Articles are everywhere saying nonprofits and government programs have seen a severe drop in volunteers since the start of the pandemic. Many imply that a growing number of people don’t want to volunteer and that’s fueling the drop in volunteer numbers.
It’s absolutely true that there’s been a drop in the number of volunteers at many organizations all over the world, not just in the USA. But the implication that people, especially people under 50, don’t want to volunteer is BOLLOCKS.
This drop in volunteer numbers has been coming on for a long while, but the pandemic sped things up. So many nonprofits have been seeing their volunteers get older and older, even dying off, but new, younger volunteers not replacing those that leave. Why?
Spend a week on Reddit, especially the volunteer subreddit, and you will see young people repeatedly posting messages that they want to volunteer, but don’t know where to look, or don’t know what’s available, or don’t know how to express interest, or have been trying and not getting responses to their applications. Many don’t know how volunteering really works – they ask if volunteers get paid, or are shocked that they have to go through training for certain roles. Most seem to think nonprofits do work that anyone that just walks through the door can do, right away.
There’s also a change in what volunteers want. Many don’t just want to do work for free for you; they want to feel like they are making a difference, or they want to have an interesting experience, or they want to develop skills for their career, or they want to have fun. None of those are bad reasons to volunteer. And the pandemic has changed how people value time and personal interactions: they now have a much lower tolerance for having their time wasted. One of the things I keep hearing is that people now want experiences, not things – that includes meaningful, enjoyable volunteering.
One of the most popular blogs I have ever written is Diagnosing the causes of volunteer recruitment problems. If you have seen a drop in the number of volunteers you involve, you need to go read it. And as I say in that blog:
What worked to recruit volunteers 30 years ago doesn’t work now; if you are having trouble recruiting volunteers, it’s overdue for you to take a hard, in-depth look at both how you recruit, what your in-take process is like, and the volunteer opportunities you have available.
No more but we’ve always done it this way. STOP IT! Times have changed. AND they will keep changing. Either change how you talk about volunteers, support volunteers, engage volunteers and recruit volunteers or stop complaining!
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I go onto Quora regularly to answer questions about volunteer engagement, nonprofit management and anything else I think I might be able to help with. It’s part of my own personal campaign to address misinformation and create better understanding about mission-based orgnaizations.
I saw this question and I think it speaks volumes:
In other words, why do most nonprofit web sites want your money but now your time as a volunteer?
Think about the message that sends to the community and to your current volunteers!
On that note, two resources worth visiting if you never have – and revisiting if you haven’t in a while:
If you have benefited from this blog, my other blogs, or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help.
A May 2022 report from VSO and Northumbria University in the UK says that changing how international and local volunteers work together, rather than eliminating the involvement of foreign volunteers abroad entirely, can decolonize humanitarian development, so that foreigners are no longer in control of decision-making and so that racist and discriminatory structures are addressed and dismantled.
The research, based on interviews and participatory workshops with volunteers, community representatives and VSO staff, found that there was no “one-size fits all” approach to designing and putting in place successful “volunteer combinations”. The report emphasizes that there is a need to adapt volunteer planning and management in programs based on local requirements and local learning.
The presence of international volunteers brings energy and donor attention to projects, whilst community and national volunteers enable effective engagement with local communities and increase the likelihood that impacts can be sustained due to their particular knowledges and longer-term involvement. However, there is no simple one-size-fits-all approach that can be applied to constructing a blend of volunteers, as the combination is dependent on the individuals within each blend, the environment around the project and the phasing of the work itself.
The report also warns that “community volunteers” – local volunteers, while crucial to the effectiveness of each blend, risk being sidelined.
This is adapted from a blog originally published in January 2003 at the e-volunteerism Journal. I was living in Germany at the time, hence the comment at the start of the blog:
On a recent visit back to the USA, I heard very different opinions about volunteerism from two good friends.
The first said that she will never volunteer again. “I have tried to volunteer for more organizations than I can count. I have tried to volunteer with groups that help animals, with political groups, with women’s groups, and it’s always the same thing: they don’t return my calls, and if they do and they tell me to come in, they don’t care that I’m there once I show up. They don’t want to answer my questions, they look at me as a burden or, worse, as someone that has no feelings at all. I’m just free labor to them, and I’m sick of it.”
Harrumph.
The second friend said she couldn’t get enough of volunteering. Her favorite role has been head of the Parent-Teachers Association at her daughter’s elementary school. “I just love it! I get all this responsibility and respect I’ve never gotten in my job. I feel like I’m really doing something. I feel like I’m making a difference. I love just about everybody I get to work with and, when I don’t, I can still work something out. I just feed off this stuff.”
