Give a Day, Get a Disney Day attracts 1 million volunteers

There’s been a lot of debate about the rights and wrongs of incentive schemes for volunteers. Wherever you stand, it’s hard not to be in awe of any campaign which attracts 1 million volunteers in less than 10 weeks.

Give a Day, Get a Disney Day offered volunteers a day out at a Disney theme park in exchange for volunteering a day of their time through the Hands-On Network.

Giving away tickets isn’t new to Disney – in 2009, it distributed around 100,000 tickets a month to anyone who went to one of their U.S. theme parks on his or her birthday. In contrast, the volunteer promotion attracted 100,000 participants per week this year. Disney says the campaign exceeded their expectations, and I can well believe it. Who’d have expected volunteering to be more popular than birthdays?

“The innovative nature of this program has exponentially increased our capacity to both invite and excite people about volunteerism,” said Michelle Nunn, co-founder of HandsOn Network.

Non-profits around the US are reporting a bump in participation, and volunteers are claiming they got more than just a freebie. Whether the magic will last longer than the campaign remains to be seen, but bloggers are already speculating that the campaign will be repeated.

Meanwhile, volunteering is making the news in the US with the federal Corporation for National and Community Service says they’re experiencing a recession-related “compassion boom”, and a poll of 1003 Americans showed that 78% believe they’re more involved in making a difference than their parents were.