Why Don’t We Volunteer Anymore?
I’m what you’d call a Volunteer Addict (not even ten words in and I’ve already managed to squeeze in a reference to my project title), if I see something I can help with, it won’t be long before I throw my hat in the ring and offer to help out in some way or form. It’s reached a point were I’ve had to put on blinders to stop myself from saying yes to more projects that I simply cannot fit into the day, occasionally I do like to sleep. All these groups I’ve formed part of, ranging from University Organisation participation, to being part of of a National Sport Organisation, with Scouting squeezed in between, I like to think I’ve got decent view of what I believe to be a steady decline in activism and volunteering in Malta (That little dot in the Med), not to say it’s truly dead, but more and more people, especially among student demographics, seem to be apathetic towards any form of volunteering. I know I’m going to sound disgruntled and portray a bleak outlook on the situation, and I do find myself hoping that people will prove me wrong on this, but more often than not I find myself frustrated by the apathy of people towards any organisation that asks for their help.
Before I proceed onto what I can only call a rant, I think it’s best that I clarify a few things. Firstly, when I refer to volunteering, I’m not talking of those saints (and I mean that) who fly off to barren lands to help those less fortunate than us, I’m talking about any form of participation in a Non-profit organisation, whether it be a community group, a charity, sports team, or similar, with Maltese organisations as my main focus. It’s not that I have anything against aid volunteering, but I often feel that most people don’t seem to understand that a lot of organisations we take for granted are run solely by volunteers, providing services to the local community. Also, I have a love-hate outlook when it comes to listicles, but sub headings make things so much easier to work with. Now that’s out of the way, let’s get going.
As already mentioned, I’ve gotten myself involved in many an organisation, and in that time I’ve noticed a recurring issue. No matter what you do, encouraging people to get involved and help doesn’t get any easier. People just don’t want to get involved anymore. One could be running an organisation with a membership of hundreds, with full up events and vocal participants both cheering and criticising your every move, but the second an email asking for volunteers to help organise an event or activity goes out, it’s like someone let rip a gut wrenching fart in a crowded room, in a moment everyone’s gone. It often feels like you’d be better off putting a message in a bottle and flinging it into the sea. It’s not that no one wants to help, but for some reason or other, people don’t want to commit to these tasks, and I think I’ve identified certain (subjective) themes that play a role in this. Cue the List!
Volunteering isn’t Valued the way it used to be:
When I was younger, my parents and most adults I came across, spoke highly of the value of volunteering. “Employers love seeing things like scouts on CVs!” or “It will prepare you for life in ways school just can’t.” were the more common phrases that you’d use when trying to convince someone to join an organisation (like a scout group). I can’t say they were wrong, I got my first summer job solely on the grounds that I had scouting listed on my CV, it definitely wasn’t because of my grades at the time. 13 years later I still stand by those statements, often repeating them myself to the people that haven’t had the misfortune of meeting me before the first coffee of the day has finally kicked in. To an extent this still works in attracting members to an organisation, but it no longer translates into these very members taking on more roles. I think this happens for a multiple of reasons (don’t worry, I’ll tell you about them all shortly), but I definitely think that the value of the experience isn’t what it used to be. A lot of my friends fail to see the value of devoting hours of their time to running an organisation as anything that should interest them, they don’t think it will benefit them in their personal endeavours. From where I’m standing this seems to be a Millennial Issue, we’re a generation that’s so focussed on our own personal goals, that anything that doesn’t directly benefit us is extra, and more often than not we’re more interested in the immediate effects rather than anything long term (To be fair, according to these guys, there may be reason to it). This brings me to the next issue.
