Why You Lose Volunteers Before They Start: A Conversation between Laura Rundell and Meridian Swift

Although they live 1,000 miles from each other, good friends Laura Rundell and Meridian Swift have for many years always made time for long-distance chats. With a glass of wine or a cup of coffee in hand, they’ll catch up, first with family news before venturing seamlessly into the state of volunteering. Afterall, both are long-time Volunteer Engagement professionals who have chatted through COVID, through tragedies, through lean times and calm times, sharing their experiences, observations and hopes for the future of volunteerism.

One of the many things that Rundell and Swift chat about is their own volunteering experiences. In this Voices, these two experienced Volunteer Engagement professionals look at how and why people choose to volunteer, continuing a topic Engage explored earlier this month in a story about older volunteers. Rundell and Swift take the topic even further, and explain why organizations often lose volunteers before they even start. Rundell and Swift offer a review of common organizational traps that frustrate volunteers, while weaving in their own experiences and offering quick tips for how to avoid similar problems in volunteering-based organizations. These first-person experiences are a must read for Volunteer Engagement professionals looking to understand this problem – and how to avoid it.