These two testimonies regarding volunteerism make me wonder if the organizations these two assisted are aware of their feelings. And so I ask volunteer managers reading this to consider: What would people who have volunteered with your organization say about their experience?
Do you know? Do you care?
If anything, these two episodes have made me realize yet again the value of surveying volunteers about their experience, and how easily this can be done using e-mail.
Granted, two people can have very different opinions about the same situation: one person will find my bi-weekly e-mail updates to current volunteers too detailed and too frequent; another will complain that there needs to be more information, sent more often. Still, for the most part, there will be enough similar responses to your questions about volunteering to see trends emerge for your organization.
Informal “Quickie” Surveys
Too many organizations survey only those who have completed at least one assignment with the agency, or survey those volunteers only once as part of some detailed, intensive evaluation program. Those kind of long, involved surveys are indeed important, but just as important are providing plenty of opportunities for current and potential volunteers to offer feedback, however brief, about their experiences at any point in the process.
Here are some suggestions:
Require all volunteers attending a group event to sign out and complete a brief three-question/five-minute survey right then and there before they leave. Examples of questions for group events include:
Why did you come here today?
What benefits do you think the organization got as a result of your service today?
If you could change one thing about your experience today, what would it be?
If you really can’t do a survey on the spot, then at least email everyone and ask them to fill out a quick survey. Follow up with reminders to ensure most volunteers respond.
Conduct “walking around” informal surveys during events and activities. Simply ask volunteers you encounter questions such as “What else would be helpful to you?” or “How would you change what you are doing?” Sometimes these “heat of the moment” questions can elicit more frank opinions than post-event questionnaires, especially from those reluctant to commit to a written response.
Once a year, send out an email to everyone who has ever expressed interest in volunteering and ask them if they did, indeed, volunteer at your organization and, if so, how would they describe the experience? If they didn’t volunteer, ask them what prevented them from doing so.
There are ways to get even more feedback:
Put a notice on the Web page that describes volunteering at your organization, saying: “Have you volunteered with our organization? Tell us about your experience!” This invites feedback from anyone at anytime.
Hand out a brief survey at a board meeting and ask the members three or four quick questions about their volunteering, to be completed in the first five minutes of the meeting. Let members stay anonymous in their responses. At the next board meeting, hand out their answers for discussion.
Conduct exit interviews of any departing volunteers, where possible. Ask the volunteers to evaluate their experience and make suggestions for improvement.
Finding the Right Question
There are questions I like to ask beyond the “what did you like and dislike” traditional queries:
What were your expectations before volunteering and how did your actual experience differ?
What did you learn because of your volunteering?
If you were to tell someone about your experience today, what would you say?
How do you think our organization has benefited from your volunteering?
How have you been recognized for your volunteer efforts at our organization?
How does staff support you in your volunteering with our organization?
Do you feel prepared for your volunteer work here? What else can we do to increase your skills?
These deeper questions may allow you to understand “why” volunteers are reacting the way they are and can surface helpful suggestions for improving your volunteer management system.
Here are sample questions a survey for volunteers at First Night Doylestown:
Did you enjoy volunteering? Would you be likely to volunteer again? How many hours were you on duty? Was that amount of volunteer time What could we have done better to help you in your volunteer position? What was the best thing about volunteering for First Night Doylestown? May we quote you? (we might want to use these comments in our recruiting efforts in the future)
Here are some survey questions that were asked by the Dartmouth University’s Oxbow student volunteer program:
What were your expectations at the beginning of the program? Were your expectations fulfilled? Why or why not? What were the strengths of the program? What was your favorite day and why? What were the weaknesses of the program? What aspects need work? Did you feel well informed and adequately trained? What information or training could we offer new volunteers in the future? Do you plan to continue participating in this program? What information can you provide that will be helpful to future volunteers?
Here is an example of a feedback form from the IVY project of Portland, OR
What would you tell your family and friends about what you did today?
Would you be interested in coming back to Forest Park to help with the Ivy Removal Project again?
What would you tell someone who came to remove Ivy for the first time in Forest Park?
What made the greatest impression on you today?
Do you have any suggestions or great idea to share?
Utilizing the Results
You will need to compile the feedback you receive from volunteer surveys and then share at least a summary with staff and the volunteers themselves. It’s especially important to note how any of the feedback is going to be acted upon in the coming weeks and months.
