ensure the confirmability of the findings initially by holding a workshop with representatives from VIOs in the three communities and presenting our key findings (Sandberg, Reference Sandberg2005). Second, we sent a copy of the findings to all participants and invited them to comment. These actions were not designed to generate additional data but to ensure that the findings made sense to participants, as well as reporting back the research outcomes to the case study communities.
Findings
Drivers and remedies of volunteer burnout
The interview data affirmed that burnout was a common experience among rural volunteers. Emerging themes highlighted both drivers of and prospective remedies to volunteer burnout. Some participants specifically used the term “burnout,” while others referred to symptoms such as it “became too much” (see the quotations in the section below). Each theme will be discussed in turn.
Drivers—High workload and time commitment
Volunteers frequently take on one or multiple demanding volunteering roles, especially in a small rural community environment. High volunteering workloads and associated time commitments, in combination with other individual obligations, such as paid work or family responsibilities, greatly contributed to the likelihood of volunteers experiencing burnout. For instance, one interviewee (Amy) stated:
I took on too much and yeah got burnout [….] I was in Town A Women’s Association, I was the President of the P&C, I had to, because our canteen Treasurer pulled out, I had to do that as well. I was doing Meals on Wheels…Plus, I’ve got my children [laughs].
Another interviewee (Kate), who was simultaneously volunteering across two committees as a volunteer ambulance officer besides having paid work and “three businesses at home,” affirmed a negative impact without specifically referring to burnout. She expressed that her volunteer roles “became just too much,” and eventually, “I’m not doing it anymore. I just thought no. It was hurting me.”
The taking on of too many volunteering roles across multiple organizations was frequently observed among the sample. One interviewee (Julie) expressed that “there’s always people who find themselves wearing too many hats [which] can be detrimental.” Others similarly voiced that “you can get burnt out if you take on too much” (Lucy). Another interviewee (Darren) even indicated that burnout was the norm rather than the exception within their volunteering environment: “I think we all suffer from burnout. I think there’s quite a number that are at capacity with their volunteer support.”
Volunteer supply issue
Lack of volunteer supply was also highlighted as having an impact on the burnout experienced by the rural volunteer participants. This was reported across a range of organizations. The data showed that a lack of volunteers oftentimes caused more obligations and pressure on the existing volunteer force. For example, one participant (Terri) expressed: “It’s usually the same old names that pop up everywhere, and then the problem is [they] do they get burned out after a while,” while another (Ernie) mentioned that “there were fewer and fewer people” within the volunteering organization, leading to an increased workload. In an ambulance volunteering context, another participant (Jim) conveyed that “we just can’t get volunteers anymore.” Adding to these challenges, current volunteers were often required to invest additional time in trying to reach and recruit prospective new volunteers, often in vain. This was exemplified by one interviewee (Alma) who stated: “even though we continually persistently say we need more people, we need people, we need people, we’ve done mail outs, you know everybody with a brochure and big fat zero.”
Volunteer supply was a particular concern in Town C, with the smallest population of our sample, impacting on local organizations such as the school and sports clubs. However, participants expressed that emergency services organizations operated across a wider recruitment catchment area as they serviced several communities.
Increased bureaucracy
Besides the lack of volunteers, increased bureaucracy, often government-imposed, appeared from the interviews to also contribute to the stress and burnout of volunteers. For example, a volunteer (Jackie) who found herself responsible for coordinating her organization’s response to two externally imposed audits, explained:
I found it very overwhelming. The level of detail that we need for audits nowadays is just so horrendous and the checklist the auditor gives you which is a page long of things that you have to have in order, it’s incredibly time consuming and very stressful.
Other comments similarly asserted that “it is a lot more paperwork than it was years ago” (Amy) and that “some people don’t like that governance and those rules” (Alma).
Higher levels of bureaucracy were observed and criticized by volunteers across the breadth of volunteering roles. For instance, one participant (Pam) commented that their church needed to become “a little bit less bureaucratic […] less fixated on rules [and that] it hasn’t changed for the better.” Another (Lucy) commented on the protocol and “all the red tape” that goes with establishing a Scouts Australia group in Town A. She described that “it took ages, it took over like 12 months to actually try and get things moving.”
The same interviewee stated that “there’s a lot of regulation I think that is impinging on what community groups can do.” She listed examples, such as requiring permits for food stalls, a license from the council when using produce from the community garden, which also had to be prepared in a commercial kitchen, and the need to do the council food handling course, being “not allowed to sell cakes and stuff with cream and stuff like that in it,” and that “even raffles, you’re supposed to run a raffle on a day only, otherwise you’re supposed to get a permit and pay hundreds of dollars.”