No one wants to do anything for free:
My friends know me for my very active life, juggling my time between (mainly) three different organisations which take up the majority of my “free” time, yet a lot of them can’t seem to understand how I do it all for free. In particular when it comes to my work with a National Sports Association (I am the Public Relations Officer), I always get asked “How much do you get paid?” always followed by the look of disbelief when I laugh and say there’s no pay in it (aside from the odd free beer after an event). I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a benefit for me, the PR work in particular is helping build work experience for when I finally get out of university and start looking for work in Marketing, but the notion of getting paid to work for what is essentially a non-profit never dawned on me. I just believed, that if I can help I should, but then again that could be the scout in me. It’s not just me though, my friends who are scout leaders all have stories of people asking how much they to take care of the kids (they don’t in case you hadn’t caught on yet). I can understand that not everyone can commit to the hours that some of these “jobs” require, but it’s not just on the time heavy commitments. Even when it comes to small jobs, like helping out at a one off event, people will always ask a variant of “What’s in it for me?” I get it, we live in modern times, with unstable economies and social burdens, but it irks me that it has become so difficult to find volunteers. As a lack of volunteers creates a series of other issues which only make it harder to find people, namely,
No one wants to deal with the workload.
When I think of the ideal structure for a voluntary organisation, I think of two to three people doing the equivalent of one full timer in a professional capacity. At the end of the day, people have jobs, studies, families and social lives (I’ve forgotten what the last one’s like) so volunteering shouldn’t need to become a full time commitment. That being said, things won’t happen if the work isn’t put in and the organisation won’t function. So if there aren’t enough people, then the work is split between smaller groups with some organisations leaving one individual volunteer responsible for the work of two to three people. The easy solution is to get more people involved, but when any prospective candidate sees how stressed the one working individual is, they naturally become rather apprehensive about helping out, fearing they’ll end up in the same situation. You want more people to help to split up the workload, but no one wants to help out of fear of that very same workload. It’s an odd situation, and the first time you see it, you’re left in a state of disbelief, but with each turn, the cycle becomes more and more like a fact of life (apologies but I couldn’t come up with a better analogy here). Eventually though, you start getting desperate, and you’ll move on from “Right person for the job” to “Anyone will do!” But this can often lead to other problems within the organisation especially if people are getting involved for the wrong reasons. It may seem like a quick fix, but one person in the wrong position can kill it all and leads to what I believe to be one of the biggest factors preventing members from taking more active roles within an organisation namely,
Internal Politics and Committees destroy volunteers.
We Maltese love (read “are obsessed with”) our politics. I don’t mean that we insert National Politics into everything we do (actually that isn’t a totally true), but a lot of our social interactions, no matter the scale, can often be compared to a Shonda Rhimes political drama. Volunteer organisations are not immune to political turmoil, with most organisations using elections to select their leaderships, this often leads to power struggles and/or unhelpful practices. Namely when it comes to individual clashes of opinions which can split organisations into factions stifling growth and most importantly, dissuading other people from doing more as they simply don’t want the hassle of dealing with certain characters. All this division also creates ineffectiveness within committees which will spend hours debating simple matters only to end without a single conclusion. These meetings are probably the biggest drain of momentum, enthusiasm and resources on any organisation and they would probably be the biggest dissuasion to doing more in an organisation if it wasn’t for one final factor,
Nowadays Time is worth more than Money.
Referring to the earlier point (that one about doing things for free), the age old adage of “time is money” still applies, but recently I’ve noticed how a lot of people have taken this even further. To most their time is worth even more than there money. We’re obviously proud that Malta is ranked as one of the most generous populations in the world (per capita), at least when it comes to giving money to charities and other notable causes, but when it comes to devoting our time to something outside of our own personal endeavours, I often feel like I’d have better luck asking people to pull out their own teeth. I guess this all comes back to my earlier points about value, but if you ask me this is the biggest change in the mindset of any potential volunteer within our young demographics.
Obviously, we are all individuals with the right to do with our time as we please, but when you’re sitting down with the old guard hearing them reminisce about “the good old days” when the organisation had an army of volunteers rather than a handful, interjected with the odd rant about how young people don’t want to help, one cannot help but wonder why this is happening. Are we as a generation to blame ?(Some think so)Have these organisations failed to adapt and create new structures to accommodate a new and different generation of volunteers? Or has society simply created the climate where it no longer see volunteering as an integral part of itself? All this is a discussion for another day though, I think I’ve rambled on long enough as is.
