Philosophy of Volunteerism

At some point in any meeting of volunteer managers there emerges a recurring theme:“They” don’t respect us! It is raised in tones ranging from angry shouts to bemoaned cries, and is often followed by a litany of examples of neglect, misunderstanding and abuse. To whom the “they” refers varies. Sometimes it’s staff or administration, occasionally the general public, even, from time to time, mothers who are puzzled about strange career choices.

The reality is that volunteer managers haven’t always done a good job of earning respect. In previous “Points of View” we’ve talked about ways to gain respect within our own organizations; this current discussion will focus on societal initiatives. The suggestions in this article are probably outside the reach of any single volunteer program manager, but are well within the capacity of a united profession to achieve.

In their last Points of View, Steve and Susan offered a somewhat tongue-in-cheek reaction to the current fad that suggests volunteer involvement would improve if we simply turned everything over to corporate human resources “professionals.” But in this follow-up column, the authors take another look at this topic from a somewhat more serious perspective. First, they identify five things about managing volunteers that are very different from managing employees, which reinforce why turning responsibility for volunteer involvement over to a human resources department is not such a good idea. Next, to be fair, Steve and Susan identify three things that HR professionals tend to do better than volunteer managers. Which begs the question: Would the marriage of HR and volunteer management really create such an odd couple? 

 “What kinds of work should volunteers do?” Volunteer program managers tend to run into this discussion in a number of different ways, often centering on the issue of whether volunteers can do some positions/work or whether only paid staff can do the work. And the usual context for this conversation is whether there are legal or other restrictions that prevent volunteers from doing some jobs. 

In this Points of View, Steve and Susan consider a somewhat different topic, one that’s worth both further discussion and research:  “What are volunteers good at?”  Or, to put it another way, “Is there work that unpaid volunteers do better than paid staff?”

And, of course, we also consider the reverse of that question: ”Is there work that paid staff do better than volunteers?”

Over the years we’ve seen an impressive array of attempts to “re-conceptualize” volunteering, at least to re-name it.  Last fall, the United States saw a flurry of special events, legislative proposals and media attention focused on the subject of “service.” It was brought to a head by an event called ServiceNation in New York City on September 11-12.  The momentum for this vocabulary choice has continued, as evidenced by the Obama Administration’s new “United We Serve” initiative. The problem in talking about service as a huge mass of effort is that it hinders rather than helps both debate and action. It’s left to the listener to consider the context and the speaker each time the word is used. The resulting confusion directly affects those of us most concerned with volunteering because it is genuinely hard to tell when someone is advocating for us or forgetting about us.

In this Points of View, Susan and Steve analyze the many uses of the word “service.” They also react positively to the vision of the future mentioned by at least four of the celebrity speakers at the National Conference on Volunteering and Service.  In one way or another, each celebrity offered this scenario:

That when we meet someone and are making conversation, one of the top five things we choose to talk about will be: “…and where do you serve?”