I have this friend, Jenny who is a volunteer manager for a large non-profit and she is hopping mad. Now hopping mad is an old phrase, but her anger stems from old wounds. It seems that her marketing team decided at the last-minute to put on a very large community fair. They were given an opportunity to utilize a prime space and they jumped at the chance.
Naturally, they needed beaucoups amounts of volunteers to stuff packets, act as hosts, man tables, set up, break down, etc. Jenny put all of her other duties aside to recruit about 30 excellent volunteers. Not just any warm body, no, Jenny, like all of us made sure she lined up the very best.
The event was a success. Marketing patted themselves on the back. Jenny, however, put in almost 60 hours trying to do damage control. There weren’t enough items to stuff the packets and no one was there to explain the procedure to the volunteers. When the set up volunteers arrived, it was chaos and some of them had no jobs so they went home a bit miffed. On the day of the event, there were no assigned duties. Jenny had to run back and forth between the volunteers and the marketing staff, asking endless questions, running for supplies and trying to keep the volunteers out of earshot of the staff’s irritated comments. All of this while maintaining a cheerful disposition to shelter the volunteers from the madness.
It took her days to recover from the exhaustion and for the volunteers to stop complaining about the extreme lack of preparation. They were not mad at Jenny, they were, as always, wise enough to see she had no control. They vowed to not work with “those people” again, not only because of the rightly perceived shoddy management, but the obvious treatment of Jenny. Small consolation to Jenny, who, as a professional did not pass along their feedback concerning her.
So, why did she call me hopping mad three weeks after the event? She got a copy of an email, inviting the participating volunteers to a “thank you” brunch. Now, here’s the kicker. Two days after the email went out, another one cancelling the brunch appeared. But this one did say thank you for making the event so successful.
Marketing will dust themselves off and move on, having scattered their used wrappers of volunteers all over. Jenny will be left with the long cleanup. Will some volunteers stop volunteering? Not if I know Jenny. She will work to keep them.
I have this mental picture of Jenny, her hair disheveled as she stands atop the litter pile of cast off volunteers. She has a broom in one hand and air freshener in the other. Everyone in her organization just walks by without noticing her.
It’s her job, after all, isn’t it?
-Meridian
volunteerplaintalk 
I’ve got your mental picture in my mind and I’m thinking about what Jenny might do next. She might add to the high turnover of VM positions, or is this the year for her and all her unappreciated and exploited colleagues to take a stand? Lots of options – refuse to participate; lay complaints; go public. Dress in shocking pink, outrageous purple or flaming orange and then do a crusade throughout the organisation, and I’ll bet from what you say there’ll be a few volunteers joining in. The worst part of your story is the failure of the marketing team to recognise that volunteering and managing volunteers is also about marketing strategies. How could they be so short-sighted?
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Sue, I love it! Maybe we need to start wearing a color to signify our solidarity with each other, not only for our profession, but for the ethical treatment of volunteers! Go gold or green or plaid for that matter! It always makes me think of Susan Ellis’ book, “From the Top Down”. If employees are not required and lead to treat volunteers as important resources, then they will not as a whole. Imagine treating donors that way-never! So, why is the “donation of time” less important than the donation of money or goods?
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I really relate to this! I worked for a non-profit previously that held a number of community outreach events, and it was a constant battle to educate staff and event organizors about the importance of having volunteers in meaningful roles and remaining active during their time at the events. It was very stressful feeling like I was the only who ever looked at these things from a volunteer’s point of view. The staff seemed to view volunteers as this amorphous mass that would just materialize to serve them (and that would put up with anything), rather than as people who are giving their time and coming with an expectation that they be placed in a role where they can serve in a meaningful capacity. And the poor organization and chaos drove me crazy! It was so disrepectful to the volunteers. Sometimes I had to say, “How would you feel as a volunteer if you set your day aside to help with an event and your were treated like chattel?” I really feel for Jenny. I totally support her raising a huge stink and following up with a formal complaint!
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You are so right, Kristen! If we treated other staff disrespectfully, we would be admonished. Somehow there is a different set of rules for the treatment of volunteers, so they become chattel as you so rightly pointed out. Sadly, Jenny has gone through this before and I fear she feels no recourse.
-Meridian
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I have to wonder how assertive “Jenny” is. If she’s got “manager” in her title, then she needs to be one, and lay down the law with her colleagues. And she needs to get the most senior of management to back her up. If she wants a procedure regarding creating volunteer assignments, and what support staff is required to give for such in order for her to recruit such, then she needs to write it up, communicate it, and abide by it, absolutely. No one can take advantage of you after the first time without your permission!
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Hi Jayne, you bring up a really good point. Volunteer managers need to set the “rules” for requesting and utilizing volunteers. What I have seen happen to so many great managers, is organization’s senior management does not follow through. If senior management views volunteers as “crayons in a box”, then so will the rest of the organization. I think most volunteer managers are reluctant to have that conversation with the CEO because they fear they will be seen as too “whiny” or too “negative”. And sometimes, I think they fear for their job. The entire culture has to change and our profession has to be seen as a complex profession.
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