Volunteering. What's in it for you?

Ty, a nonprofit volunteer recently wrote a post complaining how he tries and tries to volunteer at nonprofits, but no one returns his phonecalls, or he knows a better way to do things, and nonprofits don’t appreciate that.

Here’s how it looks from the inside.

Nonprofits are completely strapped for cash and people to get the job done, but they also treat their employees very poorly. And there is no bonus waiting at the end of the tunnel, no new job to jump to within the organization. The volunteer coordinators get paid the same whether they have 10 volunteers or 100. So they have little incentive to call you back. People have been completely demotivated by the system.

When I ran my one person fundraising program, I got volunteers to come in, and if they didn’t want to fundraise, they didn’t have to. There was always research, graphic design, filing, or thank-you calls to do. Or they could suggest something that they would like to help with.

And I was grateful to them for whatever they could give. If they didn’t come in, I checked in on them. If they did show up, I paid attention to them, gave them cookies, or little tokens of appreciation. I always had a smile to make sure they knew I was glad they were there.

When I hired an intern, I asked them to read a checklist I had created so they could choose what they would like to do. That way, I could always give them tasks that they enjoyed.

I’ve been volunteering for the past six months, and it’s surprising how difficult it can be to get people to call you back, email you, or schedule you.

In the past six months, I’ve volunteered for a domestic violence shelter, for an arts in hospitals org, for a refugee shelter, and had a sort of 12 hour interview with an environmental nonprofit, (don’t know what that was, guess I’ll chalk it up to volunteering). I also tried to volunteer for the Austin Bat Cave.

The only place that got back to me in a timely fashion was the DV shelter, and that’s because I knew the coordinator personally.

The Austin Bat Cave was the worst. I really believe in their mission. I love that they want to help kids learn to write and read. I emailed, called, emailed, called, emailed, called, nothing. I eventually started googling board members and calling them. Then, one day, one of the board members finally got back to me. And the next day, finally, the Executive Director, *the sole employee* got back to me. Needless to say, I was pissed off, and did not help her out. And I was going to help her fundraise!

Volunteering is a waste of time when people don’t appreciate you. So create your own litmus test. If you don’t hear from them after the second phonecall, write them off.

They say that volunteering is a great way to meet people, to network, to gain experience for your resume. I think it’s true to some degree.

In some nonprofits, it is a way to save a nonprofit the trouble of hiring someone to do what you’re doing.

The worst volunteering opportunities are when nonprofits don’t care what your skillset is, they just want you to do something menial for them.

The best volunteering opportunities are the special events ones, because at least there you can meet people who are well connected and who could help you get a job, or connect you with resources that you could use.

What do you think? Have you had a good volunteering experience lately? Have you had a bad one? Inquiring minds want to know!

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