The Top Seven Reasons Volunteers Quit

[MBAustin]

I do extensive volunteer work with 2 groups, both long-term commitments. After reading the other comments, I realize that I have great gigs - both use skills I developed during my career and I get very good appreciation from both leadership and peers about the value of my contributions. I'm starting to wind down my involvement with one of the two, and have another 18 months on the other commitment, but I'm now realizing that it may be hard to find other gigs I enjoy as much. Very interesting.

 

[audreyh1]

I just did that!

The Open Space canyon where I live is asking for docents to lead hikes. Since I know the trails quite well I offered to be a hike leader.

There is some 'training' to fill in info on history, environment, flora/fauna, but I look forward to that. And the occasional hike now and then will be good for me as well.

This is a good example of where you can educate yourself quite a bit in natural history in general, native plants, birds and insects of your local area, etc. And then you become a valuable nature guide. You can pretty much choose your own assignments!

 

[Badger]

I have volunteered for a few organizations, some for quite a few years and one for just a short time. I found that either I finally got frustrated with the lack of support from those in charge and their unwillingness to deal with problems that only they had the authority to address or I got frustrated with the lack of enthusiasm from the other members.

For the past few years I volunteer my Saturday mornings for NPR with Radio Reading Service for the blind as one of the readers for daily programs. I enjoy reading with other volunteers, many of whom have become friends, and plan on staying as long as I am able to improve my skills to provide a quality program for my listeners. I suppose it was just a matter of finding the right fit with an organization that is sensitive and responsive to both their listeners/customers and volunteers.

Cheers!

 

[Sunset]

Being retired for only about 2 years, I find I'm not bored enough to volunteer.

In some sense, volunteers take away the need for a company to hire a person, or it allows the company to provide enriched service at no additional cost. I'm pretty sure the CEO of many hospitals appreciates it, and benefits from it.

I did watch my mom volunteer at the hospital years ago and she seemed to enjoy it while they handed her lots of the trivial tasks.

 

[bob boag]

I've been driving for Meals on Wheels for 2-3 times a week for the last two years. It takes about an hour and a half a drive. One driver and rider per route. Very flexible choice of days, I've met a diverse group of great people, and the clients are so grateful you get plenty of positive feedback.

 

[clifp]

Can't really argue with that. I naively thought leaders would be a little more attentive to volunteers since they aren't getting paid. However the leaders are unpaid too, so they're taking the different but considerable crap that goes with leadership without pay too.

It's all starting to make more sense...

I will say there have been two moderate disappointment in retirement. One is I miss the sense of being part of something large than myself that a good job/career can provide. Nothing says you are being appreciated more than paycheck, plus a good raise or a bonus, and some recognition by bosses and coworkers of a job well done. The second was finding that most volunteer positions are not very good. I had hoped that volunteering would help with the first.

Since retiring 16 years ago I've volunteered for 10 separate activities, in four areas, ocean conservation, politics, historical preservation, and entrepreneurship. While I've enjoyed aspects of almost all of the activities. I've only felt three made use of my brain/experience and only one was really fulfilling. By far the most interesting job has being on the board of for medium non profit. However, the areas that I find interesting developing marketing strategies, worrying about budgets, and develop employee policies, certainly sound a hell of a lot like work to most people..

The author pretty much nailed why the rest haven't panned out. I've been volunteering down at the beach at Oahu's premier snorkel spot. It is a nice group of people and the "office" location couldn't be nicer. But it's been 5+ years since we've had a good volunteer coordinator and 2+ years since the great park manager retired. I've already cut back my time there and I'll probably quit next spring after I hit 10 years.

As in many areas I think Silicon Valley leads the way. From what I gather rather than have the early 20 something be be the volunteer coordinator and late 20s marketing person supervise the 50 and 60 years old stuffing envelopes or manning the phone banks. Many charity/non profits in SV hire 20 years old to stuff envelopes (Ok maybe not so much of that going on anymore) man the phone banks and grey haired volunteers develop the marketing strategies and develop the volunteer programs.

