PROJECT STOCKHOLM
Eric Axdorph, Johan Faxner, Henrik Harryson, Filip Mark, Carl Tengblad, Felix Ternheim
Teaching Group 8; Project Group 1; Global Challenges Expressing; Stockholm School of Economics
AIM
v A market survey to comprehend how Stockholmers view charity work and their attitudes toward a portal simplifying volunteerism.
v Create a portal where volunteers can find flexible charity work and organizations can advertise for flex staffing.
v Create an Instagram account to spread awareness and our story.
v Organize a pilot event together with a charity organization and let research subjects try the concept.
v Measure the subject’s attitudes towards charity work and his or her mental health before and after the event.
v The market survey showed that…
Ø 65 % of Stockholmers under the age of 30 do not devote any time to volunteering.
Ø The main reason for this is difficulty in finding opportunities.
Ø 75 % of respondents would like to volunteer more if presented the opportunity.
Ø 78 % would consider using a portal that connects them to a wide range of flexible volunteering opportunities
Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable Ensure healthy lives and promote
well-being for all at all ages
PROBLEM
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL
METHOD
RESULTS
DIFFICULTIES
INSIGHTS
v The website and Instagram
Ø The portal allows individuals to find easy, flexible and accessible charitable jobs. It also offers charity
organizations the possibility to advertise for these positions.
Ø Organizations can post their company profiles on the website as well as announcements for opportunities on an event-basis.
Ø Users can search with custom criteria to find the volunteering layout that fits them best (e.g. date, duration, type of work, place, etc.), thus effectively removing many of the identified barriers to volunteer that existed before.
Ø The Instagram’s purpose is to spread awareness and raise emotions to potential volunteers by sharing stories.
How easy is it for you to find volunteering opportunities?
We aim to turn Stockholm into a…
1. more including, sustainable and open society.
2. city with increased well-being and compassion.
v The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development explicitly recognizes the need of volunteer groups to achieve the 17 SDGs (UN
Volunteers, 2018)
v For many of the SDGs, micro-level localized action is the key to generating global impact. Of these, SDG 11 may be the one most dependent upon volunteer work to succeed.
v Of the top 10 most segregated municipalities in Sweden, three are in the greater Stockholm area, with Stockholm ranking 31st of 290 (SCB, 2015).
v The refugee migration driven segregation has resulted in an increase in demand for volunteer work within integration and general social support services.
v The need for shelter is also increasing e.g. Stockholms Stadsmission has experienced a massive increase (approx. 20 000 individuals in 2011 and approx. 31 000 in 2015), (Stockholms Stadsmission, 2016).
v If societal issues are not addressed, Stockholm will remain segregated and a detractor from SDG 11.
v Unfortunately, only 12% of Swedes engage in volunteer work which is low on a global scale (e.g. Global average rate 21 %) (World Giving Index, 2012).
v Sweden is, however, amongst the top countries in giving money, where 51% stated that they had given money the previous month, showing that Swedes have the will to contribute but usually by
monetary means.
v The absence of communal engagement in Sweden deprives many volunteering organizations of the human resources needed to
create social value, which in turn hems Sweden’s ability to pursue SDGs that are dependent upon localized activity.
% of population who have volunteered in the previous month
v The pilot event
v We arranged a test event with Nema Problema Foundation, a charitable association that
tackles integration in Stockholm.
v Measuring the attitudes and wellbeing
v We interviewed the volunteers prior to and after the event to measure their attitude towards volunteering pre- and post- volunteering.
v All subjects were more positive to continue volunteering after the event:
v In Vasaparken, newly arrived immigrants met with native Swedes and played Swedish summer games, kubb, boule and other
teambuilding exercises to break down social barriers and build a local network.
v Our research subjects Emma, Pontus and Benjamin, all
successfully found and participated in the event via our portal.
I am surprised by how good one can feel from just spending two hours volunteering on a Sunday!”
Emma, Volunteer
v Some difficulties that might have arrived are…
Ø How do we know we asked the right questions in the survey?
Ø How do we know the demographics of the respondents was satisfactory?
Ø Was the portal and event the best change alternative or could there have been other more efficient alternatives?
v Short run and long run effects
v From our interviews, we can conclude that the project changes general attitudes towards volunteering in the short run.
v This means that if we scale this platform to a larger mass of people as well as over an extended period of time, we can change attitudes about volunteering in the long-run.
v In addition, being at an event provides context of the problems that exist in the society and ultimately boosts understanding of and compassion towards those issues.
v In the long run, increasing volunteering rates in Stockolm can also raise well-being levels as data has shown that eight out of ten volunteers experience increased personal well-being
(Volontärbarometern, 2016).
v Studies also show that compassionate actions lead to mental health benefits (Neff & Seppälä, 2016), improving SDG 3.
v From our project we learned…
Ø That it was easier than we presumed to volunteer and make a difference.
Ø That a societal engagement has great impact on attitudes towards volunteering; with more people involved, many more will continue volunteering.
Ø That pursuing a social project was considerably more feasible when using the SDGs as guidance.
