IFATCA 2030+ – Global Analysis

According to these survey results, the main share of MA’s has an active volunteer role within IFATCA and the regions are almost equally represented in the percentage of active members. It must be noted that the response rates of the Africa/Middle East (38,12%) and Americas (45,8%) region are relatively low and can therefore give a distorted picture. It would be an interesting discussion point for MAs to define their view of what constitutes ‘volunteering’.

Previous research (Keeping the Engine Running, Pauptit, 2021) already indicated that gaining knowledge is one of the main motivators to do IFATCA work by volunteers from all regions or for MAs to participate. Knowledge sharing and obtaining, training courses and learning opportunities are most often mentioned and ranked as most important by all regions. It is noticeable that throughout all regions promoting the profession and providing (financial) support to other MA’s is high ranked. Among the uncategorized comments a few remarks about being stronger while united and having a stronger position towards the CAA with IFATCA’s backup can be found.

The main reason for both individuals and MA’s to participate is gaining knowledge and promoting the profession. In order to meet these expectations, IFATCA as an organization should take these expectations into account when determining their main focus areas.

In line with expectations, resources (being time and funding available) are most often mentioned as the limiting factor when providing volunteers, followed by motivation. It is interesting to notice that while lack of finances plays a large role within the Americas and African regions, lack of time available is the more contributing factor within Europe and Asia. In the financial restrictions, costs for travel and accommodations are often mentioned.

The high ranking on motivation as a limiting factor is mainly prompted by the European region, although other regions also report difficulties in finding volunteers because of a lack of motivation. This is partially attributed to a generation aspect, but a lack of recognition and reward and the time requested to perform the job are also often mentioned. It is noticeable that the lack of interest to take on a task is linked to a possible lack of advertising, lack of understanding of the job, job expectations and IFATCA as an organization and a lack of urgency awareness.

A lack of expertise and insufficient level of English is mostly mentioned in the African, Americas and Asia/Pacific region.

It is interesting to see how often global MAs were not aware of the need to participate or did not have the knowledge how to participate.

Apart from money and motivational issues, it was mentioned that the regional issues are not addressed well, there is a lack of experience and information regarding the process and remarks on the voting process for official positions.

When asked about how IFATCA can encourage members to volunteer, an improvement of promotion of the volunteer jobs and the organization as a whole is most often mentioned. Have the people see the impact and significance of the work so they get enthusiastic to participate and create clear descriptions of the work that is to be done. Make sure the expectations are clear to the MAs (both what is needed and what is not) and potential volunteers. 

When asked what an MA does to promote volunteering for IFATCA internally, over 30% of the MAs indicate that they do not have means or ways to promote IFATCA positions within their own organization. A share of the MAs that do promote the jobs has support (time & cost refund) in place. Most of the MAs indicate they promote volunteering by sharing vacant positions.