By far the most effective organization at using volunteers I found in Hawaii was the Pacific Aviation Museum. In no small part because the paid staff was roughly 20 people and their were 200+ volunteers of which 100+ put in more than 200 hours a year and dozen were over the 1,000 hour/year. Volunteers did everything from running the IT department to coordinating volunteers,restoring airplanes, leading tours, developing merit badge programs, and performing historical research. The big problem most volunteer programs have is the one size fits all mentally as is demonstrated by this thread.


You couldn't pay me to weed, and yet I'll happily take children on a tour. For splitwdw, the exact opposite is true. Yet for most organization both task need to be done but only offer one option and have zero ability to do something different.

 

[RunningBum]

Note the article is written by someone whose business is leadership development specializing in volunteerism, so not surprising he would find this to be the number one reason people stop volunteering.

Good point. I'm sure the author didn't do a lot of special research for this article to come to this conclusion. He can't fix the most likely real issues, that people don't have time or don't really like the work, but he can (for a fee) try to fix your leadership problems!

 

[Options]

Many of you have a lot of experience with this, but it's new to me and I am well into my first serious effort at ongoing volunteering (volunteering my time before retirement was all short term/project efforts - work hard for days/weeks, then done).

Unfortunately it hasn't been enjoyable, but I am trying to find a way to make it beneficial to myself and the organization instead of throwing in the towel (for now). If I do quit, #2 will be my primary reason. I just want some unsolicited feedback on what I'm doing, good-bad-indifferent. When I ask for feedback, I get a pat 'looks great', 'thanks', 'keep up the good work.' Frankly not looking for recognition (though once in a while might be nice).

Volunteer Power: People Don't Quit Volunteering Because they are Too Busy

Well I don't know about anyone else, but for me, a key question is what will I be looking for by volunteering (I use the word "will" as in it's something I'll have no time to investigate for at least a year). In other words, what are the qualities I want out of the experience?

After much reflection, I've decided I want creativity, ingenuity, and self-expression. As my interest is working with young people trying to get a job, those values shouldn't be hard to meet.

What I do not want, and will have no trouble abandoning, is any organization with bureaucracy, politics, or like nonsense. Perhaps the best feedback we can hope for is that we've made some kind of contribution, even if only noticed by ourselves. After all, if we're volunteering our time in something we believe in, isn't contribution what it's ultimately all about anyway?

 

[Midpack]

What I do not want, and will have no trouble abandoning, is any organization with bureaucracy, politics, or like nonsense. Perhaps the best feedback we can hope for is that we've made some kind of contribution, even if only noticed by ourselves. After all, if we're volunteering our time in something we believe in, isn't contribution what it's ultimately all about anyway?

"Bureaucracy, politics, or like nonsense" is indeed not desirable, but you still have to have some organization. The group of volunteers needs to at least be on the same page, with the same goals. There has to be some coordination, which likely includes feedback, recognition, assignments among other things. Duplicating efforts, or missing tasks, isn't effective. While it's nice to see the fruits of your efforts ("if only noticed by ourselves"), that alone is not enough IMO.

 

[EastWest Gal]

Here's an approach to take when volunteering:

If they say thank you they know you are there. They've told you what they want you to do and assume you are doing it.

If you weren't there, they would have to do it and they are busy with the other assignments they volunteered for.

Most volunteers don't get a lot of feedback on the work they do for an organization. For the most part the employees are grateful you are there, but they are busy as well. If you haven't messed up, then you are providing a crucial service and you should know that inherently.

Unlike paid employees, you won't get feedback unless it is of the negative kind. The paid employees save their energy for dealing with all the other happy antics every organization requires of them. You're a volunteer, you don't have to be a part of that - consider yourself lucky.

If you feel you are making a contribution to helping the organization with it's mission, then that's all you can expect as a volunteer.

