Episodic Volunteering/Management

Thanksgiving, Christmas, Diwali, Chanukah. Holidays and festivals like these can create even busier times for organisations that run fundraising drives or develop special projects tied to these events in an attempt to reach more of the communities they serve.

As evidenced during the most recent holiday season, some organisations depend on existing volunteers to put in extra shifts. Others view a special seasonal time of year as a great opportunity to recruit new volunteers to their causes; these volunteers may come to help out at a one-off event only, while others can likely be retained and end up making longer-term volunteer commitments. Still other organisations or projects exist and operate only n the run-up to and during the holiday period itself. Do they get the same volunteers to return year after year? And if so, how do they make that work?

In this Along the Web, Arnie Wickens presents websites of various organisations that have created a reputation or brand identity from identifying their work with holiday seasonal times, based on effectively recruiting volunteers to maintain the work they do. This article offers a wealth of tips that will prove invaluable when planning the next crunch of seasons and holiday volunteering.

Although hundreds of thousands of people volunteer with the National Park Service each year, the agency has been slow to engage volunteers in emergency management. In this feature story by Francis Shawn Bawden, who worked for the NPS for nine years, the lessons learned at Everglades National Park during the preparation, response, and recovery of numerous hurricanes in 2016-2018 provide important recommendations to emergency managers and volunteer coordinators who want to better utilize volunteers during most phases of disasters.

Episodic volunteering – as one-time or short-term volunteering is often called – is becoming the norm as times change and individuals move away from traditional volunteer roles that require consistent, long-term commitments. Technology has made it easy to find and sign up for events on the spur of the moment. It also makes it easier for organizations to organize such events and perform volunteer management functions such as recruiting, scheduling, and follow-up. Some of these events involve thousands of volunteers, and include marathons, sporting competitions, and festivals. 

One such mega event was the World Meeting of Families and the visit of Pope Francis to Philadelphia in 2015. In this Research to Practice column, reviewer Laurie Mook looks at the results of a study of the experiences of over 2,400 volunteers at this mega event in the City of Brotherly Love. Mook’s examination provides useful insights for episodic volunteer management.