Volunteering: the school of hard knocks (part two)
It’s currently national volunteering (appreciation) week in Australia. These acts of kindness enable many causes to be able to create the impact that they’ve set out in their missions. Missions to create a better world for us to live in.
In part one of this 2-part post, I covered my experience with volunteering (and the unexpected dark-side of volunteering culture).
In this post, I’ll continue discussing some thoughts on how we can approach creating a healthy volunteering culture in organisations. And, for individuals, finding the right balance while still making an impact.
Things can be better!
No one (else) should have to experience these hard knocks.
What I’ve learnt has been absolutely priceless now going into a world where volunteers are the lifelines for pets in need at PetRescue.
We exist in a culture that celebrates high performance and output over impact. But this leads to people being overworked and under-supported, all while doing the work that wouldn’t necessarily need to be done if there wasn’t something broken. If there wasn’t a better world that we wanted to change or build.
“Our challenge is to each find the nugget of involvement that speaks to us and what we can handle — no matter its size. We can all play a part.”
- https://london.iabc.com/news/how-to-put-an-end-to-martyrdom-in-volunteering-and-make-helping-out-irresistible-for-everyone/
Today, I’m working in the not for profit sector which relies heavily on volunteers to help save lives and be the voice of pets in need. Passionate people wanting to create real change for a better world.
However, I’ve seen this movie before and the ending sucks. Unless our volunteering culture gets a tune-up, we’ll just end up in the same cycle. And it’s the pets in need that end up on the raw end of that deal.
If nothing changes, then the same things will continue to happen. So, let’s talk about it.
What can we do?
Volunteering is essential.
But the way we look at volunteering could use an oil change.
I’ll split this thought into two streams:
- Volunteering from an organisation’s viewpoint
- Volunteering from the volunteer’s perspective
Volunteering from an organisation’s viewpoint
It’s my belief that volunteers should be treated as the essential people that they are in the workplace. They should be celebrated as a key contributing part of the organisation who is essential for the cause.
Just like employees, we should set them up in the best possible way to feel welcome, be informed and be set up for success. They should be made to feel comfortable and confident in their endeavour to help and have a positive impact on the cause in their own unique way.
And, just like employees we should continually support them and do what we can to avoid them working in isolation. Or feel like they are. This also prevents having single points of failure for programs or knowledge leakage when people leave.
- What are our expectations of volunteers?
- What do we praise for in volunteer culture?
“By spreading the work across the organization’s membership pool and offering little chunks of valuable tasks to as many people as possible, participation becomes both accessible and wide-spread.
We put an end to disproportionately celebrating the work of those who commit a LOT of time and effort, and instead value the contributions of EVERYONE. This leads to everyone feeling appreciated, and in turn when volunteers get a taste of feeling part of the “organization’s inner tribe” they inevitably start looking for ways to get even more involved. Or not… maybe they don’t get more involved than putting forth an hour of time a year, and that’s okay too!”
For a little more context, PetRescue is an organisation that’s worked for over a decade with thousands of volunteer-run groups, but we’re quite green in the volunteering space for our own organisation. This has been because our team has been too small to have someone dedicated to being able to properly look after that space.
As we’re moving into improving this area, we have to start a lot of it from the ground up. There are no processes or playbooks existing, but it’s a great opportunity to properly design it with sustainability and a healthy and balanced volunteering culture in mind.
The process checklist that I’ve begun to build looks like this:
- Proper onboarding for volunteer team members
- Inductions for volunteers, including workplace wellness and guides to setting healthy boundaries
- Invitations to our channels and team events
- Providing more detail and background on tasks (ie how everything fits into the big picture)
- Sharing and celebrating updates on impact and outcomes over output
- Providing flexibility and a variety of options for work to match skills and capacity
- Open communication lines and clear avenues to opt-in / opt-out to things as required
- A dedicated person responsible for driving our volunteer coordination, engagement and encouragement
- Provide access and tool training as relevant
- Ensure that any private information and details are kept up-to-date, safe and secure
- Calendar reminders for milestones
- Encouraging org-wide inclusive thinking for the wider team to encourage all members of the organisation are informed, included and engaged in activities
Investing in these areas means that we can approach it with the intent for it to be successful.
Volunteering from a volunteer’s perspective
If you’re considering volunteering or already volunteering — YOU ARE AWESOME! Thank you for doing what you do to give back to important causes and the community.
Vollies like yourself are critical at multiple stages of organisation levels — whether it be at the frontlines or in admin support roles through strategic initiatives for larger organisations.
Here are a few tips that I’d recommend keeping in mind:
- It’s okay to say no and only opt into tasks that you have the capacity for or comfortable in doing.
- It’s okay to change your mind and commitment! If things change in life and, for example, your availability or personal circumstances mean that you can no longer complete something, don’t feel like you need to keep pushing through. Be sure you know who and how to let know if something changes, and communicate as early as you can.
- Set and reset your boundaries — each week may be different for you and that’s expected! That’s life. Make sure you set boundaries on how much time you can put in and communicate that early on. This will help you and the organisation understand how much time capacity you have to be able to perform a task (and whether time-sensitive ones should be avoided).
- Share your knowledge — say yes to documentation and openly share with others! The fewer people gate-keeping knowledge, the more evenly the load can be shared and a bigger impact can be contributed in the long run to the cause. It may take a little more time initially to get someone else up to speed, but this is time well-invested! Plus it helps the continuity and longer-term sustainability of your work.
- It’s okay to also ask questions! If you’re unsure of something, it’s always okay to ask. Especially for understanding the impact that your work is having in a big picture way. Also, sometimes a question with a fresh pair of eyes is a VERY refreshing one for an organisation. The best is when it sparks new ideas!
- It’s also totally okay to mix it up with different tasks or even volunteer at different places and for different things. It’s your time, it’s your choice! 💖
A final note is that some places will be more advanced in their volunteering programs. Take this as a great learning opportunity to share processes and ideas with other organisations that may need a little help in this (especially if they are keen for improvement in those areas too).
Final thoughts
- Rewarding.
- Fulfilling.
- World-changing.
- Eye-opening.
- Humbling.
- Joyful.
- Balanced.
- Sustainable.
I believe that it’s possible for volunteering to be all of these things.
We must pay this vital role the attention that it deserves from the beginning. Set it up for success and with ongoing care. As with all good things, it takes work to make it work.
And, when things don’t work, it’s time to look at adapting or changing.
Pushing through in the hopes that things will magically work themselves out is wishful thinking…
Let’s all re-look at how we approach volunteering and the culture that we’ve all participated in creating.
Let’s always ask ourselves, “Is this the way that things should be?”.
A shoutout to The (writing feedback) Collective that’s recently formed to provide helpful feedback and suggestions! Special thanks to Corey Ginnivan and Dominic Sebastian for their valuable input for this particular post 💫
