Here in the USA, ’tis the season for volunteers at school book fairs to raise money for various projects at the school that aren’t funded anymore because of ongoing tax cuts!

And it’s a time of year when I get terrific insights into volunteer (mis)management.

My friends know that I research, train and write about volunteer engagement. Their texts and emails to me are a fountain of insight. Here’s a recent series of texts from a friend back in Kentucky, which I’ve slightly edited to protect the identity of the school, and the link at the end of her text is mine:

I signed up to volunteer at the Used Book Sale at school. I signed up to sort books. I got ready, drove to the school, and signed in… only to be told “oh, we don’t need any volunteers today. We will need some Wednesday though.” They asked for volunteers for Monday and Tuesday and I signed up on their sign up list for Monday. They had my email address and phone number, yet nobody bothered to call or email me and let me know I wasn’t needed. They let me drive all that way and then sent me home. This is not an uncommon thing with this school. The night I worked the basketball tournament, I had signed up to work the gate but when I arrived there was already someone working the gate so they told me that “maybe they could use me somewhere else.” I asked and they put me in the concession stand. They had other volunteers for the concession stand too who ended up going home because I was working it – that means I took someone else’s place. And remember: parents have to volunteer so our kids can go to that pizza party. Because of my disability, a “good” day is really valuable to me – I don’t appreciate them wasting my good day like that – there are other things I could have been doing.

Maybe this doesn’t really sound like a big deal. But it is. Schools need volunteers. This isn’t about the pizza party – it’s about a school desperate to staff events highly valued by their students – and these type of students have a very positive effect on student academic performance and discipline issues. This volunteer is frustrated. Once she fulfills her obligations in terms of hours, she’s not going to volunteer even an hour more.

Feeling smug, Oregonians? Well, here’s an email I myself got recently:

Our SPRING Scholastic Book Fair is coming up on March 20 and 21 in the East Cafeteria during Parent Teacher Conferences! Book sales will start on Wednesday from 2 – 8 pm and continue on Thursday from 8 am – 8 pm.

We are asking for VOLUNTEERS to help with set up on Wednesday, book sales on Wednesday and Thursday (1-hour shifts) and packing up after the fair on Thursday. Please check the link below for times that we still need volunteers and sign up for one or more shifts! We say it every time, but we really CANNOT do this without you!

Thanks so much for your help!!!

What school? I don’t know. In what city? I don’t know. The email came from a gmail account. Are there rules for book fair volunteers, like policies for interacting with kids? No idea. Are volunteers going to handle money? No idea. In fact, I had no idea why I got the email – I’m not a parent. After some back and forth with the sender, I discovered that this is a nearby school to where I live here in Oregon. I signed up months ago on the school district web site to help with activities in the school system. I was interested in helping at one-time events or even talking to students who might be interested in a career path similar to my own (a squiggly, meandering career path that starts in the arts, goes through journalism, goes back to the arts, goes into communications for nonprofits, and just keeps getting more abstract…). I never got a response from the school district. Did I pass the criminal background check? Is there a web site I’m supposed to review to learn about the rules for being a volunteer? Are there things I shouldn’t say around children? What if they ask me for my email address? Would there be a new volunteer orientation? Since I never got a response or any answers to those questions, I had completely forgotten about signing up to help to volunteer months before – as, indeed, I do with more than half of the places I sign up to volunteer because they never reply to my application or sign up on VolunteerMatch.

The schools in my district are installing all sorts of machines at entrances to screen visitors and keep kids safe. They might want to look into their volunteering policies and procedures as well.

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into developing material, researching information, preparing articles, updating pages, etc., here is how you can help.

Also see:

• School parent volunteer engagement ethics
• Comparing schools with high & low volunteer engagement
• How schools & small governments should be using social media
• Diagnosing the causes of volunteer recruitment problems
• My wakeup call regarding risks in volunteering programs
• Safety of volunteers contributes to a shelter closing
• Safety in virtual volunteering
• Survey for Returned Peace Corps Volunteers Re: Safety
• Letting Fear Prevent Volunteer Involvement is Too Risky” (a guest blog by me for Energize, Inc. and Susan Ellis)
• Have you enabled a Larry Nassar?
• Keeping volunteers safe – & keeping everyone safe with volunteers (includes a list of my favorite resources regarding safety in programs that involve volunteers and/or children; I consider many of these resources mandatory reading for managers of volunteers)
• Supervising online volunteers in court-ordered settings
• volunteer managers: you are NOT psychic!
• Your organization is NOT immune to sexual harassment
• Creating a Speak-up Culture in the Workplace
• Why don’t they tell? Would they at your org?
• With volunteers, see no evil?
• Fearing your own colleagues in the field
• Still trying to volunteer, still frustrated