Just by asking such questions, you are demonstrating to supporters and potential supporters the importance of volunteers to your organization; the follow-up will reinforce that idea even more.
Reader Response Questions:
What are your favorite quick-survey methods to get information from volunteers?
What are your favorite non-traditional questions to ask of volunteers?
If you have benefited from this blog, my other blogs, or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help.
Back in 2012 and 2013, I was one of many researchers in the ICT4EMPL Future Work project, focused on the countries of the European Union and funded by the European Commission. The overall project aimed to inform policy regarding “new forms of work” and pathways to employability that involved online technologies. For this project, I researched and mapped the prevalence of virtual volunteering in Europe and explored how virtual volunteering could support people’s employability. Here my complete final paper. And here is the Wiki I created for the project.
It is time for a new effort to research and map the prevalence of virtual volunteering in Europe. Because now, more than 10 years later, I’m sure the conclusions I found about virtual volunteering in Europe have changed, and it would be great to see what’s the same, what’s evolved, what’s reversed and what new insights have emerged – and see how this compares with past research.
Some of those conclusions from 10 years ago about virtual volunteering in Europe:
Organizations using the Internet to support volunteers, or that had roles and tasks for online volunteers, usually never used the term virtual volunteering. For instance, Germany hosted the FIFA World Cup in 2006 and recruited, trained and supported hundreds of volunteers all across Germany to help with the event; no doubt the Internet played an important role in the screening, training and support for volunteers, however, I could find no reference to activities related to Internet-mediated volunteering for the World Cup (and they also never responded to my emails).
Services where charities could recruit traditional volunteers might have talked about virtual volunteering 10 years ago, yet often did not allow for searches of just online roles and tasks opportunities on their platforms.
Online volunteering schemes come and go; for instance, while Samaritans was profiled for its involvement of online volunteers in the 1990s, as of the time of this paper’s writing, the web site did not note this past involvement, and a page on the site said that such an online program was “coming in the future.” Virtual volunteering activities were cited at a dozen European organizations in the paper – are they still happening?
10 years ago, there was no organization tracking the practice in Europe – or in any country outside of Europe, for that matter. Has that changed?
The research 10 years ago found at least 60 specific examples of organizations in the EU involving online volunteers, or involving online volunteers in the EU. The number of online volunteering opportunities, using a search of the services, was more than 1000, in total. And the research noted that Wikipedia already had contributors from every European country at that time. Excluding Wikipedia, a conclusion can be drawn from the research cited in this paper that there are at least a few thousand online volunteering opportunities available from organisations in Europe.
Spain was, by far, the country with the most virtual volunteering roles and tasks for volunteers, across a few hundred NGOs, and had a deeper history regarding digital volunteering than any other European country, by far. The UK, which was in the EU at the time, came in a distant second.
Far in the distance in terms of virtual volunteering, and well behind rates in Eastern European countries, was France – in fact, the lack of virtual volunteering materials in French was particularly shocking to me. I could find NO such materials in Europe – the few I found were in Canada. I so hope that’s changed in 10 years!
If you are looking for a research project idea, I highly recommend you take a stab at researching and mapping the prevalence of virtual volunteering in Europe – or even just one country in Europe. Or break entirely new ground: India? Certain countries in Africa? I will be happy to turn over all of my materials to you to help you in your research. I’m also happy to write a letter of endorsement if you want to shop this project around for funding. Contact me and let me know your full name, share your LinkedIn profile or another online profile where I can see your professional connections and research to date, let me know the kind of research you have in mind, etc.
Why am I not interested in doing this research myself? Both because I lack any funding to do this and also, I would really like to read someone else’s research!
If you are doing any research regarding virtual volunteering, or if your agency or organization is considering virtual volunteering as a path to helping people become more employable, check out the Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook: Fully Integrating Online Service Into Volunteer Involvement. This is the most comprehensive resource anywhere on working with online volunteers, and on using the Internet to support ALL volunteers, including those you might not think of as “online” volunteers.
If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site or my YouTube videos and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help.
Please, no more workshops called how to recruit and retain volunteers. Not unless each is about six hours long. Because to recruit volunteers is one function, but to retain volunteers – to keep volunteers beyond just a few days or weeks, to prevent sudden and frequent turnover – requires doing well in all aspects of effective volunteer engagement, and those aspects can’t be taught in an hour or two.
And I believe that all of those functions frequently and regularly intersect – you cannot think of them as entirely separate activities.
