Let’s Start With the Basics

Volunteering as a concept is fairly appealing to most people, because fundamentally, there are a few ideals that society generally holds as true. How we interpret these ideals is a matter of personal taste and passions, but these are the various categories I’ve noticed in both myself and other people who volunteer at all.

1. We have the responsibility of being good stewards of our resources.
2. We have the responsibility to protect the powerless.
3. We want to recognize the basic human dignity and value in everyone.

I’m not entirely sure if everyone is cognizant of these various ideals, but some people, when you ask them where they volunteer, will mention that they feel strongly about supporting organizations that address hunger, homelessness, children, education, mental illness, trauma, veterans, stray animals, etc. (essentially: the powerless and recognition of the human dignity in everyone); others will mention issues like protecting native ecosystems and habitat restoration, or perhaps issues like switching to solar power, encouraging recycling or composting, or other issues in the same vein (being good stewards of our resources).

Perhaps I do these themes a disservice by only glossing over them, but I think that those are fairly understood themes that most leaders will identify. But what distinguishes those who have a lifetime of service? Perhaps the previous three are sufficient motivators for most people who serve, but there are three more ideals — or perhaps lessons — that I have identified that motivate me further into giving.

Lesson #1: You can only develop compassion by practicing it.

When I was growing up, Mother Teresa was the living epitome of a modern saint. No one, whether or not they were Catholic, could deny that what she was doing with her life — ministering to the least of the least in India — was not only a good thing, but a great thing, something that epitomized the best of humankind. But what impressed us most about Mother Teresa was not that she gave of her life, but that she did so out of love. The compassion she preached was the compassion she lived, and many of us were inspired by her dedication to alleviating the suffering of others, one person at a time.

I’m not a naturally empathetic person. While I have friends who bleed when someone else is cut, I’m the one that pragmatically tries to solve the problem. But I hold compassion as a value, and I recognize that it isn’t just a feeling that one can have — it is instead a practice that one can develop. Compassion is, in essence, an intricately entwined combination of feeling and action. Action without empathy is simply a solution; empathy without action is just feeling sorry for someone. In intentionally placing myself in a place of service, as a teacher or a companion or a silent pair of hands, I place myself in a position to remember that volunteering is all about the people.

This practice of compassion can and does bleed into my both professional and personal lives. It encourages me to give people the benefit of the doubt instead of immediately judging them by whatever arbitrary standard I may hold. It challenges me to remember that even in the most difficult of times, the people who are on the other end of a conference call or in the room with me are still human, have families, friends, cares, concerns, and stressors, just like me. And that understanding helps me to react in a way that is not based on my own current level of stress, no matter how combative the situation. I can, instead, choose to react in a way that would address the human element, to ensure that the relationship is held intact, even as we seek a solution to the problem at hand.

Lesson #2: You invest in individuals not only for their benefit, but also for the good of mankind.

As a senior black belt, I spend a fair amount of my hours volunteering to teach and mentor up and coming martial artists. These aren’t superstars, and I’m not training people to work in the movies to perform stunts. But teaching martial arts benefits me in martial arts just as much as my everyday training does. It helps me to fundamentally understand not only the technique, but also the human condition of struggling to master a concept.

I look at the chain of students who I have mentored in the past, and realize that I have, in essence, invested in their own perception of what it means to be compassionate and kind to others, challenged them to go beyond their self-imposed boundaries and seek excellence, and shepherded them into persevering through difficult physical and emotional times. And while I see that they have benefited from the time spent with me, I also see them, in turn, investing in others around them.

In this way, I believe that the investment of time and money into our various causes don’t only bless the individual, they also bless the community around them. This might be an economic benefit or an experiential one — in the first case, an immigrant you help through mentoring may turn out to be the next big entrepreneur, and in the second, someone who is struggling with addiction may, in turn, help someone else who is struggling through the same issue down the line. The small, intentional investment now can and will have positive consequences for the entire community, and the shock waves of kindness can and do resonate throughout our very connected world.

Lesson #3: You participate in community by giving and receiving.

John Donne wrote, “No man is an island,” and yet many people I know live in a place of isolation. At the heart of our society is a fierce independence that encourages pulling oneself up by one’s own bootstraps. My own parents, in an attempt to prepare me for the world, lectured me over and over with the phrase: “You have to watch out for Number One.”

I certainly entered into the working world with a very loose understanding of what “community” meant. For me, the university community meant a group of people who happened to be in the same physical location and had the same activities or interests.

It took me years to realize that participating in a community was more than simply being in the right place at the right time, showing up at happy hours and exchanging small talk. There are many types of communities, and at the heart of it is the intentional investment of your resources and also the willing receiving of the investment of others.

When a representative of our corporate responsibility team approached me and talked about Adobe’s role in the community, it broadened my thinking. I wasn’t thinking about the community as just the people I worked with or who used our products; instead, the community broadened to include those around us, both physically (in this case, San Francisco), or who use our products (in this case, around the world). How could we, in our wealth of energy, education, and training, be a force for good in our community?

I think many people think of volunteering as a purely selfless act. Certainly, there are times when you are helping someone who is down on their luck, or helping an organization that serves such a population. But that elder you feed a meal to? They may in turn be dispensing wisdom to another person. The young family who receives a box from the local food bank? They, too, are contributing intangibles to this great, amorphous thing we call “community.”

And some day, that blessing may, in turn, come to me, perhaps through someone who invests their time and energy in giving me a ride to the airport, in rescuing me from tripping and falling on my face on the sidewalk, or in making sure I don’t leave $5 change in the till when I’m at the transit station. Or maybe it’s just someone who offers me a sunny smile when I’m walking on my way to work, or an enthusiastic greeting at the check stand when I’m grumpily on a grocery run after work.

Seeing the connections between all of us on this epic level makes me want to invest more love, more passion, and more time into the people around me, because this is community.

The Unintended Consequences

Everyone, however, focuses on what I consider the “unintended consequences” of volunteering. Certainly there’s the feeling of a job well done, and there can be opportunities to break down barriers in teams as they volunteer together, doing things outside of their daily routine and expertise. Maybe there is a positive glow in knowing that you’ve done something for someone who can’t do for themselves at the moment.

But I believe that focusing on these things as motivation for volunteering is myopic; it loses out on the importance and emphasis of our inherent connectedness with the people around us — and not only the people we see or consider important in our lives.

November and December mark Adobe’s annual holiday philanthropic campaign, marketed as the “Season of Giving.” Many other corporations and organizations have similar campaigns, often centering around giving time and money around the holidays.

But perhaps instead of focusing on the unintended consequences of volunteering, we can, instead, focus on the purpose of volunteering — to intentionally participate in and strengthen our local and global community through compassion, for the good of mankind.