Rita

Well said. As a volunteer amongst other volunteers, I'm not sure why one would expect to be appreciated by the other volunteers. I find expressions of appreciation a bit embarrassing myself. I know I'm helping. That's all that really counts.


Sent from my iPhone using Early Retirement Forum

 

[FreeBear]

We've only been ER'd 6 months, but official volunteering hasn't been a significant part of our life, somewhat contrary to our expectations before ER. Burnout from all the corporate organizational BS has been the main cause of our reluctance, but so have the numerous warnings on this forum. To us, one of the greatest joys of retirement is that we do not have to expend so much time defending our boundaries, ie "thanks for inviting us, but we don't have the time to do ____".

We certainly didn't retire only to "do nothing", although I certainly respect those who do. Part of the reason we retired is to be of better service to others, to build "social capital" in the words of one author. For us, the best way to do this may be what we jokingly call "peer-to-peer volunteer". In other words, we build our modest network of friends and help (and be helped) where appropriate. Of course you can reasonably argue that organizations such as churches and not-for-profits may leverage resources and expertise, but we also know they can be awash in BS and inefficiency.

Some examples of our approach include the time we are spending with a few friends who are suffering from serious illness or enduring the pain of family disfunction. Most of our time together would not be called fun or entertaining, but it has been immensely rewarding to us personally.

We recently remodel and sold our old house. We spent 2 years and tons of $$. If we consider our labor free, as volunteers, then we barely broke even. I'm afraid to consider how much we "lost" if were were paid for our time and skill. Still, a young family got a great deal on a beautiful starter home and DW and I have the wonderful satisfaction of a job well done and the feeling we made a small part the world a better place for a few people.

We wouldn't have done much without FIRE since our rat-race lives were pretty much all consuming. So we are developing a bigger concept of "volunteering" than just showing up to an organization and doing what we're told. I'm sure many of you do lots of good for family, friends and stranger in you FIRE, even if not in an official volunteer capacity. We believe that this is a big part of living the good life!

 

[Options]

"Bureaucracy, politics, or like nonsense" is indeed not desirable, but you still have to have some organization. The group of volunteers needs to at least be on the same page, with the same goals. There has to be some coordination, which likely includes feedback, recognition, assignments among other things. Duplicating efforts, or missing tasks, isn't effective. While it's nice to see the fruits of your efforts ("if only noticed by ourselves"), that alone is not enough IMO.

I think it depends. Most situations do involve coordination of effort, but some involve more "garbage" than others, as we all know. I do know people, and have read blogs of people, who are quite fulfilled in their volunteer work and satisfied with the organizations they're affiliated with. I've done so in the past, and even though I recall the organization was rife with politics, I overlooked it as I believed so strongly in their mission and in what I was doing.

We're all different, but I am in no way looking for feedback from an orgnization, as I did too much of that when working (I'm now in the "Quite frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" camp). In my case, my satisfaction will come from the clients I'm helping. Again, I believe this links back to the importance of each us asking ourselves what qualities exactly are we looking to experience in the situation. After all, if our own needs aren't being met in some way, we can always go to the beach instead.

 

[mickeyd]

Like many folks here, I have also been associated with many volunteer organizations over the years. One thing that has always driven me away eventually is a "requirement" to attend meetings. One organization that I especially liked but finally left asked me to attend quarterly meeting all over Texas. One meeting required a 4 hour drive (one way) for a 2 hour meeting.

My current volunteer commitments do not require me to attend meetings, though I am usually invited to attend them. I have made it amply clear that I am there to help the organization on my own terms and am not interested in sprucing up my resume with fancy job titles. All of my time is devoted to the good works of the organizations and none to meetings.

 

[ls99]

I volunteered three times. Once for the Army, once for airborne, once for SF, When my obligations were done, I was done volunteering for ever.

 

[clifp]

"Bureaucracy, politics, or like nonsense" is indeed not desirable, but you still have to have some organization. The group of volunteers needs to at least be on the same page, with the same goals. There has to be some coordination, which likely includes feedback, recognition, assignments among other things. Duplicating efforts, or missing tasks, isn't effective. While it's nice to see the fruits of your efforts ("if only noticed by ourselves"), that alone is not enough IMO.