Similarly, another participant (Chris) described increased paramedic training requirements that evolved from weekend courses to “a lot of training online and reading online.” He commented:
I just find all that stuff a drag […] You know reading 150 pages to describe what you do with one person for one particular thing you know it’s a waste of time. Just tell people what they have to do.
Besides training and skill requirements, which are particularly demanding for emergency services roles, certifications and background checks are frequently required to engage volunteers, posing a barrier to volunteer recruitment more widely. One interviewee (Pam) observed that “getting in that organization is hugely bureaucratic [and] a really long drawn-out process [that] takes forever. By the time you get your national police clearance back something else might have expired.”
Lack of funding
Intersecting with the volunteer supply issue and increased bureaucracy was the lack of funding available to VIOs. Volunteers perceived that financial pressure on organizations (many of which were led and run by volunteers) limited their volunteer support and necessitated time investment in fundraising and applying for grants, ultimately adding to the overarching problem of high volunteer workload and time commitment. One participant (Darren) explained:
Government funding ebbs and flows. Right now we are in a really low ebb. No royalties money coming into town. No funding in the foreseeable future. Does not go well with projects in small regional communities. Certainly, we, they need the injections of cash to do projects, keep people employed.
Another interviewee (Ernie) equally observed that “grant money is harder and harder to get” and that his organization “relied on grants for running a lot larger projects [which] became a lot more difficult.” Yet another research participant (Julie) stated that funding is “always a concern for rural communities” and that it “it’s not looking too flash at the moment. So there is certainly a concern.”
The lack of financial support again emerged as a common concern. Even emergency fire brigade and ambulance services (Jim) “never really got much money out of the metropolitan area” and resorted to “fundraising to buy our own vans, to build our own sub centres [which] was a lot of hard work.”
One particular hurdle to receiving funding that the volunteer data revealed was, again, increased bureaucracy. For instance, Jackie expressed:
the biggest change is nowadays you have to jump through so many hoops to get it [money] and then to acquit it. They treat you like you are a giant corporation that’s got finance officers working for you. So I find that the applying and acquitting of grants is quite onerous.
That grant applications were impeded through bureaucracy highlights the interconnectedness between themes that emerged from the data combinedly contributing to high volunteer workload and associated time commitments.
Drivers—Psychological impacts
Findings also showed that some volunteers were dealing with psychologically challenging situations as part of their volunteer activity, especially in an emergency service context and to a lesser degree due to conflict among volunteers.
Emergency service encounters
Several interviewees discussed mentally challenging situations that they and other emergency services volunteers had to endure. For example, one (Alma) expressed that “it’s like mental health […] If you’re going to start getting depressed or not discussing it and then you get burnt out, and that’s what happened to paramedics.” She asserted that it is difficult to “deal with those things, you know with the suicides that they had last year and the year before in St John Ambulance” and that “wellbeing has been a really big focus for St John and they quite honestly haven’t done it very well.” Another participant (Darren) attested that “emergency services is very demanding” and that, as a first responder, “you see lots of things that stay with you forever […] So you’ve got to be able to sleep, in that sense, and put those things, visions, to one side. It’s not always easy.” The interviewee went on to explain that “although we have kind of mental health assistance […] that builds up over time and people will eventually have had enough” (Chris).
Conflict among volunteers
Another factor contributing to volunteer burnout was conflict within VIOs. One participant (Thea) stated that in her community, “volunteers were dropping off, because of some, I suppose, discord from some other volunteers. You’d get people that didn’t want to work with each other.” She explained that in this instance, conflict occurred because it is “such a small environment [where] the local politics there are huge.” Another interviewee (Amy) shared a similar cause for conflict, saying:
You will always get one person who’s a little bit more controlling. I think the saying is ‘too many chiefs not enough Indians’. But yeah, I do find that, that people are trying to get up the top, and forgetting what the actual thing is all about.
Another volunteer (Alma) similarly experienced volunteer conflict and conveyed: “So there’s a balance between wanting to get involved to fix it, or not wanting to get involved because it’s so bad you just pull your hair out.” She continued to explain how she dealt with experiencing conflict as part of the school board: “I just found it so frustrating, their meetings. I just couldn’t sit there and listen to how they were run. […] I wrote a letter of resignation.”
