It’s not too early to start planning for how your organization will leverage December 5, International Volunteer Day for Economic and Social Development. This isn’t a day to honor only international volunteers; the international in the title describes the day — meaning it’s a global event — not the volunteer.

It’s a shame to turn the day into just another day to celebrate any volunteer, rather than specifically those volunteers who contribute to economic and social development. Such volunteers deserve their own day. There are plenty of days and weeks to honor all volunteers and encourage more volunteering; why not keep December 5 specifically for volunteers who contribute to economic and social development? Why not keep it unique?

Even if you are in a “developed” country – the USA, Canada, Norway, France, whatever – you have volunteers that are engaged in economic and social development. Here in the USA, there are volunteers staffing financial literacy classes for low-income populations, training unemployed people to enter or re-enter the workforce, helping refugees and new immigrants access much-needed resources and services, training seniors to use computers and the Internet, using theater, dance and other performance as an education and awareness tool, and so much more. Those are all examples of volunteering for economic and social development!

And in addition to keeping this day special, let’s also be careful of how we talk about volunteers. For instance, back in 2009, I got this note in a mass email sent out from United Nations Volunteers:

This is the time to recognize the hard work and achievements of volunteers everywhere who work selflessly for the greater good.

Selflessly?

Volunteers are not all selfless! Volunteers are not all donating unpaid service to be nice, to help the world, or to make a difference for a greater good. Volunteers also donate unpaid service:

• to gain certain kinds of experience
• for a sense of adventure
• to gain skills and contacts for paid employment
• for fun
• to meet people in the hopes of making friends or even get dates
• because they are angry and want to see first hand what’s going on at an organization or within a cause, or to contribute to a cause they feel passionate about
• to feel important

None of those reasons to volunteer are selfless — and all of them are excellent reasons to volunteer, nonetheless (and excellent reasons for an organization to involve a volunteer). These not-so-selfless volunteers are not less committed, less trustworthy or less worth celebrating than the supposed “selfless” volunteers.

Please – no more warm, fuzzy language regarding volunteers! Let’s quit talking about volunteers with words like nice and selfless. Volunteers are neither saints nor teddy bears. Let’s start using more modern and appropriate language to talk about volunteers that recognizes their importance, like powerful and intrepid and audacious and determined. Let’s even call them mettlesome and confrontational and demanding. That’s what makes volunteers necessary, not just nice. Let’s increase the value of volunteers with the language we use!

In short, let’s give volunteers their due with the words we use to describe them.

And just to be clear: by volunteer, I mean someone who is not paid for his or her service, and his or her “stipend” that’s supposed to merely cover essential expenses so the volunteer can give up employment entirely during his or her stint as a volunteer isn’t in fact more than some mid and high-level government workers of a country are making. Yes, that’s a dig.

International Volunteer Day for Economic and Social Development was declared by the United Nations General Assembly per its resolution 40/212 in 1985.

Also see Learning From The “Not-So-Nice” Volunteers, which I wrote back in 2004.

Here’s how I volunteer (no stipends yet!)