Most aspect of volunteer activity should be enjoyable and intrinsically rewarding, be that helping a kid to learn to read, planting flowers, or giving tour. Generally there less pleasant aspects of the task so for instance, filling out the assessment forms, weeding, or greeting visitors at the door. But these are essential for the organization to be successful. Some one needs to coordinate and assign both the good and bad aspects, make schedules etc. so politics and bureaucracy is inevitable.

If you are putting in a say 4 hours a week, it can be hard to see what impact your efforts are making on the overall progress. So newsletters, volunteer appreciation lunches/dinners which highlight that this year we helped 124 kids increasing their reading level by an average of 2.5 grades reinforces that hey I'm doing some real good with my volunteer activities.

 

[Bestwifeever]

Here's an approach to take when volunteering:

If they say thank you they know you are there. They've told you what they want you to do and assume you are doing it.

If you weren't there, they would have to do it and they are busy with the other assignments they volunteered for.

Most volunteers don't get a lot of feedback on the work they do for an organization. For the most part the employees are grateful you are there, but they are busy as well. If you haven't messed up, then you are providing a crucial service and you should know that inherently.

Unlike paid employees, you won't get feedback unless it is of the negative kind. The paid employees save their energy for dealing with all the other happy antics every organization requires of them. You're a volunteer, you don't have to be a part of that - consider yourself lucky.

If you feel you are making a contribution to helping the organization with it's mission, then that's all you can expect as a volunteer.

Rita

Yes yes yes. Re my bold: Like many people I found the worst part of being a paid employee to be the employee evaluation farce--even with top evaluations and accolades I still hated getting feedback unrelated to a task at hand--if it's not going well then jump in and help me solve it, but otherwise? Just let me have at it.

Why would I want more of that feedback as a volunteer?

 

[martyp]

I've been volunteering for an educational organization for the past 3 yrs. It has been a totally positive experience for me. I have to say that the woman leading the organization is very competent and professional. She praises people when they deserve it and she deals with problems discreetly.

I'm sorry to see so many people have had negative experiences.

 

[athena53]

I've got a lot of skills nonprofits could use but have to be very careful about what I take on. Here are some of my deal-breakers, some of which have already been mentioned.


1. A lot of meetings, especially if they're out of town. Just let me do my thing.
2. HQ bureaucracy. I was District Treasurer for an organization I won't name because I love what they do at the Club level (and I'm still a member), but the Treasurer job just about killed me. I understand the needs for checks and balances but this went way beyond that. I will never be an officer beyond the Club level again.
3. Fund-raising. Yuck. I got on my church vestry (governing board) expecting that it would mostly be monthly meetings. Then I found that during the fall pledge campaign each vestry member was assigned about 5 parishioners to call, see if they got the pledge letter and ask if they had any questions. We never directly asked for money but it was still awkward. A few of us got sob stories about why someone couldn't promise anything.
4. Dwindling volunteers on a project. Our church has a garden where we grow vegetables and donate them to the local soup kitchen. It starts off in the spring with a lot of volunteers and this time of year it dwindles. One woman who lives in the church house does a ton of work on it but sometimes on Saturday morning I'm the only one out yanking weeds and picking okra. I hate that feeling that if I don't show up, no one will be there.
5. Worrying about money. I'm on the Finance Committee for our church now that I'm off the vestry. Oh, goody. We're short on money so we get to worry about that and try and conduct additional campaigns for funds. I've been through stress about money in my personal life when I was married to a financially irresponsible man who was unemployed and maxed out his credit cards. I worked my as* off after divorcing him to make sure I never had to deal with cash flow shortages again. This just brings it all back. I also ended up increasing my pledge to just $1K shy of what it was back in 2014 when I was making a low 6-figure salary. We can afford it or I wouldn't do it, but I get tired of feeling that the burden is on me See Item 4.