If you aren’t retaining volunteers, if volunteers are leaving before they even start a task, or they are leaving soon after joining, the reasons probably lie in one of these three areas:
they signed up to help but there was a big gap between that time and when you held your first meeting with them or got them started on a task,
they did not have realistic expectations or understand what you expected because roles and tasks weren’t in writing, or
they did not feel adequately supported or prepared for the volunteering role.
Another big reason for volunteers leaving is that they do not feel appreciated or that their service doesn’t seem to really be of value. I count that under support for volunteers, but you could certainly do an entire workshop just on that aspect of effective volunteer engagement (I certainly could).
Of course, the only way to know for sure is to ASK VOLUNTEERS WHO LEFT.
The principles of effective volunteer engagement, including identifying appropriate roles and putting them in writing, onboarding volunteers quickly and providing appropriate and regular support for volunteers are the basis for the recommendations detailed in The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook: Fully Integrating Online Service Into Volunteer Involvement. This is the most comprehensive resource anywhere on working with online volunteers, and on using the Internet to support ALL volunteers, including those you might not think of as “online” volunteers.
If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site or my YouTube videos and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help.
Rob Jackson is a volunteer engagement consultant based in the United Kingdom. Rob was a manager of volunteers himself for many years, and his training and writing is based in reality and practicality. We met online back in the 1990s when he started UKVPMs, an online community for managers of volunteers in the UK, and have been colleagues (and good friends) ever since.
Rob wrote this on his Facebook page, and with permission, I’m reprinting it here on my blog:
It’s time for a new way to think about local volunteering infrastructure.
In recent months I’ve read stories of how lockdown volunteering was especially effective where local groups (formal and informal) were connected to their local volunteering infrastructure organisations (Volunteer Centres).
This comes as no surprise to me. For six years I worked closely with Volunteer Centres as part of the team at Volunteering England. I’ve been a trustee of two Volunteer Centres in my time. I know their value and importance.
Yet too often local infrastructure is seen as either an encumbrance or an irrelevance. Why fund a Volunteer Centre when people can volunteer without them? Surely technology can do the work of a Volunteer Centre better than a human? Who needs a Volunteer Centre when we have the internet?
These arguments miss a crucial point. Volunteering infrastructure isn’t a building or office, a snazzy website or matching software.
Volunteering infrastructure is people. It is connections. It is relationships.
Cuts to Volunteer Centres may realise a quick financial saving, but it’s far more expensive to have to rebuild them down the line.
Volunteering infrastructure is a valuable investment in the underlying and enabling fabric of a thriving, vibrant local community.
It’s time we saw it that way and supported it properly.
Perfectly said, Rob. And not just for the UK. You can comment here, but please also comment on Rob’s original post if you are on Facebook.
If you have benefited from this blog, my other blogs, or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help.
A week ago was Valentine’s Day in the USA, and it’s not too late to talk about LOVE for the people at your program that support volunteers, and a great way to show them some love is to pay for what’s needed to fund effective volunteer engagement!
I talk a lot about funding volunteer engagement, how if communities – including corporations, foundations and governments – want for more people to volunteer, and want more nonprofits and community programs to involve volunteers, they are going to have to pay for it, in cash. What would funders be paying for to increase community engagement, to increase volunteerism?
Salaries for part-time or full-time managers of volunteers.
Training for ALL staff in effective volunteer engagement (not just the person in charge of volunteer engagement), like how to create meaningful, appropriate assignments, how to appropriately support vounteers, how to report safety and quality concerns, etc.
Training for the person in charge of volunteer engagement in skills that could help in better support and recruit volunteers, like basic video or audio editing skills, so they can produce simple YouTube videos, podcasts, etc., or classes in another language, such as Spanish, or classes in facilitation, conflict management, DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion), etc.
Subscriptions to services that have the information and news they need, like Engage.
Volunteer management software, computers, smart phones, video conferencing software (free versions often don’t provide a manager of volunteers all they need to effectively work with volunteers), etc.
Registration fees and travel expenses for staff to attend conferences that provide speakers and learning experiences that can help improve volunteer engagement.
Renting meeting or event spaces for volunteer-related activities.
Funds for volunteer recognition: gift cards, swag, etc.
All of the above is the “overhead’ that too many corporations and foundations refuse to fund. When I say volunteers are NOT free, these are the expenses I mean. Let me say it once again: if communities, corporations, foundations and governments want more people to volunteer, and want more nonprofits and community programs to involve volunteers, they are going to have to pay for it, in cash.