Volunteers’ remedies
Either when experiencing burnout or in the lead-up to experiencing burnout, volunteers utilized several coping strategies. The most common means for volunteers to reduce stress and the threat of burnout was the reduction and/or distribution of their volunteer workload. For instance, one interviewee (Kelly) stated: “it just became too much. So I stepped back, and now I’m a Committee member, and I pick and choose how much I want to be involved.” Another volunteer (Tess), who struggled with her workload similarly, cut back: “I think in the last 12 months I’ve probably been able to step back a little bit and just say it’s going to be fine if I’m not there.” The distribution of one’s volunteer responsibilities was a popular solution, as affirmed by others who expressed that “sharing the load is how we’ve managed” (Leah) and that “many hands make light work” (Maurice).
In other instances, volunteers decided to withdraw altogether from at least one of their volunteering roles, “because it just became too much,” as alluded by one interviewee (Vanessa). If the reduction or sharing of workload was not enough, resigning from the position was a rational solution. For instance, one interviewee (Darren) stated:
I had to step down from ambulance, because that was quite demanding. Because you’d be, every three weeks you’d be on call for the week, 24 hours a day. And when my job roles changed, I just wasn’t finding the time, so I could not commit fully. So I stepped out of ambulance, and concentrated on most of my other tasks.
Besides reducing or sharing existing workload, the refusal of additional volunteer duties was a common approach to avoid burnout. Participants repeatedly expressed the necessity to “just say no” (Thea). For instance, Lucy stated: “over time I’ve learnt to say no.” She further made it clear that “you’re allowed to say no. And I think it’s healthy that people can say no, otherwise they do burn out.” Other interviewees reiterated that it is perfectly acceptable to decline further volunteering tasks and similarly conveyed:
You have to learn that word “no,” especially when you know that you have got work that you should be doing at home, your husband gets a bit angry at you, because you are not there, you are out doing stuff for other people. So your family issues starts to get involved. I learnt to say no
(Kate).While the reduction, sharing, and termination of volunteer roles were the most common volunteer-based tactics to dealing with a risk of burnout, alternate approaches were also observed. Some volunteers at risk of burnout were determined to carry on with their duties until, eventually, their situation improved. Some statements to this effect included: “Just crack on and do it. Someone’s got to” (George); “I seem to just soldier on and battle on” (Vanessa); and “I guess I’ve got an attitude of just put your head down, the jobs have to be done, do them, get them done and get on with the next one” (Leah). Although these comments appear somewhat casual, another statement (Jackie) illustrated that it takes a strong, determined mindset to follow this approach:
I have a philosophy that you always get spat out the other end. You just keep putting one foot in front of the other, do what you need to do and you survive […] I think you just have to accept that you have to do it. […] I just tell myself that I’ll get through it. I might be a bit uncomfortable for a while, but I’ll get through it, and it will be fine.
In combination with the above coping strategies, volunteers also tried to counterbalance stress through calming leisure activities. For instance, one volunteer (Kate) from Town B described:
I like going to [State capital city], and I’ll just go walking through the shops. Won’t buy anything, just go window shop or something. Go to the movies. Just a relax time, just do nothing. But that’s a weekend once a month, maybe once every two months.
When asked how she deals with volunteering stress, another volunteer (Vanessa) responded: “Go for a good walk and think. Yeah, get your head together. And yeah, and roll up the following week.”
Discussion and conclusion
Collectively, these findings seek to answer the research questions: How does burnout impact rural volunteers, and how do rural volunteers respond to burnout? In doing so, they shed light on the under-researched topic of how volunteers take it upon themselves to manage their volunteering to avoid burnout (Allen, Reference Allen2023; Huynh et al., Reference Huynh, Xanthopoulou and Winefield2013). The results suggest that rural volunteers were proactively managing their volunteer portfolios, which often included multiple commitments, to avoid burnout. Volunteers were not passive recipients in the volunteer–organization exchange but were actively co-crafting their roles to ensure they could continue to volunteer, where possible, while also acknowledging that in some instances, withdrawal of service was the best option to safeguard their wellbeing. This was in part due to limited support from organizations in communities where there was a meager supply of volunteers, resulting in individuals taking on multiple commitments across different organizations.
The experiences of volunteers in the three case study communities reveal volunteers adopt a highly reflexive approach in managing commitments, as evident in their active use of self-choice (Hustinx & Lammertyn, Reference Hustinx and Lammertyn2003; Shachar et al., Reference Shachar, von Essen and Hustinx2019). The findings support (Hustinx et al., Reference Hustinx, Cnaan and Handy2010, p. 251) revision of the “grand theory of reflexive self-actualization” from original consideration of it as a continual monitoring of life choices informing volunteer continuance and turnover. Instead, our findings support her conclusion (in relation to volunteer turnover) that “it boiled down to the practical management of the (increasing) fiction between different spheres of life and the permanent effort to achieve a personal balance” (p. 251) and extend this to understanding the proactive management of volunteer burnout by rural volunteers.