 

[rodi]

I'm in my 6th season volunteering as a coach for a FIRST Lego robotics team. It's frustrating - but mostly because I'm dealing with kids who are squirelly and hard to keep on task, and parents who want their kids to do this- but don't prioritize enough to make their kids available OR help out at meetings. This will be my last year. (Although I've said that for the past 3 years.)

I've also served on a non-profit parent led educational foundation board of directors. I did get some gratification from that - but it was a huge time commitment.

I'm leaning towards more mindless volunteering. Last night I took my boys and we did a 2 hour shift at FeedingAmerica, gleaning carrots, plums, tomatoes, and avocados... Not rocket science going through veggies looking for mold and/or rot... but I feel like it did something good.

 

[gretah]

I've done lots of volunteer work over several decades as I never had kids and had the time. It takes a lot to make a great community, whether you define that as your town or globally.

Over the years, I learned to
>never take on a task I already was doing at work
>don't attend meetings unless the group is exceptionally great to work with
>work on projects by myself and only attend a rare meeting with just a few people
>not expect thanks
>only accept work that makes a real difference

I'm soon moving to a new city and already found a few volunteer groups to check out.

I've had to let go of local volunteer work so I've been on specific forums helping people new to the profession I left. I usually send people private messages or phone them as some forums can be argumentative and petty. I'm known in the industry at the national level so it's fun chatting with newbies who have read my books or heard of me.

I love volunteer work.

 

[fisherman]

Have been on a volunteer gig for over two years. The first year was good. The second very hard due to bad leadership (micro manager personaliy) . The third year had high hopes after many board changes. One new member turned out to be a narcissist and positions given to appease. It's just like Corp America it can be good or bad but since it doesn't pay it's easy to move on to something else. I will be doing just that in a couple of weeks.

 

[Midpack]

The board I work with:

Chairman: Thinks schmoozing is leadership, not completely honest, no financial acumen at all. His ideas make no financial sense at all! His latest push will bankrupt the club, but he'll never pull together the financing and ***. I think he's chair because it sounds good on his resume/at cocktail parties.
Director 1: Popular narcissist (the most confounding member), both helps and actively undermines the group. Subject of another thread...
Director 2: The hardest working, tireless, but hopelessly disorganized. Manages to get things together at the last minute - and wonders why events take so much effort (I help thus guy as much as can, but he's hugs own worst enemy).
Director 3: Always upbeat, volunteers for everything (along with his SO), keeps the books, but no leadership qualities - must be led. Can't differentiate between what appeals to him (sometimes out in left field) vs what would appeal to members at large.
Director 4: Former chairman. Burned out (gave up chair), his sole contribution is to tell others how things were 30-40 years ago, and shoot down new ideas, well intended but serves no purpose IMO.
Director 5: Legal/retired attorney, much like #3.
Other 2 directors: no influence whatsoever

*** other common denominators,

• every member all proudly technically hopeless - PC, Internet, social media, etc.
• not one of the board could do a simple cash flow analysis/business plan to save their lives.

A volunteer attorney-embezzler almost destroyed the club almost 10 years ago, members (understandably) quit in droves. Membership is about 20% of it's prime 30 years ago. I am not sure anyone could bring the club back to it's former "self."

 

[Nodak]

I attempted to volunteer at the state historical museum but they wanted to set the times I would work and the number of hours. I retired to get away from that crap.

 

[lampshade]

Laundry, vacuuming, making beds, and watching "Skyfall".

Right now I'm web surfing and enjoying some decaf coffee.

 

[Teacher Terry]

Many volunteer activities are mind numbing & you can only do so much of that. I have volunteered with various places but after a while quit. The longest lasted for 3 years. A year ago a home opened to provide pregnant teens with a place to live, help them graduate HS, etc. So I decide to offer my professional services for free because it is just what they need. Nope, I am expected to choose one of the predetermined training/tasks that they designate. Are you kidding me? I never even started with them.