Designing Volunteer Roles: The Ethics of Paid and Unpaid Work

The sudden withdrawal of many formal volunteering opportunities at the start of the COVID pandemic in March 2020 cast a spotlight on the nature of volunteer work. In many cases, important services were suddenly curtailed while still other organizations pivoted volunteer roles into paid positions. As we come to the close of a second, full year of functioning in an ever-changing pandemic environment – when the boundaries around paid work and unpaid volunteer contributions have never been fuzzier – one question has never been clearer: How do ethical considerations impact the ability of the volunteer engagement professional to design and reintroduce volunteer roles? This Ethics article by Lynn Felker explores this intersection of the ethical values of our profession with the design and content of volunteer roles.