Volunteerism Lip Service
I’ve mistakenly done all of it. It was easy to do when I was swamped, struggling and in need of that awesome volunteer who patted me on the head and told me everything was ok.
I’ve mistakenly done all of it. It was easy to do when I was swamped, struggling and in need of that awesome volunteer who patted me on the head and told me everything was ok.
Most of us didn’t seek out volunteer management because we loved it, but stumbled into volunteer management and fell in love with the work.
We invest in people. But we don’t often measure our investment’s growth. We’re too overwhelmed with daily work to stop and take stock of our positive influence on volunteers and our missions.
Let those tucked away regrets motivate you to be constructive so they don’t turn into full-on guilt. Regrets can either keep us paralyzed by guilt or they can motivate us to grow by making us constructive.
It takes emotional time and energy to be an empathetic listener. Are we being emotionally drained or are we benefiting from empathetic listening?
I think we, volunteer managers tend to deny our negative feelings because we’re always “on.” We’re looked at as cheerful people with can-do attitudes and we don’t think we can have bad days. But we can. Because we’re human and our human-ness is what makes us so darned effective.
We, volunteer managers can get stuck in a rut, even though our days are varied and utterly unpredictable. I remember …
we can’t say no-which creates a loop in which we never get anything done or we have the best of intentions- but the road to the volunteer apocalypse is paved with good intentions
Passive-aggressive comments are meant to lure you onto an emotional roller coaster. Don’t get on this ride.
.Requests are pouring in from all departments. Volunteers need additional training. Recruitment has been spotty lately. There’s that volunteer that “needs a good talking to,” according to the director of operations. It’s overwhelming. What can I do?