If you have benefited from this blog, my other blogs, or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help.
An online multimedia platform that allows people to create an avatar for themselves and “live” in an online virtual world. Avatars interact with places, objects and other avatars, exploring the virtual world, meeting other residents, socializing, having business meetings, hosting events, participating in group activities, building, creating, shopping, collaborating, even trading virtual property and services with one another.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse? No! I’m talking about Second Life, which launched back in 2003. The image at the top of this blog, and the image below, are of me, as an avatar, leading an event in Second Life for TechSoup back in 2014:
TechSoup was an early and passionate adopter of Second Life, hosting numerous online events there. If you do a search for Second Life on the TechSoup forum, you would find numerous references to the platform and TechSoup activities there over the years.
Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook (now Meta), said to much fanfare that he wanted to launch his own metaverse. The new virtual-reality app Horizon Worlds is Facebook’s first foray into the much-hyped “metaverse” for Facebook parent company Meta. Horizon Worlds, a beta version of which featured prominently in Zuckerberg’s announcement, launched Dec. 9 in the United States and Canada on the company’s Oculus virtual-reality platform and represents its first major attempt to deliver on his vision.
Were you on Second Life? Are you still on Second Life? Did you participate in TechSoup’s events on Second Life, or any other nonprofit-related activities? What do you think emerging virtual worlds, including Meta’s projects, can learn from Second Life? Comment below!
Second Life is so thoroughly steeped in conditions that have impeded the development of successful social norms in other communities that any system of social norms in Second Life will ultimately fail. Because social norms will likely fail to successfully maximize resident welfare, regulatory schemes imposed both by the operators of the virtual world and by real-world governing institutions are needed to enhance the functioning of this particular alternative reality inhabited by millions.
Do you think Meta’s virtual world is addressing this issue? Do you think they need to plan for how to address such?And are you worried about safety at all with any online platforms? Comment below!
Nina Jane Patel was targeted with sexual harassment in Facebook/Meta’s platforms. “Within 60 seconds of joining — I was verbally & sexually harassed — 3–4 male avatars, with male voices, essentially, but virtually gang-raped my avatar & took photos…” The 43-year-old mother said it was such a “horrible experience that happened so fast” before she even had a chance to think about using “the safety barrier,” adding that she “froze.” She continued by confessing how both her “physiological and psychological” reaction was similar to it happening in real life. “Virtual reality has essentially been designed so the mind and body can’t differentiate virtual/digital experiences from real,” Patel wrote.
This is similar to assaults that happened in Second LIfe. Examples:
Horizon Worlds is supposed to be limited to adults 18 and older. In practice, however, very young kids appear to be among its earliest adopters. Some say the presence of children in Meta’s fledgling metaverse raises a grave concern: that by mixing children with adult strangers in a largely self-moderated virtual world, the company is inadvertently creating a hunting ground for sexual predators.
When new online forums arise that attract kids, sexual predators “are often among the first to arrive,” said Sarah Gardner, vice president of external affairs at Thorn, a tech nonprofit that focuses on protecting children from online sexual abuse. “They see an environment that is not well protected and does not have clear systems of reporting. They’ll go there first to take advantage of the fact that it is a safe ground for them to abuse or groom kids.”
Could nonprofits that engage in an online metaverse be putting their clients or others at risk by asking them to be there too? Comment below!
There’s one more consideration: accessibility. If you engage with people in a graphics-based environment, you are leaving out people who have sight-impairments. How will auditory displays work for graphics-based environments to address accessibility issues (I’m asking because I really don’t know)? Or is it a matter of ensuring you never limit your service delivery and volunteer engagement to only a graphics-based environment?
There is section devoted to virtual volunteering and avatar-based environments in The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. The section offers some examples of nonprofits using Second Life to engage with clients and volunteers, and offers specific advice on how a nonprofit should get started using such environments, considerations to explore and pitfalls to avoid – all of which is relevant for any graphics-based virtual world. The rest of the book is easily adaptable to engaging with volunteers in graphics-based/avatar-based virtual worlds as well.
Looking forward to hearing your comments!
If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help.
The National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC)has partnered with Cottage Lane Productions to develop a new episode of the volunteer firefighter recruitment series Ride With Us. The series takes prospective volunteers into a firehouse to show them, as much as a video can, what it’s like to be a volunteer firefighter. These can be used by any fire station as a part of its own recruitment and onboarding of volunteer firefighters and first responders.
If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help.