Diverging from the conceptualization of reflexive volunteering (Hustinx & Lammertyn, Reference Hustinx and Lammertyn2003), rural volunteer participants did not demonstrate “relatively weak feelings of identification with the organisation or belonging to a volunteer group” (Hustinx et al., Reference Hustinx, Shachar, Handy, Smith, Smith, Stebbins and Grotz2016, p. 350). Rather, volunteers initiated a series of their own strategies to maintain their volunteering involvement, with withdrawal of services only one of these options. This level of commitment likely relates to the volunteer supply theme, with participants acknowledging that the lack of available volunteers in rural areas led to them taking on additional roles and a worrying level of obligation.
The issue of volunteer burnout being intensified due to volunteer shortages and few viable alternatives to volunteer-provided services has been recognized in the literature, especially in Australia, where there is a lack of government-provided services in rural communities (Davies et al., Reference Davies, Lockstone-Binney and Holmes2021; O’Halloran & Davies, Reference O’Halloran and Davies2020), and could be considered a wicked problem (Iversen et al., Reference Iversen, Lockstone-Binney and Ibsen2025). Likewise, the themes of increased bureaucracy and lack of funding represent macro-causes of volunteer burnout that are generally beyond the remit of rural volunteers and organizations to mitigate. Countries that have experienced the same loss of services, including Canada (Joseph & Skinner, Reference Joseph and Skinner2012), Denmark (Iversen et al., Reference Iversen, Lockstone-Binney and Ibsen2025), Germany (Mettenberger & Kupper, Reference Mettenberger and Küpper2019), the United Kingdom (Power, Reference Power2009) and the United States (Torgerson & Edwards, Reference Torgerson and Edwards2012), may also find their rural volunteers similarly experiencing and seeking to mitigate stress and burnout, noting, however, differences in population density, for example, which may impact the dependency on volunteers for essential services.
Additionally, relevant to the theme of emergency services encounters, some forms of volunteering are inherently stressful (Holmes & Lockstone-Binney, Reference Holmes and Lockstone-Binney2014), and this is supported firsthand by the harrowing accounts of our participants. However, that noted, emergency services organizations were able to recruit across a wider catchment area as they served a wider geographical area compared to other organizations such as schools.
Despite these challenges, the findings indicated that there were practical actions that volunteers could take to ameliorate burnout in response. Most of these were positive for volunteers, whether it be volunteers putting boundary conditions in place regarding their volunteering and then actively reducing their workload, rejecting additional volunteering requests, and/or engaging in separate leisure activities. Less positive for individual volunteers in terms of remedies, the determination of rural volunteers to “push through” while admirable, may defer burnout initially, but if the root causes are not dealt with, this may still eventuate at a later time. Further research on this topic would be insightful, lending itself to longitudinal designs tracking volunteer cohorts over time.
Other valuable research streams following on from this study include investigating consequences for the volunteer once burnout has occurred: For example, do ex-volunteers re-engage at a later point in time or are lost to the shrinking pool of rural volunteers? We concur with Hustinx et al. (Reference Hustinx, Cnaan and Handy2010, p. 251) that “quitters are harder to access than stayers,” but there may be merit in sampling from a smaller number of rural VIOs over an extended time to collect these data. Additionally, studies assessing the medical impact of burnout on volunteers, alongside an understanding of the negotiation strategies studied here, would be useful to determine the tipping point of when stress turns to burnout and the physical consequences of this change. Knowledge of burnout remedies from the perspective of organizations is a useful extension of the current study. Exploration of those that are based in the region versus those operating from a distance would also be worthwhile to explore, given Holmes et al. (Reference Holmes, Davies, Lockstone-Binney, O’Halloran and Ong2019) noted that many rural volunteers are managed from central offices, often located in the nearest city. Considering this study was informed entirely by the rural volunteer voice, it would be timely to revisit Holmes and Lockstone-Binney’s (Reference Holmes and Lockstone-Binney2014) organizational analysis of burnout as volunteer recruitment and retention continue as persistent challenges in rural areas (Holmes et al., Reference Holmes, Dunlop, Lockstone-Binney, Davies, Farid and Lavery2022). Finally, noting the limitations of the current study, further investigations of rural areas with homogeneous and heterogeneous population sizes and economic profiles to the case study communities studied here would enable generalization and aid in discerning macro-issues endemic to rural volunteer burnout.
Funding statement
The research leading to these results received funding from the Curtin Bankwest Economics Centre, 2017–2018 round.
Competing interests
The authors have no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.
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