The Volunteer Paradox
A great many organizations are depending more and more on volunteers to help fill the gap created by the economic downturn. Now, one might ask, “So what? That’s nothing new.”
There’s some truth to that: churchs, synagogues, trade groups, sports clubs, and so forth have always relied on volunteer labor. That hasn’t changed. However, some attitudes have.
Many organizations provide some sort of perks or guarantees to volunteers: this might mean dinner with a guest of honor, reduced rates for events, reimbursement for expenses on behalf of the organization, a chance to win a free vacation, and so forth. Many organizations are being forced to cut back on such things. There is a right way and a wrong way to handle such cutbacks.
The wrong way is best exemplified by a comment I heard recently: “What’s wrong with you people? Don’t you know we’re a volunteer run organization?”
The comment was in response to someone asking why the organization in question was not covering certain volunteer expenses to the level it had in the past, especially after the organization had stated that it would cover them.
Volunteer organizations are being hit, just like everyone else. Fair enough. But acting like the volunteer had no right to ask the question is highly unprofessional, quite possibly unethical. If you’ve agreed to pay a contractor to work on your house, would you turn around and refuse to pay if the work were done according to specs? How about your doctor? I doubt very much that anyone would appreciate having their employer tell them that they were expected to continue working, but that the company had decided to stop paying their salary.
Now, the argument is often made that there’s a big difference between a volunteer and a paid employee. While there are certainly superficial differences, at root, there’s also a great deal of similarity. In fact, one can argue that virtually everyone is a volunteer: it’s just a question of whether they’re paid in cash, benefits/perks, recognition, or some combination and how much.
Fundamentally, the organization is making a deal: in exchange for a certain level of value provided to the organization by the volunteer, the organization will provide some form of recompense or recognition for that effort that demonstrates that the volunteer is contributing to the success of the organization. In fact, that recognition is doubly important: the organization is showing that it appreciates the volunteer’s efforts, and the volunteer is receiving solid evidence that the work they are doing matters to the organization. Let’s face it, no one likes to spend their time doing something that doesn’t matter to anyone.
When the organization reneges on its end of the deal, it risks leaving the volunteer feeling taken. Worse, it’s telling the volunteer that it doesn’t actually care about their contribution: that it’s clearly not all that valuable to the organization or the organization wouldn’t be so cavalier about it.
All in all, not a great way to maintain motivated volunteers during tough times.
So what should the organization do? Optimally, it should honor its commitments. However, if there are real economic reasons why they can’t (an unfortunately likely occurance today), then the organization should be not just open, but preemptively open.
In other words, as soon as the organization knows that it can’t meet its obligations, it should notify everyone affected by that. Lay out the situation; not “due to the bad economy,” but “due to an unexpected drop in enrollment costing the organization $xx, and unexpected expenses in the areas of xxx” and so forth. The more specific and open the organization is, the more forgiving people will be. In fact, they are likely to work even harder on behalf of the organization: after all, if they’re volunteering it’s probably because they care.
When things are bad, the instinct is to circle the wagons and not communicate. That’s the wrong response. All it does is alienate those who would help. Instead, demonstrate trust by bringing people in and being open with them. Not only will it keep the volunteers motivated, you might just get some unexpected, novel ideas that will benefit the organization.
