Who doesn’t care about volunteering?

 

I’ve been passionate about volunteering for a long time now. I care about volunteering. I believe volunteering changes lives. It changed mine. I have loads of examples of how volunteering has changed and indeed saved lives.

If you are a leader of volunteers, then I assume you care about volunteering. I don’t care what title your organisation has bestowed on you for the job that you so. I only assume because I would not dare even guess your motivation behind why you do what you so.

The public care about volunteering. They do it in their millions across the globe. They do it in their communities every day. They might not even call themselves volunteers and in many cultures, there is not a name for volunteering.

Some in the corporate world may care about volunteering. Many Corporates give their staff an extra annual leave day to volunteer at their charity of choice.

I assume that some organisations that utilise volunteers care about volunteering. I assume. Some.

Does Government care about volunteering? Do individual politicians care about volunteering?

Does someone care about something more if there is a fear that if not cared for then that something might be lost?

Do people believe that volunteering will never be lost? That volunteers will always just “show up”

I believe that there is no threat to informal volunteering. There is no threat to people helping others. There are still many people in the world who will help where they can.

I do think there is a threat to formal volunteering. That is the traditional mode of volunteering where people sign up with an organisation to volunteer in a certain role. It can be episodic, virtual, event or longer term volunteering.

Numbers of formal volunteering are on the decline in many countries. Some people say this has got to do with the pandemic and reasons associated with that.

But what if volunteers are beginning to think that their organisations don’t really care about them? What if there are organisations that

·         Put volunteers on the bottom rung of their organisational structure or doesn’t have them in the structure at all?

·         Have poorly paid volunteer leaders compared to other leaders in the organisation.

·         Put very little financial resources into volunteering.

·         Have volunteers coordinated by a clearly stressed-out staff member who had just been given the extra responsibility of “Looking after volunteers”.

·         Offer .5FTE roles as volunteer leader even though it’s clear that it should be a full time role.

·         Don’t consider their volunteer leaders as Subject Matter Experts on volunteering and treat them accordingly.

·         Have volunteer leaders who report directly to another manager be it the Marketing, Admin or Kitchen Manager!

·         Have no place at the Senior Leadership table for their volunteer leader.

·         Don’t even care who they hire as volunteer leader as long as they seem “nice” people who will “look after” the “nice” volunteers.

·         Have no volunteering strategy

·         See volunteers as just “nice to have”

Volunteers are not stupid. They can see organisations with poorly run programs, disorganisation of volunteering, lack of planning, stressed out volunteer leaders or volunteer leaders without the SME and experience in leading people. Add to that the lack of recognition and having no idea what positive impact their volunteering is having on the organisation.

Formal volunteering, to succeed, needs resourcing. The part of the volunteering ecosystem that has formal volunteering needs infrastructure to support it.

For formal volunteering to survive in any country it must have advocates who are passionate about volunteering and people who advocate for:

·         Government to support, really support the volunteering ecosystem. And that is not just about throwing a few million here and there now and then.

·         Corporates to be advocates and supporters financially to organisations who take the role of volunteer leadership and their volunteers seriously. Money talks and if you are in the corporate world you know that.

·         Organisations to understand that if they really care about volunteering then they hire SMEs to their volunteer leadership roles or invest in their leaders to take part in training, workshops and conferences that can bring them to that level,

·         Organisations that place volunteer leaders at all leadership tables. Now think about what I have just said. And ask yourself “Who does care about volunteering?” Do you?

 

 

I'm Giving You a Big Secret — Don't Fight the Mind!

The slow death of volunteering

 

Recently I saw a dear colleague of mine decry the lack of support for the volunteering infrastructure in their state budget here in Australia for volunteering. My colleague was brave enough to state this on LinkedIn. I know how passionate she is about the volunteering sector and I had great empathy with her statement. I’ve been blogging about this for many years now so I wasn’t surprised. I nearly replied that in my 26 years as a volunteer manager and advocate for our profession and volunteering that the story simply has not changed. Our sector get peanuts. Most volunteer managers get paid peanuts. I continue to look at salaries of volunteer managers when the positions are advertised. Firstly, many are advertised as part time roles and secondly even the rate of volunteer manager seems to be on the lower band of wages compared to other specialist roles such as HR Management.

So the viscous cycle continues. There are a few exceptions. There are organisations that do understand the value of volunteer management because they understand the value of volunteering, not only in monetary terms but they know that resourcing volunteer management is a great investment with a great return on investment.

With volunteering and volunteer management the macro has much to do with the micro. By this I mean, if Governments do not invest in the volunteering infrastructure, then volunteer management at a micro level suffers. Sub - standard wages for a sector of professionals that are not even unionised mostly.

I believe it comes down to hubris. Politicians think that people will always volunteer. And naturally, I have never seen any strikes in the volunteering sector. Because volunteers always turn up. That is the mindset of Government. They see volunteering as nice and good but not critically important. Oh they will tell you different during volunteer weeks and International Volunteer Day and other times when they can get an opportunity to make a speech telling us that “Volunteering is the backbone of our society” Or “volunteering is the heart of our community”.

In Australia in particular when we budget for 300 billion in Nuclear Subs but give a few pennies to the volunteering ecosystem you have to wonder where their priorities are.

I have seen organisations where the volunteer management budgets have been pulverized and volunteer numbers drop dramatically. I personally have been approached by organisations asking if I would be National Manager of their volunteer programs with the type of remuneration that are insulting to our profession.

As we prepare for another International Volunteer Managers Day in November I struggle with their new slogan “Helping Others Help”. I bemoan the fact that in some ways that we celebrate volunteer Managers “paid and unpaid” because I know the HR industry would never celebrate HR Managers “paid and unpaid”. I’ve become so tired of hearing that volunteering runs on the smell of an oily rag. I have become tired of the myth that Volunteer management is simple and easy. I have become tired of the dumbing down of our profession.

In todays’ world, after a pandemic, with natural disasters to become more common due to inaction on climate change, in a world where wars continue to feed the military industrial complex and volunteer activists are locked up for protesting I know, and you know that volunteering is more important today than it ever is. Maybe the powers that be don’t want it to be managed and supported. After all, citizens who volunteer may need to know their place.

The solution? Our sectors voice is no longer enough. We need to join with movements that want a better and more peaceful world for our citizens. We need to come together with the whole community that want a better world for us and our children and their children. We need to get out of our volunteer management silo and form alliances with businesses who really care about corporate social responsibility, with political parties who are interested in citizen assemblies, with philanthropists who can give us resources and with the vast majority of our population who are tired of the old status quo. We can no longer advocate for ourselves because it is simply not working. We need to get tired of going to Governments and organisations with our hats begging for a few pennies.

Because if we don’t. Volunteering itself will die a slow death. They will eventually see the corporation of our charities and NGOs whose “profit for purpose” mottos will seem hollow as they take on more leaders from the corporate world who bring with them their corporate methodology.

Heed this warning. A better world will only become a reality with volunteering. And if it is not supported, formal volunteering will decline, and volunteer activism will be criminalised! It’s already begun.